Classroom Puzzle Example

Quantitative Class Puzzle

The premise of this puzzle was that students were to analyze a conversation regarding Jim Hail (John Snow) and his paper regarding various variables that contributed to the Kolura (Cholera) outbreak. The solution to this puzzle is “WIND” (air) or what variable was not accounted for that strongly influenced the outbreak. 

Step 1: Extract meaningful variables from text

In one of the classrooms of Tidal Island, Professor Duma’s Political Science class is tasked with first interpreting text to figure out what Jim Hail previously identified as the 6 critical factors that contributed to the Kolura outbreak. Through reading Jim Hail’s report, players can extract the following variables from bolded text on each page:

  • Population Density 
  • Race 
  • Socioeconomic Status
  • Occupation
  • Sex
  • Age

Players then need to type these variables into vertical slots on the classroom display. Upon pressing submit, check boxes appear to indicate to players that they solved the first part of the puzzle correctly.

Step 2: Complete a logic puzzle

Upon pressing the whiteboard notes labeled “Historical Context”, players are then given a series of logic puzzle prompts, that will help them figure out which letter corresponds to which factor.

Logic problem prompts: 

  1. Race is between Occupation and Population Density
  2. Age is after Sex and Age is before Race 
  3. Occupation is after Race and Occupation is after Population Density
  4. Population Density comes after SES 
  5. There are two variables between SES and Race
  6. Age is between Population Density and Socioeconomic Status

Upon pressing submit, players are able to check their results, if they are correct, then the classroom screen will switch to the next logic puzzle.

Step 3: Complete a second logic puzzle

Players were then introduced to their second, and last logic puzzle. Once this new 6 x 6 grid popped up on the screen, they were given the prompt to check the manila folder to help them recreate graphs. They then used the 9 clues to drag-and-drop lines into each of the mini-plots.

This is where the most adjustments were made based on playtest feedback. Several iterations needed to occur in order for players to feel that the logic prompts were challenging enough, but did not feel impossible. Check out these playtest-guided revisions below!

Step 4: Analyze the logic puzzle results, and answer the main question

Upon placing a line-of-best-fit into each mini-plot, players can click on the final step of the puzzle that prompts them again to report what Jim Hail theorized was the actual cause for the pandemic. By looking at the line plots, players can see that each colored quadrant spells out a letter. Red = W, Blue = I, Green = N, and Purple = D.

After players type in “WIND” and press submit, they will be brought to a success screen and told that they correctly solved the puzzle.

Changes that were made based on player feedback:

The inclusion of a reset button, so that if you wanted to start over,
you could do a full sweep rather than drag and drop each individual line
The presence of a few starter pieces, so that players could see that
lines were supposed to be populated into each mini-plot
Explicitly stating how many of each type of line should be in the plot,
so that players could mentally check their work along the way
We originally required players to type in each of the variables directly into the X axis of the plot, but we quickly realized that this step was redundant, and that automatically feeding the results of the first logic puzzle into this plot was simpler.