Online lateral thinking games: break your usual patterns
In 1967, Edward de Bono coined the term “lateral thinking” to name something people sensed but could not always define: solving a problem by stepping outside the obvious path. More than sixty years later, online lateral thinking games remain one of the most accessible ways to practice it.
Edward de Bono and the invention of lateral thinking
Edward de Bono, a Maltese psychologist and physician, published The Use of Lateral Thinking in 1967. The work influenced decades of management, education, and design. His starting point was simple: traditional intelligence — the kind taught and measured — is mostly vertical thinking, which keeps digging deeper in the same groove. Excellent for optimization, it systematically fails when the problem requires changing the groove itself.
Lateral thinking is the opposite approach. It moves horizontally across the idea space, searching for unexpected entry points and questioning implicit assumptions that everyone accepts without noticing them. De Bono did not claim it was magical or innate; it is a technique, learnable in the same way as driving or chess.
What makes his approach remarkable is that he does not speak of “creative genius,” but of method. And games are, for him, one of the best training environments because they keep players inside a closed rule system where the obvious solution is often a deliberately built dead end.
Lateral thinking vs vertical thinking: two complementary tools
The distinction is not a value judgment. Both modes have value.
- Vertical thinking: linear logic, step-by-step deduction, deepening one hypothesis. Ideal for well-defined problems with clear rules. Sudoku and arithmetic are good examples.
- Lateral thinking: non-linear exploration, challenging premises, unexpected connections. Essential when the solution lies outside the problem frame as given. Contextual deduction puzzles such as “the man in the bar” illustrate this clearly.
In practice, strong problem solvers alternate both modes. Vertical thinking provides structure, while lateral thinking unlocks new routes. A game like Decoder illustrates this well: you deduce methodically (vertical), but when blocked you must test a counterintuitive hypothesis (lateral).
De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats: lateral thinking in collaborative mode
In 1985, de Bono formalized another widely used technique: the Six Thinking Hats. The idea is to approach a problem from six distinct perspectives, represented by colored hats:
- White: raw facts and available data
- Red: emotions, intuition, and feelings without rational justification
- Black: critical judgment, risks, and objections
- Yellow: optimism, benefits, and opportunities
- Green: creativity, alternate ideas, and new lines of thought
- Blue: meta-level process control
This system is now used in design-thinking workshops worldwide. Its base principle — use one mode at a time so logic and emotion do not neutralize each other — is directly applicable to complex puzzle solving.
Three classic lateral-thinking riddles
The man in the bar
A man walks into a bar and asks for water. The bartender suddenly points a gun at him. The man thanks the bartender and leaves. Why? The man had hiccups. The bartender startled him into stopping them. The wording suggests a hostile scene; the solution is elsewhere, in context the brain does not explore spontaneously.
The elevator riddle
A man lives on the 20th floor. Each morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby. In the evening, if he returns alone, he goes up only to the 15th floor and walks the last five floors. When he arrives with someone else, he goes directly to the 20th. Why? He is too short to press the 20th button unless someone presses it for him.
The surgeon
A father and son are in an accident. The father dies. The son is rushed to the operating room. The surgeon says: “I can’t operate on this child; this is my son.” How is this possible? The surgeon is the child’s mother. The riddle exposes an implicit bias in interpretation, not a logical paradox.
Four practical techniques for lateral thinking
De Bono identified several reproducible techniques. Here are four especially useful in games:
- Provocation (Po): deliberately formulate an absurd statement to push thinking off its tracks. Example: “What if the black cells in a nonogram are actually the empty ones?”
- Inversion: turn the problem upside down. Instead of asking how to connect A to B, ask how B could reach A. In Optimal Path, this is like tracing the route backward from the destination.
- Random connections: introduce an unrelated external element and force associations. Useful for breaking stalled sessions in Hidden Links when no category is obvious.
- Analogy: map the problem onto a totally different domain with shared structure. Logic Circuit can become clearer if viewed as a flow network rather than electronics.
6 Kognify games to practice lateral thinking
These games share one common trait: the first idea is rarely the correct one. They reward players who can reformulate their approach.
- Forced “what if” method: before solving a puzzle, list three absurd hypotheses about the solution. This often opens unexpected ideas.
- Systematic inversion: for each new puzzle, start from the end. Trace the path from goal to start, mentally or on paper.
- 60-second rule: if you have no lead after 60 seconds, deliberately drop your first approach and test a different entry point. Early dead-end is a strong signal you are still in vertical mode.
How games force you beyond obvious assumptions
A good lateral-thinking game is designed to challenge vertical thinking. In Light Grid, turning every dark light on in sequence is a natural approach, but it creates cascading interference and leads to a chaotic grid. The solution requires global configuration thinking, not pure sequential action.
In Hidden Links, creators intentionally include at least one “decoy” per group — a term that fits neatly in two different categories. Vertical thinking confirms the first association; lateral thinking suspends judgment and explores alternatives before confirming.
In Optimal Path, the visually shortest route is rarely the least-cost route once penalties and rough terrain are included. You must allow detours to return better later — a clean metaphor for lateral thinking itself.
