SameGame

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Same Game , and The Same Game is a popular computer - puzzle game that has been implemented in various variants on a variety of platforms. There are versions for cell phones , graphical calculators , game consoles and for almost every form of computer in the real sense. The game is often distributed as freeware or under an open source license.

game

One move in SameGame.

At SameGame, a rectangular playing field is filled with pieces of various types. The stones are arranged in columns and rows. The game is a single player game. The player tries to remove as many stones as possible from the playing field. Only stones that are adjacent to other stones of the same type can be removed. All of the same type of adjacent stones are then removed together. Stones that are above the removed stones fall down or move up in columns from the right when a whole column becomes free. This creates new stone combinations with almost every move the player makes (unless the removed stones were all at the top of the stone set). Depending on the rule variant, the player receives points for each stone removed or depending on the number of stones removed in one fell swoop. Bonus systems are also common. In some variants, the number of moves required to reach a certain number of points (or to clear the playing field completely) is also assessed.

Typical variants of the game arrange three to five types of stone randomly in ten to twenty columns and eight to twelve rows. Sometimes this can also be adjusted by the player. The level of difficulty increases with the number of stone types.

Due to the widespread use of colorful and sometimes kitschy pictures for game pieces and backgrounds, accompanied by animations and accompanied by various sound effects , the game often has the character of a typical " daddel game ".

theory

A typical view in the starting position

Despite the simple rules, SameGame is a demanding, abstract logic game that has also been investigated in complexity-theoretical treatises in theoretical computer science . The question of whether a playing field can be completely emptied is, for non-trivial cases, NP-complete (probably very difficult to solve). To clear a playing field in as short a sequence of moves as possible is a difficult optimization problem that can only be solved heuristically in an acceptable computing time due to the NP-completeness according to current knowledge . SameGame is therefore also suitable for testing new optimization methods. It is interesting the fact that unlike other NP-complete problems (. Eg Traveling Salesman Problem , Eng. Traveling Salesman Problem ), every move and every optimization step irreversible all following trains affected, and therefore u. U. a decision is made as to the success of the entire optimization attempt in the first step. Common heuristic solution strategies that attempt to achieve global minima through local optimizations therefore encounter difficulties (e.g. simulated cooling ).

SameGame is different from some other simple computer games, such as: B. Tetris , in that it belongs to the class of games with perfect information , i. H. At any point in time during the game, the player knows the state of the game and all possible future positions can be derived from this state without the influence of random elements. Games like chess and go also belong to this class of games.

In contrast to good solution methods, the game itself is easy to program and is therefore also well suited for training.

history

SameGame was originally invented in 1985 as 'Chain Shot' by Kuniaki Moribe and distributed in a Japanese computer magazine. It was released under the name SameGame for Unix in 1992 in a version by Eiji Fukomoto. The game has also become popular under the name "Clickomania" (a freeware version). On some Pocket PCs it is preinstalled under the name "Jawbreaker".

swell

Under Debian linux and derivatives you can find this game under "Swell Foop" (Status: 2017/2018)

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