“The concept:
Intellectual Decathlon is a merciless program. Without ever stating it inside the program (but I know, since I wrote it), it pits one person’s intelligence (IQ) against another one.
Some details:
None of the events require any knowledge of trivia.
All of the events are randomly presented every single time you play the game, it is not possible to learn it, as far as learning the solutions (it isn’t a puzzle but logical tasks).
Some of the events can be instantly understood and played, some others require a bit of getting familiar with them.
1. Numberstretcher:
Very simple to understand and play. The computer presents longer and longer string of numbers what the player has to memorize (presented only for a few seconds) and type back. The longer the number is the player can remember, the higher the score is of course.
2. Note the Notes:
Simple to understand and play. The computer plays a very short random “”tune””, 6-8 bars. Then the computer starts playing a long sequence of random notes and without notice at one point the short tune is played. That is when the player simply has to indicate “”this is it”” (press a key). If correct, score is awarded. If not correct, 50 points deduction. No point is deducted or given, if the player doesn’t press any key through the whole sequence. Three chances for each player, the scores added up for all three.
Little twist: before each of the three rounds the player can decide whether to see the notes visually while played at first or not. If the player chooses not to see it (only hear it), the score doubles (whatever it would be).
Undocumented “”secret””: the sooner the player presses the “”this is it”” key, the higher the score will be. Here of course is a bit a probability calculation is involved, since after let’s say only two bars, there is a reasonably high chance that the same two bars can emerge in a random sequence and the third bar may not be it. After four bars, this probability goes down to “”very unlikely”” and three bars somewhere in between.
3. Safecracker:
Medium difficult to understand and play. At least a couple of trial runs are recommended.
The computer presents 9 dials on the screen (3×3) and a single hand in each dial points to either 12,3,6 or 9 o’clock. With key combinations the player has to set as many dials to 12 as he can. For example, pressing number 1 on the keyboard will rotate dial 1,2,4,5 90 degrees clockwise. So, none of the dials can be individually adjusted (the game explains which key controls which group of dials).
The instructions inside the game fail to state something important: the player doesn’t have to come up with the perfect solution. Partially solved dials give significant score (which is always on the screen). So, the player, if sees he is running out of time, can always press the Esc key and get the score what is on the screen at any given moment (higher if more clocks point to 12 o’clock, lower if more time elapsed).
The event consists of a single round.
4. Verdict Guilty.
Difficult to understand and play. Highly recommended to practice it a few times and understand it completely.
Five imaginary criminals are sitting at the police station, all five arrested. Only one committed a crime the other four is innocent. They keep talking to each other and the player has to figure out which of the five is the guilty one and what crime he committed. There are 5 crimes, 5 places, 5 objects, and 5 circumstantial evidence. The guilt can be found out more than one ways.
Any character is found lying, IS the guilty one. That however is not always obvious. The other way is, if any of the characters are identified with the crime his cohorts are accusing him with, and the matching place, object, circumstantial evidence. Further deep logical mastery can lead the an exclusion process, but that requires a deep understanding and experience with the event.
What is very important to understand (easy to misunderstand): all five crimes have a matching place, object and circumstantial evidence. Thus the murder always committed in the forest, never in the bank or the other places, the object is always the knife and never the machine gun, and so on. All five characters are matched with a place, an object and a circumstantial evidence. That does NOT mean they are guilty of anything. Thus, if one of the character is accused with murder (by the others), was seen at the post office (which is linked with blackmail as crime) and had a bottle of rum with him (theft is the linked crime), doesn’t make him guilty of anything. Only if the accusation matches the place, object, circumstantial evidence.
The two players play at the same time at the keyboard and whichever guesses first (correctly) gets the score. The other gets nothing. Three rounds of “”crimes”” presented, thus three chances for scoring.
5. Apple Derby
Probably the most difficult event to learn, medium difficult to play. No force to play, the player can just stay out from this event, lose nothing, win nothing. An imaginary horserace where betting is going on, yet luck is not a factor at all, only logic. The players bet the points they made during the first four events.
