Troy is a logic puzzle, actually a series of 60 logic puzzles in 5 different levels of challenge. It’s, as they say in the trade “toyetic.” It looks like a toy. It feels like a toy. And, like any good toy, it’s an invitation to fun.
The set consists of 4 different wall pieces – each wall a different color and shape; eight different knights (four on blue bases, four on red), a puzzle board (with indentations for the wall pieces and peg-holes for the knights), and the all-important, colorful, clear, spiral-bound, challenge-graded rule book (with solutions).
The walls are used to separate the knights. Blue knights must be surrounded on all sides by walls. Red knights must never be completely surrounded by walls. (This is a bit more chock-full of conceptual ramifications than it first appears – which explains why the first three puzzles use only the blue knights.)
Each puzzle is presented as an array of red and blue knights. Your challenge is to place the four walls so that the knights are surrounded (or not) according to the requirements. You will be, to say the least, amazed at how any different ways there are to position just four different wall pieces.
Troy is packaged for portability. You can, if you are careful enough, even play it in the car (the knights are pegged securely to the board, the wall pieces nestled in their grooves, understandably somewhat less securely – since they have to be moved around so much to solve the puzzle). There’s a cover and a wide elastic band to keep everything in place.
Troy is one of a large collection of challenging puzzles (originally produced in Belgium), the first to have received a Major Fun award. It was designed by Raf Peeters. Troy is available in the US from Smart Tangoes USA.