Related papers: Rikudo is NP-complete
Mastermind game is a two players zero sum game of imperfect information. The first player, called codemaker, chooses a secret code and the second player, called codebreaker, tries to break the secret code by making as few guesses as…
By using two different invariants for the Rubik's Magic puzzle, one of metric type, the other of topological type, we can dramatically reduce the universe of constructible configurations of the puzzle. Finding the set of actually…
This paper investigated the problem of embedding a simple Hamiltonian Cycle with n vertices on n points inside a simple polygon. This problem seeks to embed a straight-line cycle (without bends), which does not intersect either itself or…
An inglenook puzzle is a classic shunting (switching) puzzle often found on model railway layouts. A collection of wagons sits in a fan of sidings with a limited length headshunt (lead track). The aim of the puzzle is to rearrange the…
We consider the recently introduced knotting-unknotting game, in which two players take turns resolving crossings in a knot diagram which initially is missing all its crossing information. Once the knot is fully resolved, the winner is…
A polyhedron $\textbf{P} \subset \mathbb{R}^3$ has Rupert's property if a hole can be cut into it, such that a copy of $\textbf{P}$ can pass through this hole. There are several works investigating this property for some specific polyhedra:…
The Rubix Cube is a 3-dimensional single-player combination puzzle attracting attention in the reinforcement learning community. A Rubix Cube has six faces and twelve possible actions, leading to a small and unconstrained action space and a…
We prove that deciding whether a given input word contains as subsequence every possible permutation of integers $\{1,2,\ldots,n\}$ is coNP-complete. The coNP-completeness holds even when given the guarantee that the input word contains as…
The authors introduce the impartial game of the generalized Ry\=u\=o Nim, a variant of the classical game of Wythoff Nim. In the latter game, two players take turns in moving a single queen on a large chessboard, attempting to be the first…
The rook graph is a graph whose edges represent all the possible legal moves of the rook chess piece on a chessboard. The problem we consider is the following. Given any set $M$ containing pairs of cells such that each cell of the $m_1…
We introduce a computational origami problem which we call the segment folding problem: given a set of $n$ line-segments in the plane the aim is to make creases along all segments in the minimum number of folding steps. Note that a folding…
A $k$-coloring of a graph is an assignment of integers between $1$ and $k$ to vertices in the graph such that the endpoints of each edge receive different numbers. We study a local variation of the coloring problem, which imposes further…
We prove that the combinatorial optimization problem of determining the hull number of a partial cube is NP-complete. This makes partial cubes the minimal graph class for which NP-completeness of this problem is known and improves some…
We study the computational complexity of the popular board game backgammon. We show that deciding whether a player can win from a given board configuration is NP-Hard, PSPACE-Hard, and EXPTIME-Hard under different settings of known and…
The purpose of this note is to attach a name to a natural class of combinatorial problems and to point out that this class includes many important special cases. We also show that a simple problem of placing nonoverlapping labels on a…
We consider generalizations of the familiar fifteen-piece sliding puzzle on the 4 by 4 square grid. On larger grids with more pieces and more holes, asymptotically how fast can we move the puzzle into the solved state? We also give a…
We define and give results on the game NecklaceNim NN($n$,$k$) which is PathNim PN($n$,$k$) with an additional move allowed on the end vertices. This game arises as a sub-game in the context of solving CircularNim CN($n$,$k$) when $k-2$…
We prove that the quiver problem is NP complete.
We describe and axiomatize finite solitaire puzzles and zero sum sequential games graph theoretically. Zermelo's theorem telling that there is a win for one of the players or a draw follows from the definitions. The god number is a…
When solving the Hamiltonian path problem it seems natural to be given additional precedence constraints for the order in which the vertices are visited. For example one could decide whether a Hamiltonian path exists for a fixed starting…