Six horses, six races, but out of that six races five “”happened before”” and the results of the previous five races presented to the players, out of which they have to conclude the “”quality”” of each horse. Then comes the sixth race and that is when the betting takes place. Three different bets are allowed, obviously the better prediction earns higher points.
The interesting aspect of the game: there is no good horse or bad horse. They are just differently sensitive to various circumstances which are presented for the “”previous five races”” and then for the actual race. The instructions inside the game are detailed and satisfactory. I repeat: NO LUCK involved, it is all pure logic. The race is pre-determined (although looks random), the moment the “”horses”” take off, the program knows exactly which one will win (by design). That’s what the players have to figure out.
The betting is limited, so in this event a player can’t run away by huge bets. The best score therefore is in the same range as in the other events.
6. Lying digits:
Very easy to learn and play. Ten simple (four basic operations) math problems are flashed on the screen with the solution which is either wrong or right, and that’s all the players has to indicate.
The multiplication is indicated by the * character, the division is by the / character (and + and – of course). Careful, in substraction sometimes there are negative results.
After both player entered his/her guess, either player can “”Press any key to continue””.
The nasty trick by the programmer: The result is wrong only by (in) one digit, so it is sometimes not at all obvious.
7: Matchmaker:
Very easy to learn and play. Ten wordpairs are displayed in two columns. Then the program clears that display, places only one column words back on the screen and displays the other column words one by one, and the player has to match the word with it’s pair (by pressing the corresponding number). The faster, the more, the higher the score is.
8. Brainblender:
Medium difficult to learn and play. It is a rather abstract board game, great deal of memory, strategy and combination involved. Instructions in the game are well written, so that is not a problem. Recommended to practice before play.
9. Instant Replay ?:
Easy to learn and play. The program flashes a “”picture”” on the screen (primitively drawn objects). Then a “”flash”” and another picture comes on the screen. It is either exactly the same as the first one, or one object is not the same. That is what the simultanously playing players have to determine (same, different). The game keeps going on until both player “”falls”” (passes three times or makes a mistake). In each round one more item gets on the screen, so it can quickly get quite messy :).
The strategy is merciless. Since it is the 9th event, the player behind in total score gets a chance to catch up with good play. Each correct hit increases the score. BUT…..one mistake and the player is not only out, but only gets half of the total score he accumulated in this event to that point.
If the player is not sure, he can just “”pass”” without guessing and keep on playing. Three passes also ends the game, but the full score is kept. Both player plays at the keyboard at the same time, but both can score in each round.
After both player entered his/her guess, either player can “”Press any key to continue””.
10. Abstrajig:
Easy to learn and play. A randomly generated abstract picture comes on the screen, cut into 16 pieces, shuffled, and the player has to put it back together as in a jigsaw puzzle.
The leader (in total score) can “”relax”” by choosing “”frame”” which makes the solution very easy, but for only half of the score. The player behind in score has the chance to go without the frame, which is more difficult, but gives twice the score.
Partial solutions give some score.
Make sure that in order to use the numeric keypad for the directional arrows, turn on the NumLock light on the PC keyboard.
And that’s it. Short term memory, simple math, logic, combinative ability, strategy, spacial orientation, verbal skill, many more in a playful atmosphere, turns this game into an invitation “”let’s compare our mind’s ability””, sort of. The typical playing time is between one and two hours. The game can be saved and continued later (but only one game can be saved).
In order to save the game, at the end of one event, ENTER must be pressed and proceed to the next event. At this point the program (emulator) can be exited (or the computer turned off) and the game will be saved.”
Intellectual Decathlon is a merciless program. Without ever stating it inside the program (but I know, since I wrote it), it pits one person’s intelligence (IQ) against another one.
Some details:
None of the events require any knowledge of trivia.
All of the events are randomly presented every single time you play the game, it is not possible to learn it, as far as learning the solutions (it isn’t a puzzle but logical tasks).
