Arranging Puzzles by Difficulty

[Solvador Cubi]

Does anyone know if the cubing community here has ever collaborated in an attempt to order puzzles by difficulty?

I'm thinking not how tedious or how long it would take to solve one, but the difficulty to learn how.

here's an order to start us off...

redi cube
pyraminx
2x2x3
2x2
skewb
2x3x3
3x3
mirror cube
barrel cube
void cube
kilominx
square one
4x4
megaminx
3x3xN
nxn (n>=5)
ghost cube

I don't have all of these, so I'm sure I misplaced many of them.


and then a few others I'm not familar with: (I'm sure I'm missing several too)
curvy copter
rubiks clock
skewb extreme
master skewb
gear cube
etc.


I also realize that it is unlikely we all would agree on an exact order, so maybe we could attempt to put them into groups of increasing difficulties, instead.

have fun!


-= Solvador Cubi

 

[teboecubes]

I like the direction of difficulty groups. That idea reminded me of something similar. The Foreign Service Institute has compiled a list of foreign languages categorized by how hard they are (for example, German is a type I, while Russian is a type IV). We could implement this same style into cubing, with 2x2 being a type 1 or 2, but ghost cube being type 4 or 5.

 

[turtwig]

I feel like it would depend on the definition of 'difficulty'. In general though, I think solving times would be a good way to order them.

 

[teboecubes]

I feel like it would depend on the definition of 'difficulty'. In general though, I think solving times would be a good way to order them.

7x7 wr is more than double 5x5 wr, but it's not much harder.

 

[1001010101001]

Khaled’s Time Machine = 5

 

[Alex B71]

Their are 3 ways i can think we could define difficulty.
1 - Time spent
2 - skills needed to learn
3 - Anti-intuitiveness

I would say #3 would be the best scale to go with, but this would need accounts from reliable community members on their first ever attempt at a puzzle... But this is also subject to the persons own skill set and the puzzles they already have pre-existing knowledge with. So in revision, we need a focus group of at least 10 people rating each of the 3 scales from 1-10 and then average out the overall scores to give a somewhat accurate scale of difficulty.

For example -

Skewb - Time spent (3/5ish hours) - (2/10)
- Skills need to learn (Low) - (2/10)
- Anti-intuitiveness (Low) - (3/10)

Overall a 5/30 based on my personal account, now we just need at least 9 more people to weigh in. It's a large task to attempt to categorize every puzzle on an accurate scale, you'd need to set upper and lower bounds. Good luck with this though, i'd love to see a completed list.

 

[turtwig]

7x7 wr is more than double 5x5 wr, but it's not much harder.

Obviously there will be exceptions (namely that bigger versions of puzzles will often have basically the same difficultly as the smaller versions).
I'll just say this: solving times is probably the only completely objective measure we can look at, since other measures will be at least somewhat subjective. Of course, they could still produce lists that almost everyone would consider better, but they would nonetheless be somewhat subjective.

 

[KeannyThe6x6]

Hey how about hybrid puzzles? Like the 2x2 Offset Skewb, 3x3 Curvycopter, Skewby copter Plus, etc.

 

[One Wheel]

Just a few disjointed notes:
I found skewb to be highly counterintuitive. Once you know how to solve it it's trivial, but it's difficult to figure out in the first place.
A counter argument to the idea that longer = harder is 6x6 and 7x7: because of parities 6x6 is objectively harder (slightly), but 7x7 takes longer to solve.
Pyraminx is probably the most intuitive WCA puzzle.

 

[Reed Merrill]

I like the direction of difficulty groups. That idea reminded me of something similar. The Foreign Service Institute has compiled a list of foreign languages categorized by how hard they are (for example, German is a type I, while Russian is a type IV). We could implement this same style into cubing, with 2x2 being a type 1 or 2, but ghost cube being type 4 or 5.

And those are based on how long it takes the average person to gain a certain level of proficiency. I wonder if the 'hours of instruction' time could be done using hour of practice of practice instead.

Edit: and that would be for hours of practice to reach some standardizeable level of proficiency with solving whichever puzzle.

 

[T1_M0]

Clock is definitely the easiest and most intuitive of them. And it seems weird to put 2x2x3 before 2x2x2.

 

[teboecubes]

Clock is definitely the easiest and most intuitive of them.

1x1

 

[tnk351]

bump
heres my list:
pyraminx
gear cube
redi cube
2x2
skewb
2x2x3
rubiks clock
3x3
3x3xX (mostly intuitive)
kilominx
squan
barrel cube
mirror cube
skewb xtreme
megaminx
4x4
curvy coptor
5x5
master skewb
6x6+
ghost cube

 

[Fukuoka Kengo James]

bump
heres my list:
pyraminx
gear cube
redi cube
2x2
skewb
2x2x3
rubiks clock
3x3
3x3xX (mostly intuitive)
kilominx
squan
barrel cube
mirror cube
skewb xtreme
megaminx
4x4
curvy coptor
5x5
master skewb
6x6+
ghost cube

gear v2?
4x4pyraminx?
mastermorphix?
4x4axis cube?
gigaminx?
bandage cube?(z bandage cube a,b c?)(I found z bandage cube C much more difficult than the regular bandage cube)
axis cube?
gear mixup?
time machine?
container cube?
dino cube?
1x3x3ghost cube?

 

[Julio974]

I like the direction of difficulty groups. That idea reminded me of something similar. The Foreign Service Institute has compiled a list of foreign languages categorized by how hard they are (for example, German is a type I, while Russian is a type IV). We could implement this same style into cubing, with 2x2 being a type 1 or 2, but ghost cube being type 4 or 5.

Here is a preliminary proposal for categories:
Category 0: Trivial, can be solved in a few seconds, barely a puzzle at all (2x2x1, boob cube, etc.)
Category 1: Easy puzzles, can be learnt quickly. Very sensible to luck (pyraminx, ivy cube, 2x2, etc.)
Category 2: Intermediate puzzle, big but can be solved without having to learn a lot compared to C1 (master pyraminx, 2x2x3, redi cube, etc.)
Category 3: Medium difficulty puzzles: No simple or intuitive solving, needs a full method to be solved (3x3x3, square-1, etc.)
Category 4: Intermediate puzzles, big but doesn't need a lot of learning past C3 (megaminx, 4x4 and big cubes, etc.)
Category 5: Extremely difficult puzzle needing more knowledge or abilities than the past categories (ghost cube, gigaminx, mastermorphix, etc.)

What do you think of that?

 

[Fukuoka Kengo James]

can any one solve the z bandage cube C?
I found it extremely difficult, even more difficult than the regular bandage cube.
I have already done the oll on it. I don't know how to do the j perm on the z bandage cube C.
HELP!