10 Search Results for "Bosboom, Jeffrey"

Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2026.40
An ASP-Completeness Framework for Dynasty Puzzles

Authors: Kosuke Susukita

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 366, 13th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2026)

Abstract
A certain class of pencil-and-paper puzzles shares common rules: given a grid, certain cells must be shaded such that i) no two shaded cells are orthogonally adjacent, and ii) all unshaded cells are orthogonally connected. Such puzzles are sometimes referred to as "dynasty puzzles" within parts of the online puzzle community. We introduce a framework for proving the ASP-completeness (i.e., NP-complete under parsimonious reductions) of various dynasty puzzles. We apply this framework to seven specific dynasty puzzles - Akichiwake, Aquapelago, Ayeheya, Guide Arrow, Heyawake, Hitori, and Kurodoko. As a consequence, for given k solutions of any of these puzzles, deciding whether a distinct solution exists is NP-complete, and counting the number of solutions is #P-complete. Our results strengthen the known result of ASP-completeness for Heyawake and establish the ASP-completeness of the other six puzzles. The main idea is to reconstruct the reduction from the Tree-Residue Vertex-Breaking Problem (TRVB) to the Hamiltonian Cycle Problem introduced by MIT Hardness Group (2024). In our framework, the connectivity of the unshaded cells ensures the connectivity of the shaded cells, allowing the shaded cells to simulate TRVB, which is also an alternative representation of the Hamiltonian cycles under certain conditions.
Cite as

Kosuke Susukita. An ASP-Completeness Framework for Dynasty Puzzles. In 13th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 366, pp. 40:1-40:20, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{susukita:LIPIcs.FUN.2026.40,
  author =	{Susukita, Kosuke},
  title =	{{An ASP-Completeness Framework for Dynasty Puzzles}},
  booktitle =	{13th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2026)},
  pages =	{40:1--40:20},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-417-8},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{366},
  editor =	{Iacono, John},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2026.40},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-257596},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2026.40},
  annote =	{Keywords: ASP-completeness, pencil-and-paper puzzles, dynasty puzzles, Hitori, Kurodoko, Hamiltonian cycle, Tree-Residue Vertex-Breaking}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.47
Dudeney’s Dissection Is Optimal

Authors: Erik D. Demaine, Tonan Kamata, and Ryuhei Uehara

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 362, 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)

Abstract
In 1907, Henry Ernest Dudeney posed a puzzle: "cut any equilateral triangle ... into as few pieces as possible that will fit together and form a perfect square" (without overlap, via translation and rotation). Four weeks later, Dudeney demonstrated a beautiful four-piece solution, which today remains perhaps the most famous example of dissection. In this paper (over a century later), we finally solve Dudeney’s puzzle, by proving that the equilateral triangle and square have no common dissection with three or fewer polygonal pieces. We reduce the problem to the analysis of discrete graph structures representing the correspondence between the edges and the vertices of the pieces forming each polygon.
Cite as

Erik D. Demaine, Tonan Kamata, and Ryuhei Uehara. Dudeney’s Dissection Is Optimal. In 17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 362, pp. 47:1-47:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026)

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@InProceedings{demaine_et_al:LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.47,
  author =	{Demaine, Erik D. and Kamata, Tonan and Uehara, Ryuhei},
  title =	{{Dudeney’s Dissection Is Optimal}},
  booktitle =	{17th Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science Conference (ITCS 2026)},
  pages =	{47:1--47:22},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-410-9},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2026},
  volume =	{362},
  editor =	{Saraf, Shubhangi},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.47},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-253345},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ITCS.2026.47},
  annote =	{Keywords: Geometric Dissection, Dudeney Dissection, Dissection with Fewest Pieces}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.DNA.31.1
Algorithmic Hardness of the Partition Function for Nucleic Acid Strands

Authors: Gwendal Ducloz, Ahmed Shalaby, and Damien Woods

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 347, 31st International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA 31) (2025)

