English

1 x 1 Rush Hour with Fixed Blocks is PSPACE-complete

Computational Complexity 2020-05-05 v2 Computational Geometry

Abstract

Consider n21n^2-1 unit-square blocks in an n×nn \times n square board, where each block is labeled as movable horizontally (only), movable vertically (only), or immovable -- a variation of Rush Hour with only 1×11 \times 1 cars and fixed blocks. We prove that it is PSPACE-complete to decide whether a given block can reach the left edge of the board, by reduction from Nondeterministic Constraint Logic via 2-color oriented Subway Shuffle. By contrast, polynomial-time algorithms are known for deciding whether a given block can be moved by one space, or when each block either is immovable or can move both horizontally and vertically. Our result answers a 15-year-old open problem by Tromp and Cilibrasi, and strengthens previous PSPACE-completeness results for Rush Hour with vertical 1×21 \times 2 and horizontal 2×12 \times 1 movable blocks and 4-color Subway Shuffle.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2003.09914,
  title  = {1 x 1 Rush Hour with Fixed Blocks is PSPACE-complete},
  author = {Josh Brunner and Lily Chung and Erik D. Demaine and Dylan Hendrickson and Adam Hesterberg and Adam Suhl and Avi Zeff},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.09914},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

15 pages, 11 figures. Improved figures and writing. To appear at FUN 2020

R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:23:08.534Z