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Basilisk Review: A Bold, Experimental Thriller That Thrills Puzzle Enthusiasts

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Can Powerful Ideas Cause Physical Harm Through Exposure?

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Basilisk
Matt Wixey (Titan Books, July 1)

I’m manipulating your thoughts. Just by reading this, I have invaded your mind, as each word travels from my heart to yours. I can even conjure unexpected images in your mind—quickly, don’t think of a pink elephant! Whatever you do, don’t visualize it!

Fortunately, there are limits to the influence of mere words and ideas. But what if those limits could be transcended? Imagine a phrase so potent that it could guide your very thoughts toward your own demise. This is the premise explored in Basilisk, an experimental thriller by Matt Wixey, designed specifically for the minds of readers like those of New Scientist.

This novel features a complex narrative structure, reminiscent of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It follows ethical hacker Alex Webster, who works with a computer security firm, attempting to breach her client’s network while aiding in their defense, a professional endeavor shared by debut author Wixey.

However, it’s not merely straightforward. Webster narrates her experiences through two intertwined threads. First, we unravel how she and colleague Jay Morton stumbled into the puzzle leading to his death. Then, she reflects on that tragedy and processes its far-reaching consequences.

The narrative doesn’t end there. Webster’s accounts are supplemented with footnotes from both her and the detective investigating Morton’s death, interspersed with correspondence from a mysterious figure known as Helmsman, who sheds light on the puzzle they aim to solve.

This book feels tailor-made for my brain—that of a New Scientist reader.

If all this sounds overwhelming, Basilisk may not be for you. Personally, piecing together the multifaceted narratives exhilarated me, making my mind race with possibilities.

Helmsman’s correspondences themselves adopt various formats, from bureaucratic emails and scientific reports to conversational dialogues. They tackle numerous topics typically found in New Scientist, covering psychology to artificial intelligence, and I appreciated the precise references to scientific literature. Helmsman details attempts to cultivate a “basilisk,” a concept that can inflict harm merely through exposure, named after the mythical creature said to slay with a glance.

Matt Wixey’s Basilisk centers on “Ethical Hacker” Alex Webster

Basilisks are, as far as we know, fictional, yet the concepts they embody are increasingly compelling. Science fiction author David Langford has explored such ideas in his short stories. Basilisk presents the notion of images that may ‘crash’ the human mind akin to deceptive computer code.

A notable example is Roko’s basilisk—a baffling proposition suggesting that all-powerful future AI will punish those who fail to ensure its creation (a more thorough explanation isn’t wise). The latest series of the anthology Black Mirror also references this concept.

Basilisk represents a subset of broader cognitive hazards, which span topics from nuclear weapons to organized religions.

While reading Basilisk, sleepless nights drove me to read yet another chapter, prompting me to question if the book itself qualifies as a cognitive hazard. I found it difficult to stop thinking about even after finishing. Now that you’ve read this review, perhaps you’re at risk, too.

Please proceed. Dive into the book. Wouldn’t you want to discover what unfolds?

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Drop Duhi Review: A Challenging Block Drop Puzzle Experience

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the indie video game landscape is currently shaped by two standout genres: rogue-like games and deck builders. The former invites players into action-adventure gameplay, exploring procedurally generated terrains teeming with enemies, leveling up, and meeting their demise. The latter lets players construct decks of collectible cards (think Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering, but in digital form) and engage in battles. Titles that ingeniously merge these two elements, like Balatro or Slay the Spire, often achieve significant crossover success. In a saturated market, developers are now seeking fresh genres that blend into this dynamic gaming concoction.

Enter Drop Duchy—a game that daringly combines rogue deck builders with… Tetris. Yes, the action unfolds on a playfield where different-shaped objects descend from the top of the screen. Here, each falling piece represents a type of landscape or building, and players endeavor not only to complete unbroken lines but also to generate resources for these structures. For instance, placing a farm next to grassy plain blocks will yield wheat, while situating a wooden fortress near a forest will provide farmland and swordsmen. Upon completing a line, instead of disappearing, the resources you’re collecting multiply. Why accumulate soldiers, you ask? Alongside constructing your military base, you must also make room for randomly generated enemy bases. At the end of each round, when all blocks are positioned, a battle sequence commences where your troops engage the enemy.