Abstract
To understand and engineer biological and artificial nucleic acid systems, algorithms are employed for prediction of secondary structures at thermodynamic equilibrium. Dynamic programming algorithms are used to compute the most favoured, or Minimum Free Energy (MFE), structure, and the Partition Function (PF) - a tool for assigning a probability to any structure. However, in some situations, such as when there are large numbers of strands, or pseudoknotted systems, NP-hardness results show that such algorithms are unlikely, but only for MFE. Curiously, algorithmic hardness results were not shown for PF, leaving two open questions on the complexity of PF for multiple strands and single strands with pseudoknots. The challenge is that while the MFE problem cares only about one, or a few structures, PF is a summation over the entire secondary structure space, giving theorists the vibe that computing PF should not only be as hard as MFE, but should be even harder. We answer both questions. First, we show that computing PF is #P-hard for systems with an unbounded number of strands, answering a question of Condon Hajiaghayi, and Thachuk [DNA27]. Second, for even a single strand, but allowing pseudoknots, we find that PF is #P-hard. Our proof relies on a novel magnification trick that leads to a tightly-woven set of reductions between five key thermodynamic problems: MFE, PF, their decision versions, and #SSEL that counts structures of a given energy. Our reductions show these five problems are fundamentally related for any energy model amenable to magnification. That general classification clarifies the mathematical landscape of nucleic acid energy models and yields several open questions.
Cite as

Gwendal Ducloz, Ahmed Shalaby, and Damien Woods. Algorithmic Hardness of the Partition Function for Nucleic Acid Strands. In 31st International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA 31). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 347, pp. 1:1-1:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{ducloz_et_al:LIPIcs.DNA.31.1,
  author =	{Ducloz, Gwendal and Shalaby, Ahmed and Woods, Damien},
  title =	{{Algorithmic Hardness of the Partition Function for Nucleic Acid Strands}},
  booktitle =	{31st International Conference on DNA Computing and Molecular Programming (DNA 31)},
  pages =	{1:1--1:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-399-7},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{347},
  editor =	{Schaeffer, Josie and Zhang, Fei},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.DNA.31.1},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-238504},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.DNA.31.1},
  annote =	{Keywords: Partition function, minimum free energy, nucleic acid, DNA, RNA, secondary structure, computational complexity, #P-hardness}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.SAND.2025.11
Hardness of Traversing Gadget Systems with Small Bandwidth

Authors: MIT Gadgets Group, Erik D. Demaine, Jenny Diomidova, Timothy Gomez, Markus Hecher, and Jayson Lynch

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 330, 4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025)

Abstract
The motion-planning-through-gadgets framework has enabled proofs of PSPACE-completeness for many motion-planning problems, ranging from swarm and modular robotics to DNA computing to video games. In this paper, we strengthen this framework to show that, for several useful gadgets and gadget families, motion planning remains PSPACE-complete even when gadgets are connected together into a graph of constant bandwidth (which implies constant pathwidth, treewidth, and cliquewidth). We then show how this result applies to several geometric/grid-based motion-planning problems, establishing PSPACE-completeness even when restricted to a rectangle/box where only one dimension is large (superconstant). On the positive side, we find one family of gadgets (DAG gadgets) for which motion planning is fixed-parameter tractable with respect to bandwidth.
Cite as

MIT Gadgets Group, Erik D. Demaine, Jenny Diomidova, Timothy Gomez, Markus Hecher, and Jayson Lynch. Hardness of Traversing Gadget Systems with Small Bandwidth. In 4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 330, pp. 11:1-11:16, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{mitgadgetsgroup_et_al:LIPIcs.SAND.2025.11,
  author =	{MIT Gadgets Group and Demaine, Erik D. and Diomidova, Jenny and Gomez, Timothy and Hecher, Markus and Lynch, Jayson},
  title =	{{Hardness of Traversing Gadget Systems with Small Bandwidth}},
  booktitle =	{4th Symposium on Algorithmic Foundations of Dynamic Networks (SAND 2025)},
  pages =	{11:1--11:16},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-368-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{330},
  editor =	{Meeks, Kitty and Scheideler, Christian},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.SAND.2025.11},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-230648},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.SAND.2025.11},
  annote =	{Keywords: Gadgets, Motion Planning, Parameterized Complexity, Hardness}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2020.12
Arithmetic Expression Construction

