[HN Gopher] Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
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Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
Author : WorldPeas
Score : 76 points
Date : 2022-07-20 19:02 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.chiark.greenend.org.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.chiark.greenend.org.uk)
| Arainach wrote:
| An excellent free Android version is also available:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.boyle.chr...
|
| These are wonderful logic puzzles and particularly good
| implementations of them. For instance, their Minesweeper
| guarantees that it is solvable - you will never have a 50/50
| choice you cannot identify.
| sys42590 wrote:
| Of course, the app is also available on f-droid.org for people
| with a libre AOSP phone:
|
| https://f-droid.org/de/packages/name.boyle.chris.sgtpuzzles/
| ancientsofmumu wrote:
| > For instance, their Minesweeper guarantees that it is
| solvable - you will never have a 50/50 choice you cannot
| identify.
|
| Alas, I've backed myself into a corner a couple of times and
| triggered "just gotta guess" choices in it - while it's
| generally good at this, it's not a 100% implementation based on
| my playing.
|
| I find "Net" way more fun though for quick casual gaming, a
| 7x11 grid (depends on exact screen size) with wraparound
| enabled is a favorite for easy to tap but enough squares to
| make it take some time to solve (about 5 minutes per game, give
| or take).
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| I think you may have overlooked a logical solve. I dug into
| the code for his Minesweeper at one point and IIRC it works
| by generating random boards and putting them through a
| deterministic backtracking solver that gives up when faced
| with one of these choices. I think it then has a way of
| changing the board to be solvable. Or it just generates a new
| one, I don't remember.
|
| I've also played it quite a bit and can't remember having any
| undecidable boards.
| matsemann wrote:
| Sure it's not something you're overlooking? Haven't
| encountered it myself.
|
| Sometimes in constraint puzzles, one clue is also that there
| is a unique solution. So if doing one choice implies that
| some other choice can be arbitrary, that's not the solution.
| [deleted]
| lifthrasiir wrote:
| > Alas, I've backed myself into a corner a couple of times
| and triggered "just gotta guess" choices in it - while it's
| generally good at this, it's not a 100% implementation based
| on my playing.
|
| This should not happen because the current implementation [1]
| always tries to solve a randomly generated puzzle
| deductively, and never generates a puzzle that hasn't passed
| the check. (There are some shortcuts, including dynamically
| "perturbing" the current puzzle to make it uniquely
| solvable.) "Solvable" puzzles do not guarantee no
| backtracking though, so that's probably where you gave up.
| Also note that you should take account for the number of
| remaining mines, which can frequently be the sole information
| left for the very last mines.
|
| [1] https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/puzzles.git;a=blob;f=mi
| nes...
| PeterisP wrote:
| > backed myself into a corner a couple of times and triggered
| "just gotta guess" choices
|
| At least for me sometimes a situation that looked like "just
| gotta guess" was actually solvable by knowing the total
| number of remaining mines, as one choice in the "guess" would
| imply more mines than the other.
| leni536 wrote:
| Once I had a field where the last place to uncover was
| completely surrounded by mines, revealing the digit 8
| underneath.
| googlryas wrote:
| Isn't it known how many mines are on the board, so that
| is not actually a problem since you could count that all
| of the exposed/marked mines == total # of mines?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Love it - and also hacked it quite a bit (e.g. extra shapes and
| controls for Loopy).
| dylanjcastillo wrote:
| These are great puzzles!
|
| I used to play Flood a lot so I ended up creating my own version
| of it with daily challenges: https://fastflood.dylancastillo.co
| cbsks wrote:
| The developer documentation is absolutely top notch:
| https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/devel/
|
| And I think the code is a masterclass of how to write C. Take a
| look at the source for the tents puzzle, it's amazing.
| https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/puzzles.git;a=blob;f=tents...
| matsemann wrote:
| I enjoy this collection really much, and play many of them
| regularly using the Android port.