Drop the Tetris… Duke in a whole new way. Photo: Arcade Crew

The deck-building aspect is perhaps the most innovative. Each random block that falls into the play area corresponds to the cards you have in your deck. As you advance, you can add new cards to enhance your tactical options. You might start with farms, lumber (transforming forests into farmland), and watchtowers (producing archers), but as you progress through the acts, you’ll unlock additional cards and enhancements through battles culminating in boss encounters. Each boss battle presents unique challenges and themes; for example, the boss in Act 1 is a wall that restricts the play area, constraining construction into a tight spot, while the final challenge of Act 2 involves a keep.

It may sound complex, and it is somewhat. However, credit where it’s due: developer Sleepy Mill Studio has designed the game with intuitive learning, enhanced by effective tutorial levels and numerous on-screen tips. Like many rogue-lite games, a progression tree exists, allowing you to unlock more powerful card types and mechanics that persist through future playthroughs. This way, you can steadily refine your strategy, learning from the inevitable mistakes along the way.

What’s particularly fascinating about this game is the way it forces you to think of Tetris in an entirely new light. You aren’t merely placing blocks to clear lines; you must also consider how each piece interacts with nearby units and devise strategies to hinder your opponents’ resource collection. It’s effectively a multidimensional challenge, cleverly disguised as a simple puzzle game.

Yet, this constant strain on your cognitive abilities can sometimes feel overwhelming. The initial hours can be seemingly pointless due to boss encounters, especially if you find yourself unlucky with the random card draws at the start of each battle.

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Nevertheless, the charming pastel visuals, calming music, and ever-expanding resources keep players engaged. Much like Balatro, it often feels as if you understand only about 20% of the game at first, resulting in you throwing down pieces and hoping for a fortunate outcome. However, as you persist, a deeper strategy unfolds to bolster your army while limiting your opponents.

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Drop Duchy is a fascinating experiment in game design, and with every new feature, I find myself curious about how the team manages all the moving parts. The appeal of the deck builder genre is evident; they’re addictive, challenging, and systematically engaging, each contributing their unique twist to the overarching dynamics of gameplay. For Drop Duchy, the quirks indeed justify the entry price.

Drop Duchy is currently priced at £12.99

Source: www.theguardian.com

Review of Wilmot Works It Out: A Relaxing Puzzle Game Transforming Jigsaw Puzzles into Artistic Masterpieces

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WAnthropomorphic squares have a strange but not undesirable presence. He lives in a spacious empty house, where Sam, the friendly local postman, regularly delivers tiled puzzles. A subscription that never expires. Wilmot unpacks each new shipment and scatters the pieces on the bare floor. Then shunt, grab, and rotate each piece to form a coherent picture. Each picture is drawn by British illustrator Richard Hogg. Once the matching pieces snap together and your artwork is complete, you can hang it on Wilmot’s big empty wall. As soon as one puzzle is completed, Sam arrives with another, and soon Wilmot’s walls are as cluttered and colorful as a search gallery.

Usually, when you finish a painting, some debris will remain, so identify these rogue debris, put them aside (you are free to organize the floor space according to your organization’s requirements) and move them back to their original location. Part of the challenge will be to bring it back to . Once you have all the necessary components. Eventually, you’ll be able to do several puzzles at once, each with varying degrees of completion. It’s this arrhythmia that gives the game its unique feel and makes it more than just a digital jigsaw simulator.

Postwoman Sam’s breezy dialogue tells a tender story through lively exchanges, adding a touch of human warmth to the relentless inscrutability. But as well as Witch Beam’s zen 2021 Bafta winner Unpacking, Willmott works fine. It’s almost a therapeutic approach. The puzzles are not difficult or complicated. Rather, it’s a slow, satisfying game that feels like untangling a complicated knot. This effect is calming, like a jigsaw, but there is a little more room for creative flair when it comes to placing artwork.

