Related papers: Solving Shisen-Sho boards
Three results are shown on producibility in the hierarchical model of tile self-assembly. It is shown that a simple greedy polynomial-time strategy decides whether an assembly A is producible. The algorithm can be optimized to use O(|A|…
In this paper we show that the Mastermind Satisfiability Problem (MSP) is NP-complete. The Mastermind is a popular game which can be turned into a logical puzzle called Mastermind Satisfiability Problem in a similar spirit to the…
We prove that, assuming the exponential time hypothesis, finding an \epsilon-approximately optimal symmetric signaling scheme in a two-player zero-sum game requires quasi-polynomial time. This is tight by [Cheng et al., FOCS'15] and…
Despite its long history, the classical game of peg solitaire continues to attract the attention of the scientific community. In this paper, we consider two problems with an algorithmic flavour which are related with this game, namely…
Many of the famous single-player games, commonly called puzzles, can be shown to be NP-Complete. Indeed, this class of complexity contains hundreds of puzzles, since people particularly appreciate completing an intractable puzzle, such as…
Partial methods play an important role in formal methods and beyond. Recently such methods were developed for parity games, where polynomial-time partial solvers decide the winners of a subset of nodes. We investigate here how effective…
We introduce the idea that the P vs NP problem can have a finer structure. Given the NP complete problem of interest, the configurations space of the problem can be divided in (at least) two regions. In one region, polynomial algorithms to…
This paper depicts algorithms for solving the decision Boolean Satisfiability Problem. An extreme problem is formulated to analyze the complexity of algorithms and the complexity for solving it. A novel and easy reformulation as a lottery…
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…
We consider the chessboard pebbling problem analyzed by Chung, Graham, Morrison and Odlyzko [3]. We study the number of reachable configurations $G(k)$ and a related double sequence $G(k,m)$. Exact expressions for these are derived, and we…
In the $15$-puzzle game, $15$ labeled square tiles are reconfigured on a $4\times 4$ board through an escort, wherein each (time) step, a single tile neighboring it may slide into it, leaving the space previously occupied by the tile as the…
Clobber is a new two-player board game. In this paper, we introduce the one-player variant Solitaire Clobber where the goal is to remove as many stones as possible from the board by alternating white and black moves. We show that a…
In this paper, we study a two-stage stochastic version of the assignment game, which is a fundamental cooperative game. Given an initial setting, the set of players may change in the second stage according to some probability distribution,…
We introduce a new family of one-player games, involving the movement of coins from one configuration to another. Moves are restricted so that a coin can be placed only in a position that is adjacent to at least two other coins. The goal of…
Mahjong is a very popular tile-based game commonly played by four players. Each player begins with a hand of 13 tiles and, in turn, players draw and discard (i.e., change) tiles until they complete a legal hand using a 14th tile. In this…
We consider some well-known families of two-player, zero-sum, perfect information games that can be viewed as special cases of Shapley's stochastic games. We show that the following tasks are polynomial time equivalent: - Solving simple…
Satisfiability of Boolean circuits is among the most known and important problems in theoretical computer science. This problem is NP-complete in general but becomes polynomial time when restricted either to monotone gates or linear gates.…
We analyze the computational complexity of several new variants of edge-matching puzzles. First we analyze inequality (instead of equality) constraints between adjacent tiles, proving the problem NP-complete for strict inequalities but…
Computing the Nash equilibrium (NE) for N-player non-zerosum stochastic games is a formidable challenge. Currently, algorithmic methods in stochastic game theory are unable to compute NE for stochastic games (SGs) for settings in all but…
The New York Times (NYT) games have found widespread popularity in recent years and reportedly account for an increasing fraction of the newspaper's readership. In this paper, we bring the computational lens to the study of New York Times…