Questions tagged [puzzle-solver]
Use this tag if your challenge is about writing programs that solve puzzles such as Sudoku, Rubik's Cube, Crossword puzzles, etc.
84
questions
13
votes
6answers
1k views
Solve 4x4 Mastermind in exactly 5 steps
Background
Mastermind is a game of code-breaking for two players. One of the players is codemaker (Alice) and the other is codebreaker (Bob).
4x4 means that the player should guess the length-4 ...
10
votes
2answers
221 views
Minimal cost path in wall-breaking maze
Inspired by this Puzzling challenge.
Challenge
Given a 2D rectangular grid where each cell is either an empty space or a wall, find the path (or one of the paths) from the top left cell to the bottom ...
8
votes
0answers
148 views
Cover positions with snakes of same 'colour'
Imagine a grid where the origin square \$(0,0)\$ is at the top left of the screen, and positive \$x\$ is rightwards whereas positive \$y\$ is downwards. Coloured squares are at various positions on ...
15
votes
8answers
652 views
Recover boolean cells from windowed sums
Background
In Minesweeper, you will often encounter a horizontal or vertical wall of one's and two's (not yet revealed cells are marked as ?):
...
8
votes
2answers
730 views
Tents and Trees feasibility
Sequel to Verify Tents and Trees solution.
Background
Tents and Trees (try here) is a puzzle played on a square (or rectangular) grid, where the objective is to place tents horizontally or vertically ...
14
votes
1answer
316 views
Solve a meta-knowledge puzzle
Alice and Bob are perfect logicians trapped on an island with a puzzle generator. Although they can instantly solve the Riemann hypothesis and P=NP just by thinking about it, rather than doing ...
27
votes
9answers
8k views
The fastest Sudoku solver
Winner found
It seems as if we have a winner! Unless anyone plans on contesting the world's current fastest Sudoku solver, user 53x15 wins with the staggeringly fast solver Tdoku. For anyone still ...
33
votes
8answers
6k views
Cut the gold chain
A traveler needs to stay for n days in a hotel outside town. He is out of cash and his credit card is expired. But he has a gold chain with n links.
The rule in this hotel is that residents should ...
13
votes
1answer
417 views
Interactive Maze Solver
Bob got kidnapped and is stuck in a maze. Your job is to help him find a way out. But since it is a very dark and scary maze, he can't see anything. He can only feel walls when he runs in to it, and ...
4
votes
0answers
235 views
Minimum cost of solving the Eni-Puzzle
You're tasked with writing an algorithm to efficiently estimate cost of solving an Eni-Puzzle from a scrambled state as follows:
You're given m lists of containing n elements each(representing the ...
11
votes
2answers
402 views
Tatamibari solver
Background
Tatamibari is a logic puzzle designed by Nikoli.
A Tatamibari puzzle is played on a rectangular grid with three different kinds of symbols in it: +, <...
25
votes
2answers
1k views
Nonogram line brute-force solving
Background
Nonogram, also known as Picross or Griddlers, is a puzzle where the objective is to determine if each cell on the 2D grid should be colored or left blank, using the numbers of consecutive ...
7
votes
2answers
1k views
Solve a Rubik's Cube
Your challenge is to write a program to solve a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube. This challenge is based on this one from 2013, rewritten to adhere to current community standards, and reposted with the original ...
8
votes
9answers
479 views
Make sets disjoint without emptying them
Suppose you have a set of sets of integers. It's possible that some of the sets will overlap (i.e. sharing elements). You could get rid of the overlaps by deleting elements from the sets, but then ...
39
votes
3answers
1k views
Solve this Alcazar for me
Recently I've been playing a game called Alcazar. It is a board puzzle game where your goal is to enter from one door, pass through all squares, and exit through another door. The only rules are:
...
17
votes
2answers
979 views
Solve a Matchstick puzzle
On puzzling SE there are what are called "matchstick problems" in which math is written in match sticks and you are allowed to move a certain number of them to get a certain property.
