Double-click on the !Engima icon in a filer window.
What is Engel's Enigma?
Engel's Engima is a puzzle devised by Douglas Engel of Colorado. If you have become fed up with Rubik's cube - but found it interesting - then this is thepuzzle for you.
The puzzle is two overlapping circles, on a coloured background. Each circle is made up of 12 segments. There are only two different types of segment:
Triangular: Each one of these sections has three different colours on.
Rectangular: Each one of these sections has two different colours on.
Engel has named the triangular sections 'Stones' and the rectangular sections'Bones'.
Because the circles overlap, they share two stones and one bone.
The coloured background is two hexagons, surrounded by trapeziums and chevron-like shapes.
When the program is first run, the puzzle is in the unscrambled state. Noticehow the stones and bones are positioned in their proper places, so you can clearly see the coloured pattern.
By rotating the circles left and right, stones and bones can be passed from one circle to the other. Very quickly you end up with a splattering of colourall over the puzzle.
What you have to do now is get it back to how it was originally.
It has only a fraction of the moves of a Rubik cube, but is claimed - and looks - just as hard to solve.
On the screen you will see various icons. These are explained below.
This puzzle was taken from a book called 'The Armchair Universe' by
A.K.Dewdeny. It is an excellent book, and I would recommend it to anyone.
What are all those icons?
On the left of the puzzle are two icons depicting two arrows pointing in opposite directions, around a circle. The top icon is for the top circle in the puzzle, and the bottom icon is for the bottom circle in the puzzle.
By clicking on the left arrow, the relevent circle is rotated 60 degrees clockwise. By clicking on the right arrow, it is rotated 60 degrees anti-clockwise. Using these icons you can manipulate the circles.
You can also use the keyboard to move the circles. Z and X move the top circle, and < and > move the bottom circle.
At the bottom right of the screen is RESET. Clicking on this (or pressing R) will reset the puzzle, back to how you see it when you turn on.
At the bottom left is SOLVE. If you have a complete mess on the screen, and you want to let the computer solve it for you, click on this. The circles will then be rotated in the right order and by the right amount, until the puzzle is solved. It does this by remebering all the moves you have made, then it simply reverses them. You can also press S to solve the puzzle.
The program will at present remember 20000 moves.
If you want to solve the puzzle by yourself, but haven't got much of a clue as to which circle to turn, in which direction, and by what amount, then clicking on HINT (or pressing H) will rotate one of the discs. You will now be one step nearer to solving the puzzle. By repeatedly using HINT, you can step towards the solution, picking it up when you think you know how to solveit.
SCR stands for scramble. Clicking on this (or pressing M) will scramble the puzzle up by choosing a disc at random, and rotating it in a random direction. It does this 50 times. Note: you can still use SOLVE after this, and you can scramble up the puzzle as many times as you like.
SOFF turns off the music. You can also press O.
SON turns on the music. You can also press P.
QUIT quits!
If you want to really punish yourself, you could try writing a program that will solve the puzzle from any point, instead of remembering all the moves.
More information on writing programs to solve the puzzle, and the (American) address of Mr Engel can be found in the book I mentioned earlier.
This software is public domain, and may be distributed freely.
The tracker module was written by F.Mercier, H.Fiennes and M.Farrow.
The music is called Fantasy, and was not written by me.
