No...I don't make the assumption they know anything about those games. I start off talking to them about some of the above games.. One could just as simply wa

No...I don't make the assumption they know anything about those games. I start off talking to them about some of the above games.. One could just as simply walk through other games (checkers, tick-tack-toe, hangman, etc.). Or...if they've never played games, then you could walk through other somewhat classic problems (how should one load an airplane, the back of a car when travelling). My point was largely that there are a variety of problems out there which have "no right answer" yet are fairly intuitive to get started on...and figuring out modeling of the problem space in combination with decision logic is an excellent example of problem solving which may help one see how a candidate attacks problems, optimizes, etc.