In this ...
14
votes
5answers
518 views
Lights out, 7-segment version
Given a 7-segment display with some segments switched on and some off, find a sequence of digits (0-9), such that after toggling the corresponding segments for each digit, all segments are switched ...
14
votes
3answers
468 views
Help Beth escape the desert
While similar to the other water-carrying puzzle, the unique aspects of this challenge make it entirely different.
Beth is located at an oasis in the middle of a desert. There is plenty of water in ...
3
votes
1answer
802 views
Witness My Challenge (Tetris Puzzle)
Introduction
In the game The Witness (possible spoilers ahead) there is a group of puzzles that involve drawing a Tetris piece with your line while making sure that the symbol for the Tetris piece ...
14
votes
2answers
538 views
Group these cells!
This challenge is based on the game Layerz.
Given, on stdin or as a function argument, a 2D rectangular array of cells where each cell contains either a blank (you may choose to use 0s instead of ...
14
votes
1answer
485 views
Taxicab in San Francisco
You are a taxicab driver in San Francisco. As is typical of taxicab drivers, you are navigating a grid where the only valid directions you can move are the left, right, up, and down. However, San ...
5
votes
4answers
702 views
100 Prisoners and a light bulb
100 Prisoners and a light bulb
You may have seen this puzzle over on the puzzles exchange or perhaps heard it somewhere else. If you are unfamiliar with this puzzle check out: 100 Prisoners and a ...
8
votes
5answers
392 views
Retrieve all possible marks that can be placed in a Sudoku puzzle [closed]
Given a Sudoku puzzle, find all possible marks that can be filled into each empty cell.
Test case
Input:
...
5
votes
4answers
260 views
Counterfeit Coins on a Pointer Scale
You sell gold coins. Each gold coin you sell is supposed to be 1 ounce. However, you find out that one of your coin suppliers is cheating you. By alloying the gold material with something else, their ...
23
votes
1answer
2k views
Solve Grid-Tangram
The Tangram is a dissection puzzle made from seven shapes: Five differently sized triangles, a parallelogram and a square. Given a shape, the goal is recreating the shape using all the pieces and ...
21
votes
6answers
3k views
Can you beat the British Intelligence? (Nonogram Solver)
It is time to embark on a perilous quest to defeat the British Intelligence. The aim of this challenge is to write the shortest code that will solve a Nonogram.
What is a Nonogram?
The rules are ...
35
votes
6answers
2k views
Solve the chromatic puzzle
Over at our friends at Puzzling.SE, the following puzzle was posted: Is this chromatic puzzle always solvable? by Edgar G. You can play it here.
Puzzle explanation
Given a ...
34
votes
7answers
2k views
A Tiny Explorer
You are an explorer, mapping an unknown world. Your ship is carried on the wind. Where it goes, who knows?
Each day, in your spyglass, you see features to the north, south, east and west. You always ...
12
votes
1answer
828 views
Easy as ABC Solver
Easy As ABC, also known as "End View", is a puzzle where you are given an empty grid with letters around it; you must partially fill in the grid so that exactly one of each letter is in ...
18
votes
1answer
712 views
Solve an 0h n0 board
0h n0 is a very simple and enjoyable game, a bit like Sudoku or minesweeper.
Game rules
(I recommend using the tutorial in the game if you can, it is very simple and useful)
The puzzle starts with ...
22
votes
2answers
413 views
A Peak Experience: Quickly Visit All the Peaks
I am standing at point (0,0) in a H x W map where the altitude is represented by digits, for ...
12
votes
4answers
589 views
Build a Nonographic Magnitude Optimizerā¢
A nonogram is a Japanese puzzle game in which the goal is to draw a black-and-white picture according to a list of contiguous regions, like so:
Define the nonographic magnitude of a row or column to ...
10
votes
2answers
369 views
Crack the safe!
Inspired by https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/24334/to-catch-a-thief
You are given an n by n (...