Some of the events can be instantly understood and played, some others require a bit of getting familiar with them.
1. Numberstretcher:
Very simple to understand and play. The computer presents longer and longer string of numbers what the player has to memorize (presented only for a few seconds) and type back. The longer the number is the player can remember, the higher the score is of course.
2. Note the Notes:
Simple to understand and play. The computer plays a very short random “”tune””, 6-8 bars. Then the computer starts playing a long sequence of random notes and without notice at one point the short tune is played. That is when the player simply has to indicate “”this is it”” (press a key). If correct, score is awarded. If not correct, 50 points deduction. No point is deducted or given, if the player doesn’t press any key through the whole sequence. Three chances for each player, the scores added up for all three.
Little twist: before each of the three rounds the player can decide whether to see the notes visually while played at first or not. If the player chooses not to see it (only hear it), the score doubles (whatever it would be).
Undocumented “”secret””: the sooner the player presses the “”this is it”” key, the higher the score will be. Here of course is a bit a probability calculation is involved, since after let’s say only two bars, there is a reasonably high chance that the same two bars can emerge in a random sequence and the third bar may not be it. After four bars, this probability goes down to “”very unlikely”” and three bars somewhere in between.
3. Safecracker:
Medium difficult to understand and play. At least a couple of trial runs are recommended.
The computer presents 9 dials on the screen (3×3) and a single hand in each dial points to either 12,3,6 or 9 o’clock. With key combinations the player has to set as many dials to 12 as he can. For example, pressing number 1 on the keyboard will rotate dial 1,2,4,5 90 degrees clockwise. So, none of the dials can be individually adjusted (the game explains which key controls which group of dials).
The instructions inside the game fail to state something important: the player doesn’t have to come up with the perfect solution. Partially solved dials give significant score (which is always on the screen). So, the player, if sees he is running out of time, can always press the Esc key and get the score what is on the screen at any given moment (higher if more clocks point to 12 o’clock, lower if more time elapsed).
The event consists of a single round.
4. Verdict Guilty.
Difficult to understand and play. Highly recommended to practice it a few times and understand it completely.
Five imaginary criminals are sitting at the police station, all five arrested. Only one committed a crime the other four is innocent. They keep talking to each other and the player has to figure out which of the five is the guilty one and what crime he committed. There are 5 crimes, 5 places, 5 objects, and 5 circumstantial evidence. The guilt can be found out more than one ways.
Any character is found lying, IS the guilty one. That however is not always obvious. The other way is, if any of the characters are identified with the crime his cohorts are accusing him with, and the matching place, object, circumstantial evidence. Further deep logical mastery can lead the an exclusion process, but that requires a deep understanding and experience with the event.
What is very important to understand (easy to misunderstand): all five crimes have a matching place, object and circumstantial evidence. Thus the murder always committed in the forest, never in the bank or the other places, the object is always the knife and never the machine gun, and so on. All five characters are matched with a place, an object and a circumstantial evidence. That does NOT mean they are guilty of anything. Thus, if one of the character is accused with murder (by the others), was seen at the post office (which is linked with blackmail as crime) and had a bottle of rum with him (theft is the linked crime), doesn’t make him guilty of anything. Only if the accusation matches the place, object, circumstantial evidence.
The two players play at the same time at the keyboard and whichever guesses first (correctly) gets the score. The other gets nothing. Three rounds of “”crimes”” presented, thus three chances for scoring.
5. Apple Derby
Probably the most difficult event to learn, medium difficult to play. No force to play, the player can just stay out from this event, lose nothing, win nothing. An imaginary horserace where betting is going on, yet luck is not a factor at all, only logic. The players bet the points they made during the first four events.
Six horses, six races, but out of that six races five “”happened before”” and the results of the previous five races presented to the players, out of which they have to conclude the “”quality”” of each horse. Then comes the sixth race and that is when the betting takes place. Three different bets are allowed, obviously the better prediction earns higher points.
