Slide24 (Shapiro Remix): Less Shuffling
Posted by Jeffrey
A guy named Phil Shapiro recently wrote me asking whether it would be possible to reduce the amount of shuffling in the Slide24 puzzle. The idea is to make the puzzle easier to solve for the younger set.
I’m always happy to do things for the younger set, so here is a new version of the puzzle:
This works like the full Slide24 puzzle except that the shuffle buttons create only puzzles that can be solved in the number of steps listed on the button (counting a single-tile move as a step). Occasionally they can be solved in fewer steps (due to the way shuffling sometimes becomes unshuffling).
Note that repeatedly clicking the shuffle buttons doesn’t create a puzzle that’s more and more shuffled. All the generated positions are solvable in the number of steps of the most recently clicked shuffle button.
The sources for the Shapiro Remix are the same as for the latest version of the full puzzle. The difference is only a few lines that describe what the Shuffle buttons should look like. You can download the latest sources from the main Slide24 page.
If you have comments, questions, or corrections please leave them below, or email me at jeffsco@psellos.com.