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.boyle.chr...
|
| Some other similar games I recommend. Feel free to expand, I'm
| always looking for more!
|
| _Slitherlink_ , same as _Loopy_ , but I prefer the generated
| puzzles here
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ejelta.sli...
|
| Instead of _Pattern_ in the collection, play a variant of picross
| /nonogram with hand made levels, much more satisfying.
| _Picross3d_ is similar but 3d, really good.
|
| _Sherlock_ and _Honeycomb_ , two variants of hint games where
| you deduce what is where. Like "x is to the left of y".
|
| _Willa 's Walk_. Create a loop through rooms, but can never walk
| straight. All three can be found here for desktop and mobile
| https://www.kaser.com/mobile.html (they look funky but play well)
|
| _Hexcells_ , a bit like minesweeper but multiple different kind
| of clues. On Steam, but also a mobile variant called Sixcells.
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/265890/Hexcells/
|
| https://0hh1.com/ fill a grid with yellow and blue, but never
| three in a row.
|
| As for a non-constraint type of game, _Snakebird_ is really
| clever, and really hard.
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.NoumenonGa...
| lifthrasiir wrote:
| Tametsi [1] is also great if you are bored of static
| rectangular or hexagonal grids.
|
| [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/709920/Tametsi/
| aasasd wrote:
| Frankly, once you have some practice, most of these games come
| down to a few rules that you apply mechanistically. However, I
| couldn't figure out 'Cube', and never in my life had luck with
| 'Pegs'.
| rjh29 wrote:
| If you like these puzzles, consider giving Nikoli some money, as
| they are a relatively small Japanese puzzle magazine and invented
| many of them. I find their handmade puzzles a lot more fun than
| the autogenerated ones this program makes.
|
| https://www.nikoli.co.jp/en/puzzles/
|
| https://nikolibookshop.stores.jp/
|
| I recommend 'The Pencil Puzzle 2022' (and other years) which has
| puzzles from their entire range. English instructions are
| included.
|
| My absolute favourite is Slitherlink. I've never been more
| addicted to a puzzle game than the DS version:
| https://www.eurogamer.net/puzzle-series-vol-5-slitherlink-re...
| blueblimp wrote:
| I'm also a fan of Nikoli-style puzzles. (My favorite is
| Nurikabe.) Nikoli themselves used to offer an iPhone app with
| lots of good ones, but it's sadly unavailable now.
|
| https://puzz.link/db/ is a great source of community-made
| puzzles in this style that are playable in a browser. Also
| worth a look is https://www.gmpuzzles.com/blog/ if printing and
| playing on paper is okay.
|
| I agree with you that human-made puzzles are much more
| interesting. The generated ones become boring quickly.
| bertman wrote:
| >playing on paper
|
| Printing is no longer necessary! GMPuzzles have been
| providing Penpa+ (a Javascript puzzle tool) links for all new
| puzzles for a while now and are in the process of backporting
| all their backlog puzzles for digital solving, too. It's
| really awesome :)
| noSyncCloud wrote:
| > Slitherlink
|
| One of the best mobile puzzle games ever
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ejelta.sli...
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I just checked Nikoli, and now I am getting a definite desire
| to play Shakashaka (
| https://www.nikoli.co.jp/en/puzzles/shakashaka/ ).
|
| Which is not in Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection.
| Guess I will have to code it one day. Edit: or just use web
| implementations - there are many...
| jkingsman wrote:
| I love this collection. There are also excellent mobile versions
| with no ads that I love for basic puzzles to kill some time
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| I really enjoy these. A screen-sized "slant" puzzle, or a "net"
| puzzle, can be quite relaxing. And it's fun to work out higher-
| level logical rules for making several related moves at once.
| netsharc wrote:
| Simon is also the programmer of PuTTY, the SSH/telnet client for
| Windows..
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(page generated 2022-07-20 23:00 UTC)