Lights Out (game) facts for kids
Lights Out is a cool electronic game that came out in 1995. It was made by a company called Tiger Electronics. The game has a grid of 25 lights, set up in 5 rows and 5 columns. When you start, some of these lights are already on. Your goal is to turn all the lights off. You do this by pressing the lights. When you press a light, it changes its own state (on to off, or off to on), and it also changes the state of the lights right next to it. The challenge is to turn off all the lights using as few presses as possible!
Other similar electronic games came out before Lights Out. For example, Merlin was released in the 1970s and had similar rules on a smaller 3 by 3 grid. Another game called XL-25 came out in 1983. Tiger Toys also made a version of Lights Out for their Game com handheld game console in 1997. It even came free with the console!
Since then, new versions of Lights Out have been made. These include Lights Out 2000, which has multiple colors, and Lights Out Cube, which is a 3D puzzle. There's also Lights Out Deluxe, which has a bigger 6 by 6 grid.
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Who Invented Lights Out?
The game Lights Out was created by a group of talented people. This group included Avi Olti, Gyora Benedek, Zvi Herman, Revital Bloomberg, Avi Weiner, and Michael Ganor. These inventors, both as a team and individually, also created many other popular games. Some of these include Hidato, NimX, and iTop.
How to Play Lights Out
The game uses a grid of 25 lights, arranged in 5 rows and 5 columns. When you begin, some lights are already lit up. Your main goal is to make sure all the lights are turned off.
When you press one of the lights, two things happen:
- That light itself changes its state (if it was on, it turns off; if it was off, it turns on).
- The four lights directly next to it (up, down, left, and right) also change their state.
The puzzle is to figure out which lights to press to turn off every single light on the grid. The best way to play is to try and solve it in the fewest button presses possible.
Lights Out Strategy
Solving Lights Out can seem tricky, but there are some helpful tips.
- The order you press the lights doesn't change the final result. So, if you press light A then light B, it's the same as pressing light B then light A.
- In the best solution, you only need to press each light once at most. This is because pressing a light twice is like not pressing it at all!
Not every starting pattern of lights can be solved. However, for the patterns that can be solved, there are usually four main ways to win. These winning patterns don't include any extra, unnecessary moves.
The "Light Chasing" Method
One common way to solve the puzzle is called "light chasing." This method helps you work through the grid step by step.
Here's how it generally works:
- You start with the top row of lights.
- You try to turn off all the lights in that row by pressing lights in the row directly below it.
- You repeat this process for each row, moving down the grid.
- When you get to the very last row, you might have some lights still on. You then figure out a specific pattern of presses on the top row that will help you clear the last row.
- After pressing those lights on the top row, you repeat the whole "light chasing" process again. This should lead you to the solution!
This method always helps you find a solution if one exists, even if it takes a few extra steps.
More About Lights Out
Scientists and puzzle experts have studied Lights Out a lot. They've found that if you find one way to solve a puzzle, you can often find the shortest solution by removing any unnecessary steps.
They've also proven that solutions exist for many different types of Lights Out boards, not just the 5x5 square. This includes boards shaped like hexagons! In fact, it's been shown that there's a solution for almost any size of square grid, even very large ones. The game can even be played on different kinds of networks, where clicking a spot changes its value and its connected neighbors.
