How the Equalture Ferry game works
Equalture does not publish the rules of The Ferry. What it does say is that the game looks at prioritising, and that habits from daily life such as eat the frog, doing your hardest task first, do not carry over into it. So you can prioritise well at work and still find the game hard, which is a reason to practise the kind of thinking it asks for.
It produces two readings. Problem-solving ability runs from lower to higher. Problem-solving style runs from very intuitive, someone who tries moves and learns from them, to very systematic, someone who analyses the whole problem before the first move. The style has no better end.
How to plan a crossing puzzle
Crossing puzzles reward a few minutes of planning far more than fast fingers:
- Read every rule before you move, and check which passengers can steer or travel alone.
- Work out the fewest crossings the puzzle could take. With a boat for two, every return trip costs a crossing, so four people need at least five.
- Find the passenger who causes the most conflicts and decide where they must be after each crossing.
- Check both banks after every planned crossing, not only the bank you are leaving.
- Expect to bring someone back. A return trip that looks like going backwards is often the move that unlocks the puzzle.
Worked example
Two mechanics and two trainees must cross. The ferry holds two, only a mechanic can steer, and the two trainees may never be on a bank together without a mechanic.
Crossing 1: a mechanic takes the first trainee over. Crossing 2: the mechanic comes back. The obvious next move, taking the second trainee over, is a trap: the mechanic cannot then return alone without leaving the two trainees together, so a trainee has to ride back and the puzzle takes seven crossings. Instead, crossing 3 takes both mechanics over, leaving the second trainee alone on the near side, which is allowed. Crossing 4: one mechanic comes back. Crossing 5: that mechanic brings the second trainee. Five crossings, the fewest possible.
Tips for the real Ferry game
- Read the instruction screens in full. They are the only description of the rules.
- Take a moment to plan before your first move. A few seconds of thought usually saves several crossings.
- Do not make moves just to see what happens if a moment of thought would tell you. Equalture records every move, not only the final answer.
- If you get stuck, go back to the passenger who causes the most conflicts.
Practise the Equalture Ferry on CogniPrep
Crossing Plan is our own design: four river-crossing puzzles that we wrote, getting harder, on an 8-minute clock. Tap passengers aboard and press Cross. A crossing that breaks a rule is refused and counted. We score each puzzle against the fewest crossings that solve it, so a puzzle solved in the fewest crossings scores in full and an unsolved one scores nothing. We also describe whether you leaned intuitive or systematic, without scoring it.