52 citations · 271 across the 48 of their papers we have counts for
9 papers · 1 filter
Tetris is NP-hard even with rows or columns
Sualeh Asif, Michael Coulombe, Erik D. Demaine +4
We prove that the classic falling-block video game Tetris (both survival and board clearing) remains NP-complete even when restricted to 8 columns, or to 4 rows, settling open prob…
Tatamibari is NP-complete
Aviv Adler, Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine +3
In the Nikoli pencil-and-paper game Tatamibari, a puzzle consists of an grid of cells, where each cell possibly contains a clue among +, -, |. The goal is to partition…
Edge Matching with Inequalities, Triangles, Unknown Shape, and Two Players
Jeffrey Bosboom, Charlotte Chen, Lily Chung +12
We analyze the computational complexity of several new variants of edge-matching puzzles. First we analyze inequality (instead of equality) constraints between adjacent tiles, prov…
Losing at Checkers is Hard
Jeffrey Bosboom, Spencer Congero, Erik D. Demaine +2
We prove computational intractability of variants of checkers: (1) deciding whether there is a move that forces the other player to win in one move is NP-complete; (2) checkers whe…
Even Edge-Matching and Jigsaw Puzzles are Really Hard
Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine +3
We prove the computational intractability of rotating and placing square tiles into a array such that adjacent tiles are compatible--either equal edge colors, as i…
Zig-Zag Numberlink is NP-Complete
Aaron Adcock, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine +4
When can terminal pairs in an grid be connected by vertex-disjoint paths that cover all vertices of the grid? We prove that this problem is NP-complete. Our ha…
Two Hands Are Better Than One (up to constant factors)
Sarah Cannon, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine +5
We study the difference between the standard seeded model of tile self-assembly, and the "seedless" two-handed model of tile self-assembly. Most of our results suggest that the two…
The Complexity of Clickomania
Therese C. Biedl, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine +3
We study a popular puzzle game known variously as Clickomania and Same Game. Basically, a rectangular grid of blocks is initially colored with some number of colors, and the player…
Phutball Endgames are Hard
Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, David Eppstein
We show that, in John Conway's board game Phutball (or Philosopher's Football), it is NP-complete to determine whether the current player has a move that immediately wins the game.…