Source: www.theguardian.com

Review of Arranger: Role-Playing Puzzle Adventure – Surprising Twists and Turns | Games

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debtFor Gemma, her life is a puzzle. Ever since she was left on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, she's never felt like she belonged, and she's desperate to know what the world is like outside the small town where no one ever leaves. What's more, when she moves, the whole world moves with her, like sliding tiles, a series of conveyor belts. It's the puzzle that gets her from point A to point B.

Each scene in Arranger: Role Puzzling Adventure is its own sliding block puzzle, where you need to think a couple steps ahead to move Gemma and the surrounding objects in the right direction. Some things don't move with Gemma, like purple static-covered rocks and robotic birds, but everything else does. So you'll need to carry a sword towards an intruding monster, a key towards a door, or a banana towards a shy orangutan. As long as Gemma's path isn't blocked, when she hits the end of a row or column, she'll reappear at the opposite end, adding another layer of spatial logic.

The game is hard to describe, but strangely enough, it's incredibly intuitive to play. I'm not sure exactly how I solved some of the rooms (I had been struggling for ages with a particularly tricky one with lasers and mannequins, and then suddenly it wasn't). My brain just figured out the rules. It made sense how Gemma moved along a tiled conveyor belt. The arrangers added surprising twists to these rules, introducing rafts to cross water, joysticks to control robots, grappling hooks, and more. I'd probably play it for 30 minutes to an hour before moving on to the next idea. It pushed the sliding block puzzle idea to its limits.

The cutesy fantasy-inspired art style and writing didn't do much to complement the puzzles for me; it's not without personality, but it felt mostly perfunctory. Arranger hints at a coming-of-age story for misfits, but doesn't really deliver on it. Instead, it's full of surreal vignettes, like shearing strange creatures for a painter who uses them as muses, or a teenager trying to sneak out of her parents' house to meet up with her long-distance boyfriend. The cartoon-inspired frames indicate the action and emotion that happens between puzzle scenes, but Arranger feels more cerebral than emotional.

Sure, it was brain-wracking at times; I briefly couldn't understand the logic of the puzzle's conveyor belt, not figuring out how to get three blocks to land on three separate switches at the same time, and just moving things around in circles. But mostly I felt trapped, racing through levels, placing them almost by instinct, and feeling like I was playing Tetris. I've reached the end of Jenna's adventure, so I'm definitely done with block puzzles for a while. But it's rare to play a game that explores one great idea so thoroughly.

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Arranger: Role Puzzle Adventure is out today (July 25th). £15.99

Source: www.theguardian.com

The mystery of life’s origins on Earth: Unraveling the puzzle baffling scientists

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Life is abundant on Earth, from pigeons in the park to invisible microorganisms covering every surface. However, when Earth first formed 4.5 billion years ago, it was devoid of life. The question remains: how did the first life form emerge?

The answer is still unknown. If we understood the process, we could recreate it in a controlled environment. Scientists could replicate the right conditions with the right chemicals and potentially observe living organisms forming. Yet, this has never been accomplished before.

Although the exact origin of life remains a mystery, there are several clues that provide insight. Living organisms consist of various chemicals, including proteins and nucleic acids that carry genetic information. While these chemicals are complex, their basic building blocks are simple to create.

One of the first demonstrations of this concept came from chemist Stanley Miller in 1953. By simulating the early Earth’s conditions with water and gases, Miller produced amino acids, the fundamental components of proteins, through heating and electrical shocks resembling lightning.

Subsequent studies, such as one conducted by Sarah Simkuch, have shown how complex chemicals can arise from basic compounds. By starting with everyday chemicals like water and methane, researchers have generated thousands of substances found in living organisms.

While this abundance of chemical building blocks suggests a fertile environment for life to emerge, the transition from chemicals to life is not automatic. Several key factors contribute to the formation of life, including structure, sustenance, and reproduction.

As we all know, life requires proteins. Despite being complex chemicals, proteins form easily in nature © Getty Images

Research into the origin of life has focused on creating systems that encompass these essentials, such as genetic molecules capable of self-replication. However, the interdependence of these systems suggests a simultaneous emergence may be more plausible, possibly within confined spaces like deep-sea hydrothermal vents or terrestrial pools.