The interesting aspect of the game: there is no good horse or bad horse. They are just differently sensitive to various circumstances which are presented for the “”previous five races”” and then for the actual race. The instructions inside the game are detailed and satisfactory. I repeat: NO LUCK involved, it is all pure logic. The race is pre-determined (although looks random), the moment the “”horses”” take off, the program knows exactly which one will win (by design). That’s what the players have to figure out.
The betting is limited, so in this event a player can’t run away by huge bets. The best score therefore is in the same range as in the other events.
6. Lying digits:
Very easy to learn and play. Ten simple (four basic operations) math problems are flashed on the screen with the solution which is either wrong or right, and that’s all the players has to indicate.
The multiplication is indicated by the * character, the division is by the / character (and + and – of course). Careful, in substraction sometimes there are negative results.
After both player entered his/her guess, either player can “”Press any key to continue””.
The nasty trick by the programmer: The result is wrong only by (in) one digit, so it is sometimes not at all obvious.
7: Matchmaker:
Very easy to learn and play. Ten wordpairs are displayed in two columns. Then the program clears that display, places only one column words back on the screen and displays the other column words one by one, and the player has to match the word with it’s pair (by pressing the corresponding number). The faster, the more, the higher the score is.
8. Brainblender:
Medium difficult to learn and play. It is a rather abstract board game, great deal of memory, strategy and combination involved. Instructions in the game are well written, so that is not a problem. Recommended to practice before play.
9. Instant Replay ?:
Easy to learn and play. The program flashes a “”picture”” on the screen (primitively drawn objects). Then a “”flash”” and another picture comes on the screen. It is either exactly the same as the first one, or one object is not the same. That is what the simultanously playing players have to determine (same, different). The game keeps going on until both player “”falls”” (passes three times or makes a mistake). In each round one more item gets on the screen, so it can quickly get quite messy :).
The strategy is merciless. Since it is the 9th event, the player behind in total score gets a chance to catch up with good play. Each correct hit increases the score. BUT…..one mistake and the player is not only out, but only gets half of the total score he accumulated in this event to that point.
If the player is not sure, he can just “”pass”” without guessing and keep on playing. Three passes also ends the game, but the full score is kept. Both player plays at the keyboard at the same time, but both can score in each round.
After both player entered his/her guess, either player can “”Press any key to continue””.
10. Abstrajig:
Easy to learn and play. A randomly generated abstract picture comes on the screen, cut into 16 pieces, shuffled, and the player has to put it back together as in a jigsaw puzzle.
The leader (in total score) can “”relax”” by choosing “”frame”” which makes the solution very easy, but for only half of the score. The player behind in score has the chance to go without the frame, which is more difficult, but gives twice the score.
Partial solutions give some score.
Make sure that in order to use the numeric keypad for the directional arrows, turn on the NumLock light on the PC keyboard.
And that’s it. Short term memory, simple math, logic, combinative ability, strategy, spacial orientation, verbal skill, many more in a playful atmosphere, turns this game into an invitation “”let’s compare our mind’s ability””, sort of. The typical playing time is between one and two hours. The game can be saved and continued later (but only one game can be saved).
In order to save the game, at the end of one event, ENTER must be pressed and proceed to the next event. At this point the program (emulator) can be exited (or the computer turned off) and the game will be saved.”
Another thing that really makes Intellectual Decathlon enjoyable for me is how it manages to stay interesting even after playing it multiple times. Many games feel repetitive after a while, but here, the experience still feels fresh because of the small details and different ways you can approach the gameplay. As you continue playing, you naturally start improving and understanding the mechanics better, which makes everything feel more rewarding. I also appreciate the balance the game maintains—it’s not too difficult, but it’s not too easy either. You can play it casually for a short break or spend longer sessions without getting bored. That flexibility is one of the biggest reasons why I keep coming back to Intellectual Decathlon. Overall, it’s the kind of game that doesn’t just entertain you for a moment, but actually gives you a consistently enjoyable experience every time you play.
