Brain Find Level 28

Overview

Level 28, subtitled "Cunning gopher," is a whack-a-mole scene. On the ground there are five dirt holes scattered across a white field, and a cartoon gopher with two big front teeth is peeking out of one of them. Along the top of the screen sit four unrelated props — a red apple, a grey stone, a tuft of grass, and a yellow bucket of water — and at the bottom lies a wooden mallet. The circular goal icon shows the gopher itself, so your task is to catch / whack the gopher. The core mechanic is reaction plus lateral thinking: the gopher keeps dodging from hole to hole, so swinging blindly at the hole it is in will miss. The overall approach is to use the mallet as the only real tool, ignore the props, and land a blow on the gopher wherever it pops up.

• Difficulty: Regular
• Estimated moves: 2

Step-by-Step Solution

1. Survey the starting scene. The title "Cunning gopher" is at the top. Five round dirt holes are spread across the field, and the gopher's head and front paws are sticking out of the rightmost hole. Above the field, a row of props — apple, stone, grass, and a water bucket — looks like it might be useful, and below the field a wooden mallet lies ready. The goal icon at the bottom confirms you need to deal with the gopher.

1. Recognize that the four top props are distractions. The apple, the stone, the grass, and the water bucket do not help catch the gopher; they are placed there to make you experiment with feeding it, weighing it down, or flooding the holes. None of those interactions works, so leave them where they are.

1. Grab the wooden mallet. The mallet is the only tool that matches the goal of catching the gopher by force. Drag the mallet toward the hole where the gopher is currently peeking out.

1. Because the gopher is cunning, it will try to duck back into its hole and reappear in a different one the moment you swing. Follow it as it moves between the holes and bring the mallet down onto the hole it is occupying. The intermediate state of the solution shows exactly this: the gopher has shifted to a middle hole and the mallet is striking it there, with a small impact bubble above the blow.

1. Once the mallet connects with the gopher, the game registers the catch. A yellow success screen appears with a large "Good" ribbon and the message "Gopher, don't try to escape!", and the dazed gopher is shown inside the circular frame. The level is complete.

Strategy & Reasoning

The level's name, "Cunning gopher," is the whole hint. A normal whack-a-mole would let you simply tap the animal on the head, but here the gopher is designed to escape: as soon as you commit a swing at one hole, it retreats and pops up elsewhere. This forces you to stop treating it as a static target and instead track its movement. The five holes are the escape network it uses.

The row of props at the top is a classic Brain Find decoy layer. Players naturally try the obvious real-world countermeasures: feed the gopher the apple to lure it, drop the stone on its hole, use the grass as cover, or pour the bucket of water to flush it out. The designers place all four on screen precisely so you waste time trying them. The mallet, by contrast, is the only object whose function directly matches the goal icon (dealing with the gopher), and the solution's intermediate frame shows the mallet — not any prop — landing the hit.

Alternative approaches fail for concrete reasons. Tapping the gopher directly with your finger does nothing, because there is no weapon in your hand. Dragging the apple, stone, grass, or bucket onto a hole only moves decoration and does not trap the animal. Swinging the mallet at an empty hole whacks dirt and lets the gopher laugh from another opening. The winning idea is therefore to keep the mallet in hand and land it on whichever hole the gopher currently occupies, which is what the demonstrated solution does.

Tips & Common Mistakes

• Common mistake: trying the apple, stone, grass, or water bucket first. They are pure distractions; none blocks, lures, or flushes the gopher, so go straight for the mallet.
• Common mistake: swinging the mallet at the hole where the gopher was a moment ago. Because it is cunning, it has already moved to another hole by the time you arrive; follow its current position before striking.
• Common mistake: tapping the gopher with a bare finger. You must have the mallet selected / in hand; an empty tap on the animal does not count as a catch.