7
votes
1answer
526 views
The Light Up Game
The Challenge
The game Light Up! is a simple puzzle game where the objective is to light up every cell in an n-by-n array with light bulbs. However, there are blocks in the way that will prevent light ...
16
votes
1answer
515 views
Given a list of lengths, and a string representing those lengths, do they match?
Given a pattern representing a list of lengths, and a string representing those lengths, do they match?
For those interested, this is question equivalent to verifying if a row or column of a Nonogram ...
1
vote
1answer
310 views
The Truck Problem [closed]
I am a teacher who was given a problem a few years ago. Every year since I have given it to my advanced students as a bonus assignment, but in ~10 years only 8 solved it, each with a slightly ...
-7
votes
7answers
355 views
Puzzle: Factor these 256-bit semiprimes [closed]
Challenge
Write a program to factor this set of 10 numbers:
...
-10
votes
1answer
684 views
Hard Puzzle Game Solver [closed]
There is an app called Hard Puzzle which is a game where there is a red circle, and you have to fill all of the surface area with five smaller white circles
it may seen easy, but it's harder than it ...
16
votes
1answer
882 views
We love our weird puzzles, us Brits
In a few British newspapers there is a game known as Hidato. It is somewhat similar to Sudoku, albeit instead of having 1-9 in a line and block, it's about placing numbers such that they connect in ...
3
votes
0answers
470 views
Stone Maze Chess solver [closed]
Background:
Every war eventually comes to an end, but the end is never absolute. The Stone Maze Chess scenario takes place after a game of chess is finished. The enemy King is dead and the pieces is ...
16
votes
3answers
1k views
Build a poisoned wine testing scheduler
Recently at Puzzling.SE, there was a problem that I wrote about determining which two bottles out of a larger number are poisoned when the poison only activates if both components are drunk. It ended ...
18
votes
3answers
1k views
Stringing a Pearl Necklace
Overview
Pearls (or Masyu) is a logic game played on a grid. There are black and white pearls placed on the grid. The object is to form a single, closed loop that travels through each pearl using only ...
5
votes
1answer
980 views
Solving a Jigsaw Puzzle!
I've just bought a new jigsaw puzzle but, as a programmer, I'm too lazy to do it by myself. So I've devised a way to encode the pieces, and now I need a way to solve the puzzle itself.
Challenge
A ...
13
votes
4answers
956 views
Is the word typeable with keys adjacent to each other?
Before reading this I suggest reading this little puzzle: https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/11408/longest-word-with-adjacent-letters-on-a-keyboard
I want you to make a program that takes ...
15
votes
2answers
819 views
Build a top-front-side puzzle solver
A top-front-side puzzle is a puzzle where you are required to construct a 3-D shape of (usually cubic) blocks given three orthogonal views: a top view, a front view, and a side view.
For example, ...
6
votes
1answer
432 views
Evening Commute Solver
I recently moved to an apartment overlooking the inner ring-road of town, and every day, a beautiful scene unfolds. The traffic lights are apparently so confusing (mostly because the Dutch are used to ...
15
votes
2answers
998 views
How do I get more Klotski in my life?
I really love sliding tile puzzles, but recently, I haven't had time for them. Hence, I need a program to give me my fix of sliding-tile puzzles, specifically Klotski puzzles.
Your input will be in ...
11
votes
1answer
836 views
Constructing an Orthogonal-Diagonal Greco-Latin Square
Consider a grid of NxN unique elements. Each element has a letter (from A to the Nth letter,...
23
votes
2answers
542 views
Water held in a hexagonal rod scuplture
I have bunch of hexagonal rods glued together into an odd sculpture. The rods
are 1 to 99 centimetres (cm) long and 1 square cm in cross-section area. All
rods are glued on a hexagonal face to at ...
12
votes
2answers
1k views
Logical Dot Shapes
The Game
Recently, much of my time has been taken up by an addicting game on my phone, called Logic Dots, which inspired me to write this challenge. It's easier to explain the rules if I show you the ...
