In the later chapters of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, “A Game of Wits” is one of the more interesting (and challenging) sidequests you’ll come across. Found in the Sukhothai region, “A Game of Wits” is categorized as a Mystery, meaning it’s a sidequest basically consisting of just one big puzzle. Specifically, it’s located within Voss’ Camp, which means you’ll have to do quite a bit of sneaking around Sukhothai before you can even access it.
“A Game of Wits” revolves around a Thai board game called Mak-yek, which plays quite a bit like a chess-checkers hybrid with a few unique rules of its own. Your goal is to solve the puzzle by winning the game of Mak-yek, while reading the game board to derive a safe combination from the positioning of the pieces. It can be intimidating to look at, but it’s actually pretty simple to play (and win) once you learn the rules. Here’s how you, too, can become a Mak-yek grandmaster and solve “A Game of Wits” in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
How To Play Mak-Yek
Finding The Puzzle
You’ll find “A Game of Wits” within Voss’ Camp, on the second floor of the smaller building near the Royal Army barracks. You need to get there in a roundabout way, by landing first at Wat Chana Songkhram and passing through a hole in a wall to infiltrate Voss’ stronghold. The area is crawling with soldiers, so you’ll need to sneak around or find the nearby Royal Army Uniform to get through. Either way, locate the puzzle and interact with any of its elements (Lorenzo’s Challenge, Mak-yek Rules, or the game board) to start the quest.
The Rules Of Mak-Yek
In a game of Mak-yek, each piece can move either horizontally or vertically in as many squares as the player wishes, without passing through any other pieces. In short, pieces work like the rook in a game of chess, moving in straight, non-diagonal lines of any length, just with very different capture rules. You’ll be playing blue, and your goal is to capture all of the red pieces.
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Mak-yek uses two kinds of capture, custodian and intervention. For custodian capture, you’ll need to surround a red piece on two sides. For intervention, you’ll need to slide one of your pieces in between two red pieces that are one space apart, such as the ones located in row three of the game board. Also note that you can custodian capture multiple pieces arranged consecutively by placing your pieces on either side of the row or column.
How To Solve A Game Of Wits
Lorenzo’s Challenge
Okay, so you’re ready to start playing – but as Lorenzo’s Challenge explains, this is no ordinary game of Mak-yek. In this particular challenge, you can only move four pieces, and you can only move each of them once to capture every red piece on the board. However, to compensate for that, the red pieces won’t move at all, so you don’t have to worry about your pieces getting captured.
Actually, none of the pieces move at all in this puzzle. You won’t actually be interacting with the game board to solve this puzzle. Simply look at how the pieces are positioned and imagine the moves in your head. Draw a diagram if you have to.
Read Lorenzo’s Challenge a little more carefully, and you’ll discover another important condition: the safe code is made up of the rows your pieces move to, in chronological order. In other words, you’re going to make four Mak-yek moves, and each time, you’re going to note down the row you end up in. Once you’ve managed to capture all the red pieces in just four moves, you’ll have the combination.
The Safe Combination In “A Game Of Wits”
These are the steps to solve “A Game of Wits“:
- First, you would take the blue piece located at F1 and slide it up to F3, thus intervention capturing the red pieces on either side. Note down the first combo number, 3.
- Next, move H1 to D1, solidifying your custodian capture on the sole red piece in that row. That makes your second combo number 1.
- Move B1 to B8, performing your most impressive move so far by capturing both the row of three red pieces and the one stuck in the corner. Pat yourself on the back and write down the next combo number, 8.
- Finally, move F8 to F6, capturing the last red pieces on the board and learning your final combo number, 6.
In case you haven’t been following along, that means the safe combination for “A Game of Wits” is 3186. Your reward is cold, hard cash, which is a bit impersonal and less exciting than, say, a skill book, but it’ll come in handy nonetheless. With that, you can walk away with your reward and the knowledge that you’ve solved another one of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle‘s puzzles.