Related papers: A handle is enough for a hard game of Pull
A simple game $(N,v)$ is given by a set $N$ of $n$ players and a partition of $2^N$ into a set $\mathcal{L}$ of losing coalitions $L$ with value $v(L)=0$ that is closed under taking subsets and a set $\mathcal{W}$ of winning coalitions $W$…
We study computational aspects of three prominent voting rules that use approval ballots to elect multiple winners. These rules are satisfaction approval voting, proportional approval voting, and reweighted approval voting. We first show…
Numberlink is a puzzle game in which players are given a grid with nodes marked with a natural number, $n$, and asked to create $n$ connections with neighboring nodes. Connections can only be made with top, bottom, left and right neighbors,…
We prove that computing an $\epsilon$-approximate Nash equilibrium of a win-lose bimatrix game with constant sparsity is PPAD-hard for inverse-polynomial $\epsilon$. Our result holds for 3-sparse games, which is tight given that 2-sparse…
We propose a generalization of positional games, supplementing them with a restriction on the order in which the elements of the board are allowed to be claimed. We introduce poset positional games, which are positional games with an…
The locker puzzle is a game played by multiple players against a referee. It has been previously shown that the best strategy that exists cannot succeed with probability greater than 1-ln2 \approx 0.31, no matter how many players are…
This paper represents a game which interacts with humans via hand gesture movement. Nowadays, apps like this seem rare, and there seems to be a window opening for this kind of application to be more prevalent and useful in the near future.…
We consider the task of computing an approximation of a trembling hand perfect equilibrium for an n-player game in strategic form, n >= 3. We show that this task is complete for the complexity class FIXP_a. In particular, the task is…
Answering a question of Haugland, we show that the pooling problem with one pool and a bounded number of inputs can be solved in polynomial time by solving a polynomial number of linear programs of polynomial size. We also give an overview…
Pancake Flipping is the problem of sorting a stack of pancakes of different sizes (that is, a permutation), when the only allowed operation is to insert a spatula anywhere in the stack and to flip the pancakes above it (that is, to perform…
In many countries poker is one of the most popular card games. Although each variant of poker has its own rules, all involve the use of money to make the challenge meaningful. Nowadays, in the collective consciousness, some variants of…
Voting is a simple mechanism to combine together the preferences of multiple agents. Agents may try to manipulate the result of voting by mis-reporting their preferences. One barrier that might exist to such manipulation is computational…
Determining a Nash equilibrium in a $2$-player non-zero sum game is known to be PPAD-hard (Chen and Deng (2006), Chen, Deng and Teng (2009)). The problem, even when restricted to win-lose bimatrix games, remains PPAD-hard (Abbott, Kane and…
We study the computational complexity of controlling the result of an election by breaking ties strategically. This problem is equivalent to the problem of deciding the winner of an election under parallel universes tie-breaking. When the…
This paper discusses the complexity of graph pebbling, dealing with both traditional pebbling and the recently introduced game of cover pebbling. Determining whether a configuration is solvable according to either the traditional definition…
In this paper we provide a case study of the use of relatively sophisticated mathematics and algorithms to redefine and adapt a simple traditional game/puzzle to exploit the computational power of smart devices. The focus here is not so…
We solve the problem of one-dimensional Peg Solitaire. In particular, we show that the set of configurations that can be reduced to a single peg forms a regular language, and that a linear-time algorithm exists for reducing any…
We prove NP-hardness results for five of Nintendo's largest video game franchises: Mario, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. Our results apply to generalized versions of Super Mario Bros. 1-3, The Lost Levels, and Super…
Itemset mining is one of the most studied tasks in knowledge discovery. In this paper we analyze the computational complexity of three central itemset mining problems. We prove that mining confident rules with a given item in the head is…
We consider random-turn positional games, introduced by Peres, Schramm, Sheffield and Wilson in 2007. A $p$-random-turn positional game is a two-player game, played the same as an ordinary positional game, except that instead of alternating…