A few months back, I came across a puzzle that I could not stop playing. The puzzle goes by various names: Towers of Hanoi, Towers of Brahma, and Towers of Benares. Apparently there is a legend connected to this puzzle. It states that there is a Hindu temple with a room containing 64 discs and three pegs. The priest of Brahma are charged with moving the stack of discs from the first peg to the third, one at a time, and only placing smaller discs atop larger ones. According to the legend, the completion of the last move will herald the end of the world. If the legend were true, and if the priests were able to move disks at a rate of one per second, using the smallest number of moves, it would take them roughly 600 billion years to complete the puzzle. Naturally, I decided to build the puzzle out in Flash.
The objective is quite simple: Move the stack of discs from the first platform to the third platform by stacking smaller discs atop larger ones. The puzzle begins with three discs. Each time you complete the puzzle, you enter a new level where an additional disc is added. Easy, right? But trust me despite its absolute simplicity, it is addicting… and a huge waste of time.
You can check out the puzzle in two slightly different versions. The first one is themed for the holiday season as the “Build a Snowman Game”. You can play it on the Disneyland Resort Holiday minisite, and the second, “Order a Short Stack” themed with photography and graphics from Disney’s Animal Kingdom, is the feature monthly game for Walt Disney World's Backstage Pass.
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