Authors: Leo Alcock, Sualeh Asif, Jeffrey Bosboom, Josh Brunner, Charlotte Chen, Erik D. Demaine, Rogers Epstein, Adam Hesterberg, Lior Hirschfeld, William Hu, Jayson Lynch, Sarah Scheffler, and Lillian Zhang

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 181, 31st International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2020)

Abstract
When can n given numbers be combined using arithmetic operators from a given subset of {+,-,×,÷} to obtain a given target number? We study three variations of this problem of Arithmetic Expression Construction: when the expression (1) is unconstrained; (2) has a specified pattern of parentheses and operators (and only the numbers need to be assigned to blanks); or (3) must match a specified ordering of the numbers (but the operators and parenthesization are free). For each of these variants, and many of the subsets of {+,-,×,÷}, we prove the problem NP-complete, sometimes in the weak sense and sometimes in the strong sense. Most of these proofs make use of a rational function framework which proves equivalence of these problems for values in rational functions with values in positive integers.
Cite as

Leo Alcock, Sualeh Asif, Jeffrey Bosboom, Josh Brunner, Charlotte Chen, Erik D. Demaine, Rogers Epstein, Adam Hesterberg, Lior Hirschfeld, William Hu, Jayson Lynch, Sarah Scheffler, and Lillian Zhang. Arithmetic Expression Construction. In 31st International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2020). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 181, pp. 12:1-12:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

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@InProceedings{alcock_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2020.12,
  author =	{Alcock, Leo and Asif, Sualeh and Bosboom, Jeffrey and Brunner, Josh and Chen, Charlotte and Demaine, Erik D. and Epstein, Rogers and Hesterberg, Adam and Hirschfeld, Lior and Hu, William and Lynch, Jayson and Scheffler, Sarah and Zhang, Lillian},
  title =	{{Arithmetic Expression Construction}},
  booktitle =	{31st International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2020)},
  pages =	{12:1--12:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-173-3},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{181},
  editor =	{Cao, Yixin and Cheng, Siu-Wing and Li, Minming},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2020.12},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-133568},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2020.12},
  annote =	{Keywords: Hardness, algebraic complexity, expression trees}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.1
Tatamibari Is NP-Complete

Authors: Aviv Adler, Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Quanquan C. Liu, and Jayson Lynch

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 157, 10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021) (2020)

Abstract
In the Nikoli pencil-and-paper game Tatamibari, a puzzle consists of an m x n grid of cells, where each cell possibly contains a clue among ⊞, ⊟, ◫. The goal is to partition the grid into disjoint rectangles, where every rectangle contains exactly one clue, rectangles containing ⊞ are square, rectangles containing ⊟ are strictly longer horizontally than vertically, rectangles containing ◫ are strictly longer vertically than horizontally, and no four rectangles share a corner. We prove this puzzle NP-complete, establishing a Nikoli gap of 16 years. Along the way, we introduce a gadget framework for proving hardness of similar puzzles involving area coverage, and show that it applies to an existing NP-hardness proof for Spiral Galaxies. We also present a mathematical puzzle font for Tatamibari.
Cite as

Aviv Adler, Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, Quanquan C. Liu, and Jayson Lynch. Tatamibari Is NP-Complete. In 10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 157, pp. 1:1-1:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

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@InProceedings{adler_et_al:LIPIcs.FUN.2021.1,
  author =	{Adler, Aviv and Bosboom, Jeffrey and Demaine, Erik D. and Demaine, Martin L. and Liu, Quanquan C. and Lynch, Jayson},
  title =	{{Tatamibari Is NP-Complete}},
  booktitle =	{10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021)},
  pages =	{1:1--1:24},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-145-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{157},
  editor =	{Farach-Colton, Martin and Prencipe, Giuseppe and Uehara, Ryuhei},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.1},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-127624},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.1},
  annote =	{Keywords: Nikoli puzzles, NP-hardness, rectangle covering}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.3
Walking Through Doors Is Hard, Even Without Staircases: Proving PSPACE-Hardness via Planar Assemblies of Door Gadgets

Authors: Joshua Ani, Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, Yenhenii Diomidov, Dylan Hendrickson, and Jayson Lynch

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 157, 10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021) (2020)

