Game Setup
This is a linear game. There are only four variables, but they each have to go twice.
There are only three rules.
Variables have to go besides themselves. So if you put S Monday, you also have to put S Tuesday.
You can never have day without any workshop at all. At most you can have two workshops per day.
- P and R begin no earlier than after the second day of lighting. Some people find this rule confusing. It just means P and R come after L is done. So if the second day of lighting is on Tuesday, the P and R can start on Wednesday or afterwards.
- It always makes sense to start with the most restricted rule when setting up a diagram.
Here, the most restricted rule clearly is the rule about L, P and R. You can’t put L in that many places. If L goes on Thursday, there’s no space for P and R to go afterwards.
The latest we can put L is on Tuesday and Wednesday.
This is scenario 1, which I’ve drawn below.
L goes on Tuesday and Wednesday. P and R have to go on Thursday and Friday, after L. S has to go on Monday and Tuesday. Otherwise no one would go on Monday.
The second scenario is more open ended. We put L on Monday and Tuesday.
We can put P and R anywhere on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday…except we can’t put them both on Wednesday and Thursday.
Why not? Well, then there’s no space for two S to go on Friday so nobody can go on Friday. So we have to have (at least) one of P and R on Friday. I’ve drawn two diagrams below to illustrate all this.
Note that P and R are interchangeable.
We can also put P and R on Thursday and Friday, as I’ve drawn above. S goes Wednesday.
Notice that in every scenario, both P and R go on Thursday. This has to be true, since the earliest they can start is Wednesday.
This is the key deduction of the game, so I’ll say it again: P and R always go on Thursday. Always. They can only go W-T or T-F.
Leave a Reply