What are lateral thinking puzzles?
A deduction game you play by asking questions until the whole story fits. Here is what it is called, where the name came from, the rules, and how to host.
Lateral thinking, and the other names
Lateral thinking means going sideways instead of pushing straight ahead: you doubt the assumptions rather than the facts.
These puzzles hand you a sentence that cannot be true as you read it — “the man hit his own face” — and what you have to question is not the sentence, but the assumption you added to it without noticing.
The same format goes by several names: situation puzzle, story riddle, minute mystery, yes or no riddle. They all describe this one game, and this site uses lateral thinking puzzle for it throughout.
Where the turtle in turtlequiz comes from
The address of this site comes from the best known puzzle of the type. A man orders turtle soup in a restaurant, takes one mouthful, asks the owner a single question, walks out, and takes his own life. Why?
In Japan that one puzzle handed its name to the whole genre, and people there call the game itself turtle soup. In English it stayed the name of a single puzzle, so this site keeps the turtle in the address and calls the game what English speakers call it.
The puzzles published here are our own. None of the wording from the original collections is used.
The rules
One host, and as many players as you like. You start with the host as the only person who knows the answer.
Players ask questions that can be answered yes or no. Questions whose answer would be an explanation — why, what, how — are not allowed.
The host answers with yes, no, or doesn’t matter, and nothing else. Sending an unrelated question back with doesn’t matter is what keeps the game from wandering.
When a question gets close to the truth, say so: “good question”. Everybody then knows which cut worked, and the game often opens up from there.
It ends when a player says what really happened. Different wording is fine, as long as the shape of the story matches.
Hosting well
Wait for the first question
Do not fill the silence with extra information. The time everyone spends doubting the premise is the game.
Use doesn’t matter freely
Answer everything with yes or no and the whole room will spend ten minutes down a branch that has nothing to do with the answer.
Narrow the field when it stalls
“Does the location matter?”, “Is there more than one person in the story?” — put it as a question and it does not feel like being handed the answer.
Read the answer out loud
Summarising it costs half the surprise. When it is time to reveal, read the written text as it stands.