Abstract
A door gadget has two states and three tunnels that can be traversed by an agent (player, robot, etc.): the "open" and "close" tunnel sets the gadget’s state to open and closed, respectively, while the "traverse" tunnel can be traversed if and only if the door is in the open state. We prove that it is PSPACE-complete to decide whether an agent can move from one location to another through a planar assembly of such door gadgets, removing the traditional need for crossover gadgets and thereby simplifying past PSPACE-hardness proofs of Lemmings and Nintendo games Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong Country. Our result holds in all but one of the possible local planar embedding of the open, close, and traverse tunnels within a door gadget; in the one remaining case, we prove NP-hardness. We also introduce and analyze a simpler type of door gadget, called the self-closing door. This gadget has two states and only two tunnels, similar to the "open" and "traverse" tunnels of doors, except that traversing the traverse tunnel also closes the door. In a variant called the symmetric self-closing door, the "open" tunnel can be traversed if and only if the door is closed. We prove that it is PSPACE-complete to decide whether an agent can move from one location to another through a planar assembly of either type of self-closing door. Then we apply this framework to prove new PSPACE-hardness results for several 3D Mario games and Sokobond.
Cite as

Joshua Ani, Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, Yenhenii Diomidov, Dylan Hendrickson, and Jayson Lynch. Walking Through Doors Is Hard, Even Without Staircases: Proving PSPACE-Hardness via Planar Assemblies of Door Gadgets. In 10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 157, pp. 3:1-3:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

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@InProceedings{ani_et_al:LIPIcs.FUN.2021.3,
  author =	{Ani, Joshua and Bosboom, Jeffrey and Demaine, Erik D. and Diomidov, Yenhenii and Hendrickson, Dylan and Lynch, Jayson},
  title =	{{Walking Through Doors Is Hard, Even Without Staircases: Proving PSPACE-Hardness via Planar Assemblies of Door Gadgets}},
  booktitle =	{10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021)},
  pages =	{3:1--3:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-145-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{157},
  editor =	{Farach-Colton, Martin and Prencipe, Giuseppe and Uehara, Ryuhei},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.3},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-127642},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.3},
  annote =	{Keywords: gadgets, motion planning, hardness of games}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.7
1 X 1 Rush Hour with Fixed Blocks Is PSPACE-Complete

Authors: Josh Brunner, Lily Chung, Erik D. Demaine, Dylan Hendrickson, Adam Hesterberg, Adam Suhl, and Avi Zeff

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 157, 10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021) (2020)

Abstract
Consider n²-1 unit-square blocks in an n × n square board, where each block is labeled as movable horizontally (only), movable vertically (only), or immovable - a variation of Rush Hour with only 1 × 1 cars and fixed blocks. We prove that it is PSPACE-complete to decide whether a given block can reach the left edge of the board, by reduction from Nondeterministic Constraint Logic via 2-color oriented Subway Shuffle. By contrast, polynomial-time algorithms are known for deciding whether a given block can be moved by one space, or when each block either is immovable or can move both horizontally and vertically. Our result answers a 15-year-old open problem by Tromp and Cilibrasi, and strengthens previous PSPACE-completeness results for Rush Hour with vertical 1 × 2 and horizontal 2 × 1 movable blocks and 4-color Subway Shuffle.
Cite as

Josh Brunner, Lily Chung, Erik D. Demaine, Dylan Hendrickson, Adam Hesterberg, Adam Suhl, and Avi Zeff. 1 X 1 Rush Hour with Fixed Blocks Is PSPACE-Complete. In 10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 157, pp. 7:1-7:14, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2020)

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@InProceedings{brunner_et_al:LIPIcs.FUN.2021.7,
  author =	{Brunner, Josh and Chung, Lily and Demaine, Erik D. and Hendrickson, Dylan and Hesterberg, Adam and Suhl, Adam and Zeff, Avi},
  title =	{{1 X 1 Rush Hour with Fixed Blocks Is PSPACE-Complete}},
  booktitle =	{10th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2021)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:14},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-145-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2020},
  volume =	{157},
  editor =	{Farach-Colton, Martin and Prencipe, Giuseppe and Uehara, Ryuhei},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-127681},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2021.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: puzzles, sliding blocks, PSPACE-hardness}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2018.3
Who witnesses The Witness? Finding witnesses in The Witness is hard and sometimes impossible

