Brain Out Level 163

Overview

Level 163 asks "How many candles do I have left if 2 blew out?" The board displays ten lit candles arranged in two rows of five, alternating between short blue candles and tall pink striped ones, with a yellow Enter field and a blue OK button below. At first this looks like a simple arithmetic puzzle: ten candles minus two blown out equals eight. But Brain Out riddle logic works differently. The point of the riddle is that the candles that keep burning will eventually melt down into wax, while the two that blew out are the only ones still left as whole candles. So the correct answer to type into the Enter box is 2, not 8.

• Difficulty: Regular
• Estimated moves: 2

Step-by-Step Solution

1. Read the question carefully before touching anything. There are ten candles on the board, all currently lit with visible flames. The premise says "2 blew out," meaning two of these flames have gone out, while the other eight are still burning.
2. Resist the first instinct to compute 10 minus 2 equals 8. That subtraction describes how many flames are still burning right now, not how many candles will physically remain later in time.
3. Think about what happens to a burning candle left unattended. A lit candle steadily consumes its own wax until nothing but a puddle of wax and a wick is left on the table. The eight candles that are still burning will therefore burn themselves down completely and disappear as candles. The two candles whose flames blew out stop burning before they are consumed, so they are the only ones that survive as intact candles.
4. Tap the yellow Enter field in the middle of the screen. The on-screen keyboard appears. Type the digit 2 into the field. Do not type 8, 10, or any other number; the puzzle is not asking for the count of burning flames, it is asking for the count of candles left intact.
5. Once the field shows the digit 2, tap the blue OK button at the bottom of the screen. The level-complete pop-up appears with the line "I got it!" and a Next button. Tap Next to advance.

Strategy & Reasoning

The riddle hinges on the word "left." In everyday speech, "how many do I have left" usually means subtraction from the current total, but in a candle riddle it means "how many are still physically candles later." Burning candles are self-consuming objects; they are not static counts. Brain Out loves this kind of reframing where the arithmetic is trivial on purpose and the real trick is reading the question as a physical scenario.

Typing 8 fails because it describes the moment the two flames blew out, not the end state. Typing 10 fails because it treats the blown-out candles as if they were still somehow distinguishable and also ignores the eight that burned away. The two blown-out candles are the only ones with a reason to remain; the eight lit ones have no reason to remain once they have finished burning. The congratulatory line "I got it!" is the game confirming that you understood the time dimension of the riddle rather than doing the subtraction.

This is a classic "two candles left" riddle format that Brain Out reuses with different objects. The general rule is: when a puzzle asks "how many are left" about something that changes over time, consider which state of the object persists to the end. Here persistence belongs to the extinguished candles, not the burning ones.

Tips & Common Mistakes

• Answering 8 because 10 minus 2 equals 8. That counts the remaining flames, not the remaining candles; the burning eight will melt away.
• Answering 10 because all candles still exist on screen. The riddle is asking about the end state after the lit candles finish burning, not the current picture.
• Overcomplicating by trying to blow out two candles on screen. You do not need to interact with the candles themselves; you only need to type the correct number and confirm.