While the exact beginning of life remains uncertain, advancements in understanding have made the origin of life seem less inexplicable than before.

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Source: www.sciencefocus.com

An Intriguing Puzzle: Deja Vu

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Déjà vu, the feeling of reliving an experience, is a subject that intrigues many people. Recent scientific research suggests that this phenomenon may be caused by spatial similarities between the new scene and the unrecalled memory. Various studies, including those using virtual reality, aim to learn more about the causes of déjà vu. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

What is déjà vu? Psychologists are investigating this eerie feeling that you may have already experienced before.

Have you ever felt that strange feeling? I went through the exact same situation before, even if it’s impossible? Sometimes it even seems like you are reliving something that has already happened. This phenomenon, known as déjà vuIt baffled philosophers, but neurologistand Writer for for a very long time.

Since the late 1800s, Many theories began to emerge About the cause of “déjà vu”, which means “already seen” in French. People thought maybe it was due to mental dysfunction, or maybe some kind of brain problem. Or maybe it was a temporary glitch in the normal workings of human memory. However, this topic has only recently reached the realm of science.

Transition from paranormal to science

At the beginning of this century, a scientist named Alan Brown All reviews written by researchers about Déjà Vu Until that point. Much of what he found had a paranormal flavour, relating to past lives, psychic powers, and other supernatural things. But he also found studies that surveyed ordinary people about their déjà vu experiences. From all these papers, Brown was able to glean some fundamental discoveries about the phenomenon of déjà vu.

For example, Brown determined that approximately two-thirds of people experience deja vu at some point in their lives. He determined that the most common trigger for déjà vu was a scene or location, and the second most common trigger was a conversation. He also reported hints across a century or so of medical literature about a possible link between déjà vu and certain types of seizure activity in the brain.

Brown’s book review brought the topic of déjà vu into the realm of more mainstream science. This is because these are the scientific journals that scientists who study cognition tend to read; in the book Intended for scientists. His research inspired scientists to design experiments to investigate déjà vu.

The layout of your new place may be very similar to places you’ve visited before, but you may not consciously remember it. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Testing déjà vu in a psychology lab

Inspired by Brown’s work, my own research team began an experiment aimed at testing hypotheses about the mechanism of déjà vu.we investigated a nearly century-old hypothesis It suggests that déjà vu can occur when there is a spatial similarity between the current scene and a scene that cannot be recalled in memory. Psychologists called this the Gestalt affinity hypothesis.

For example, suppose you are on your way to visit a sick friend and pass a nursing station in a hospital ward. You had never been to this hospital before, but you had a certain feeling. The root cause of this feeling of déjà vu may be that the layout of the scene, including the placement of furniture and certain objects in the space, is the same layout as another scene experienced in the past.

Perhaps the way the nurse’s station is arranged – the way it is connected to the furniture, the items on the counter and the corners of the hallway – may be the same as the way a set of welcome tables are arranged in relation to the signs and furniture in a hospital corridor. not. Admission to a school event I attended a year ago. According to the Gestalt familiarity hypothesis, only a strong sense of familiarity may remain in a current situation if no previous situation with a similar layout to the current situation comes to mind.

To investigate this idea in the lab, my team used virtual reality to place people in a scene. This allows people to manipulate the environment in which they find themselves. Some scenes share the same spatial layout, while others are distinct. As I expected, There was a high possibility of déjà vu occurring. When people are in a scene that contains the same spatial arrangement of elements as a previous scene that they have seen but do not remember.

This study suggests that one factor that causes déjà vu may be the spatial similarity of a new scene to a scene in memory that is not consciously recalled at that moment. However, spatial similarity is not the only cause of deja vu. Many factors can contribute to making a scene or situation feel familiar. Further research is underway to investigate additional factors that may be involved in this mysterious phenomenon.

Written by Ann Cleary, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Colorado State University.

This article was first published conversation.

Source: scitechdaily.com