Mind Bits › Info › Sailors of the Heavens
Takeoff Sequence
The engines are lit, the crew is strapped in, and the launch console is doing what it does every single morning, which is refusing. It will not fire until its authorisation tiles sit in perfect order, a security measure dreamt up by a designer who valued puzzles far above the concept of leaving on time. The tiles slide one at a time into the lone empty slot. Never two at once, never anywhere clever.
The pilots who have suffered the most mornings solve it the same dependable way: lock the whole top row first, then the left column, and keep shrinking the messy corner until only a small square of trouble remains. They will also warn you, with the haunted look of people who learned it in public, to bring the last two tiles of any row around together as a pair before sliding them home. Fit them one at a time and the row falls apart behind you, and the swearing begins in three languages, one of which the chief pilot invented herself specifically for this console.
The chief pilot calls it the most annoying thirty seconds before every launch. The designer once called it elegant, and is no longer invited to crew meetings.
The final tile clicks. The console, satisfied at last that you are you, hands over the engines mid-insult, and the home world drops away below. Destination: to be advised. The sky, at least, has never once asked anyone for authorisation.
How to play
- Arrange the numbered tiles in order from 1 to 15, left to right, top to bottom.
- Tap a tile next to the empty space to slide it.
- Only tiles directly next to the empty space can be moved. No teleportation, sorry.
- Fewer moves means a higher score. Think before you slide.