Monday Mind Teasers: GROW Games

Anyone beat last week’s mind teaser yet? Didn’t think so. Okay, no more games until we get past that hellacious hurdle — see you next week!

Okay, okay, okay. I’m not that cruel. But I am cruel enough to introduce you to the GROW game series. Not just one of them. Not just the hardest one. ALL of them. Dtoid reader and fellow mind teaser master Cough reminded me of a wonderful flash game series I had forgotten all about. Since the first time I played a GROW game there have been at least half a dozen new additions to the series and I spent this whole past week beating them one by one. Trust me when I say this game series contains some of the most pleasing puzzles on the Internet.

Here’s how they work: The whole game consists of only six, eight, ten or more buttons, and all you have to do is click on them in the right order. At first you assume you’re about to powerhouse a simple puzzle, but then you quickly realize six buttons means six factorial, a.k.a. “6!”, which means 6*5*4*3*2*1=720 possible paths to the end, with only one rewarding you with the “correct” outcome. To help you find the intended ending, each button levels up if certain buttons are pressed after it correctly, and you watch an elaborate animated scene unfold in front of you as you try to figure out if you’re getting warmer or colder. If a button reaches its max level, it usually either means you clicked it too early, or you were supposed to click another key button before this button, causing its environmental effect to be completely useless.

To say anything more than that would ruin the fun. In fact, I don’t even recommend checking out the screenshots below. The majority of the fun comes from seeing how much detail can be sucked out of just a boring sphere or cube environment as an entire community grows and expands. Hit the jump for the full list of GROW game links from EyezMaze.

Got any flash game suggestions for next week’s Monday Mind Teasers? Email me or leave the suggestion in the comments and I’ll put it to the test!

GROW Games:

• Cube — 10! By far my favorite of all the GROW games. The ending scene is so entertaining!
• Tower — 5! Impressive as hell for just 5 buttons. I was continually surprised by how deep this was.
• RPG   — 8! A clever spin on an already clever game. Not too hard though.
• Planet — 12! This one is so deep that there’s a hidden ending!
• Island — 8! This one actually got the best of me since I was convinced one piece should be early.

Mini GROW Games:

• Nano 3 — 6! If you’re new to these games, try this one first. Just make the sick guy feel better.
• Nano 2 — 3! Way too easy.
• Nano 1 — 30 total clicks, with guiding arrows so you can’t lose. Relaxing walkthrough, but boring.
• Nano 0 — Same as Nano 1, but it’s a race before a timer runs out. Meh.
• Christmas — 6! Cute, but too simple. Was expecting ornaments to be used!
• Shape Monsters — 6! Pretty easy and experimental of the GROW idea — nothing special.
• Beach — 2! Each of the 2 buttons leads to two new buttons and so on, until you dead end or win.

Share your fun and frustrations in the comments! Which are your favorites? Least favorites?