Programming, Topic: Algorithms

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Solving Woodworm

Woodworm is a cute little PICO-8 puzzle game about a cute little worm… that eats wood. You can play it for free right now right here!

The goal is to turn this:

Level 1, before solving

Into this:

Level 1, after solving

There are a few rules to keep in mind:

  • The block (and the worm) are affected by gravity

  • The block can be split by into multiple pieces by eating it completely apart

    Demonstrating gravity

  • The worm can crawl up the side of blocks, so long as two (consecutive) segments of the worm are touching walls

    Demonstrating climbing

And that’s really it.

So let’s solve it!

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Freshly (Frosted) Solved

And so it begins.

Freshly Frosted

It’s a cute little puzzle game about making a donut factory.

It’s a lot like Solving Cosmic Express in that it’s a ‘puzzle on rails’, you are basically routing around the grid from source to target. In the way, we have to go to certain tiles in a certain order (in this case, to apply toppings to our donuts).

The first level

Let’s do it!

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Solving Cosmic Express

Another Rust Solvers puzzle: Cosmic Express. Basically, it’s a routefinding puzzle. You have a train that needs a track from entrance to exit, picking up and dropping off cargo on the way.

It’s actual a relatively simple puzzle, so far as things go, but one thing that’s interesting from a solving perspective is that branching paths really don’t work great with my solver code. Paths just have a crazy branching factor when compared to (for example) playing one of a handful of cards.

But it’s still an interesting puzzle!

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The Golf (Peaks) of Solving

Another day (week? month?), another puzzle game.

This time around, we’re going to solve Golf Peaks. I picked this up a while ago on iOS, but only recently on Steam. It’s a cute little puzzle game themed around minigolf.

Basically, you’re on a grid and you have to get the ball (in the bottom in that screenshot above) to the flag (currently at the top). You have a set list of moves you can take, styled as cards–all of which either move a certain number of tiles in a specific direction or possibly jump into the air (and fly over obstacles).

It gets more complicated from there, but hopefully you have the basic idea. 😄

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