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in reply to Re: Lights out puzzle
in thread Lights out puzzle
Here are some comments on how it works:
The code clears all the lines except for the last one (clean) the simple way: if there is a light, click underneath. The last line (or, better to say, broken line, i.e. the last line plus the remaining half of the previous one) is then solved half-randomly. At the beginning, I cache how clicking on the top line influences the last line, but only for one click on the line (i.e. I only know what the last line will be after having one light lit). Therefore, I have to click randomly until I get a cached position that I can solve. This works well for size 14, but the time doubles for each +2 in size, so size 20 is already too slow. Caching more positions could be added easily (like clicking two times), but I am not sure how much time it would take to cache all possible combinations on the first line.
Because the order of clicks is not important, I keep a separate map of the board with 0 for the even clicks and 1 for the odd ones. This separate board is the output of the program.
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