Authors: Zachary Abel, Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, Linus Hamilton, Adam Hesterberg, Justin Kopinsky, Jayson Lynch, and Mikhail Rudoy

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 100, 9th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2018)

Abstract
We analyze the computational complexity of the many types of pencil-and-paper-style puzzles featured in the 2016 puzzle video game The Witness. In all puzzles, the goal is to draw a path in a rectangular grid graph from a start vertex to a destination vertex. The different puzzle types place different constraints on the path: preventing some edges from being visited (broken edges); forcing some edges or vertices to be visited (hexagons); forcing some cells to have certain numbers of incident path edges (triangles); or forcing the regions formed by the path to be partially monochromatic (squares), have exactly two special cells (stars), or be singly covered by given shapes (polyominoes) and/or negatively counting shapes (antipolyominoes). We show that any one of these clue types (except the first) is enough to make path finding NP-complete ("witnesses exist but are hard to find"), even for rectangular boards. Furthermore, we show that a final clue type (antibody), which necessarily "cancels" the effect of another clue in the same region, makes path finding Sigma_2-complete ("witnesses do not exist"), even with a single antibody (combined with many anti/polyominoes), and the problem gets no harder with many antibodies.
Cite as

Zachary Abel, Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, Linus Hamilton, Adam Hesterberg, Justin Kopinsky, Jayson Lynch, and Mikhail Rudoy. Who witnesses The Witness? Finding witnesses in The Witness is hard and sometimes impossible. In 9th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2018). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 100, pp. 3:1-3:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2018)

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@InProceedings{abel_et_al:LIPIcs.FUN.2018.3,
  author =	{Abel, Zachary and Bosboom, Jeffrey and Demaine, Erik D. and Hamilton, Linus and Hesterberg, Adam and Kopinsky, Justin and Lynch, Jayson and Rudoy, Mikhail},
  title =	{{Who witnesses The Witness? Finding witnesses in The Witness is hard and sometimes impossible}},
  booktitle =	{9th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2018)},
  pages =	{3:1--3:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-067-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2018},
  volume =	{100},
  editor =	{Ito, Hiro and Leonardi, Stefano and Pagli, Linda and Prencipe, Giuseppe},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2018.3},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-87944},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2018.3},
  annote =	{Keywords: video games, puzzles, hardness}
}
Document
DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2018.11
Computational Complexity of Generalized Push Fight

Authors: Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, and Mikhail Rudoy

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 100, 9th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2018)

Abstract
We analyze the computational complexity of optimally playing the two-player board game Push Fight, generalized to an arbitrary board and number of pieces. We prove that the game is PSPACE-hard to decide who will win from a given position, even for simple (almost rectangular) hole-free boards. We also analyze the mate-in-1 problem: can the player win in a single turn? One turn in Push Fight consists of up to two "moves" followed by a mandatory "push". With these rules, or generalizing the number of allowed moves to any constant, we show mate-in-1 can be solved in polynomial time. If, however, the number of moves per turn is part of the input, the problem becomes NP-complete. On the other hand, without any limit on the number of moves per turn, the problem becomes polynomially solvable again.
Cite as

Jeffrey Bosboom, Erik D. Demaine, and Mikhail Rudoy. Computational Complexity of Generalized Push Fight. In 9th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2018). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 100, pp. 11:1-11:21, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2018)

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@InProceedings{bosboom_et_al:LIPIcs.FUN.2018.11,
  author =	{Bosboom, Jeffrey and Demaine, Erik D. and Rudoy, Mikhail},
  title =	{{Computational Complexity of Generalized Push Fight}},
  booktitle =	{9th International Conference on Fun with Algorithms (FUN 2018)},
  pages =	{11:1--11:21},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-067-5},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2018},
  volume =	{100},
  editor =	{Ito, Hiro and Leonardi, Stefano and Pagli, Linda and Prencipe, Giuseppe},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2018.11},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-88029},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.FUN.2018.11},
  annote =	{Keywords: board games, hardness, mate-in-one}
}
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