The Test Of Empty Hand

The Strangers Preamble

Gharib: You know me as The Stranger.
Gharib: My next Test comes in the form of a children's game.
Gharib: Every Egyptian child knows how to play "Empty Hand" - a simple game of swapping a series of blocks held in ones hand, according to simple rules.
Gharib: Every region of Egypt has it's own rules, so although the game is called "Empty Hand" - it is in fact a multitude of games.
Gharib: In my generation's time, scholars knew that designing an interesting Empty Hand puzzle was all about subtlety - simple-looking puzzles that require a sharp and insightful mind to solve.
Gharib: Subtlety...
Gharib: I look across this land and see compounds built to huge proportion, painted in garish colors, totally empty inside.
Gharib: Subtlety...
Gharib: A quality that this generation utterly lacks.
Gharib: Is there a scholar among you? We shall see.
Gharib: I give you, The Test of Empty Hand.

Test details

The Test of The Empty Hand is the second test released in the Thought discipline. The object is first to construct an Empty Hand Tower (requirements below) and then create a puzzle on the tower for others to judge. Each week, the designer of the currently highest-ranked Empty Hand puzzle in Egypt will pass the test.

Building an Empty Hand Tower

• 100 Papyrus Paper
• 10 Ink
• 1000 Concrete
• 20 Clay Lamp
• 100 Cut Stone
• 10 Copper Sheeting
• 600 Pliable Rotproof boards
• 600 Rigid Rotproof boards
• 600 Hard Pliable boards
• 600 Pliable Termite-Resistant boards
• 100 Cable
• 5000 Oil
• 1000 Leather
• 250 Rope
• 25 Iron Bar
• 75 Zinc
• 1 medium construction site

As you can see this is not a project to be taken on lightly, and will most likely require the efforts of a guild or region to complete. Upon construction of the tower, you must then upgrade it with several blocks, each upgrade has the following requirements.

• 2 Oyster Shell Marble
• 2 Yellow Alabaster
• 2 Mud Granite
• 2 White Travertine
• 2 Canary Granite
• 2 Night Granite
• 24 Bearings
• 4 Canvas
• 4 Eyelet Gems, Any type
• 1 Unique 3-output Gearbox (This appears to actually be a random 1,2 or 3 ouput gearbox- losiris {Confirmed - FoxKids} )

Having more blocks allows you to construct more complex puzzles, and at least 6 or so are needed to make an interesting puzzle. Now that you have your upgraded tower, you can design a puzzle that will be played on that tower. An overview of the game which you design is given below.

Playing an Empty Hand game

After activating an Empty Hand, you will see a series of blocks on the track in front of the tower. These blocks are currently set in the starting configuration given by the puzzle creator. You are also presented by a full list of the rules that have been set for that puzzle.

At any point, you may interact with blocks in one or two ways, either by moving the blocks left/right on the rail to change which block(s) you are focusing on, or you may apply one of the rules set by the creator to the blocks.

Rules

The rules exist in this style - Green Red Green -> Orange Orange Purple (I will use letters instead of colors as shorthand) GRG->OOP Basically this means that if the block you are focusing on at this time is the first block of a pattern GRG, then you may exchange those three blocks for the blocks OOP.

Rules may affect up to 5 blocks at one time, and thus may range from R->G, RGRGR->GRGRG, RGR->G or anything in between, using any combination of the 6 available colors to create the rules.

Winning

The object of the game is to use the rules in such a way that you end up with 0 blocks on the rail. You do this by applying rules which not only exchange block colors, but take blocks off the rail and put them into the tower, such as this one: RGR->(blank)

This will take 3 blocks out of the puzzle if you manage to construct the pattern RGR. Therefore the true object of the game is to use rules in such a way that you can create the patterns that will allow you to remove all the blocks from the rail.

Additional notes

Rules can put blocks back on the rail from the tower if you have any blocks in the tower. (blank)->R If the puzzle is well-designed it will take experimentation as well as a careful examination of how the rules interact in order to solve the puzzle.

Using these basic constraints you must construct a challenging puzzle for others to play. Those who manage to complete the puzzle will judge it, more experienced judges carrying more weight. The highest ranking puzzles in the land will award their makers with the title of Student of Thought.

(T1 info, unconfirmed)As an incentive to judges, judging 7 towers grants +1 focus, judging 28 towers grants +2.

Sunset/Venery/EHT has a discussion of the design process for an Empty Hand Tower, and provides some analytical tools that you might find useful.

For those interested in solving these puzzles or getting ideas for their own, a list of currently constructed EHTs can be found here: Empty Hand Locations