- Since the author seems interested in the maximum number of moves required to solve the puzzle, a similar puzzle called Subway Shuffle far outdoes Rush Hour. For example, puzzle 100 involves 9 pieces on a 10-spot grid, but requires (as far as is known, maybe the solution isn't optimal?) 589 steps to solve. https://www.cs.brandeis.edu/~storer/JimPuzzles/ZPAGES/zzzSub...
- It turns out that Rush Hour becomes much harder if we shrink the cars from size 2x1 to size 1x1, while maintaining their direction to be either horizontal or vertical [1].
While the hardest 6x6 Rush Hour puzzle takes 51 moves, the hardest Unit Rush Hour puzzle takes a whopping 732 moves [2].
[1] https://tromp.github.io/orimaze.html
[2] https://tromp.github.io/rh.ps
by sameermanek
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- A little shameless plug:
Ive just released a game built around this project on play store - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noobgiraff...
Has 4x4, 5x5 and 6x6 puzzles. Generating 7x7 puzzles is long process and i think i may have to do it on cloud, but am planning to release them soon.
- Great article, very impressive to solve the entire game, rather than just individual puzzles.
PS: Good chance that if you're reading these comments that you will appreciate this video by 2swap, visualising solutions to Rush Hour in 3D: https://youtu.be/YGLNyHd2w10?si=fGFqzEbmV3utbA0O
- Fun article.
The Rush Hour puzzle is quite fun when viewed as a planning problem. In standard PDDL the model becomes very messy. I like the
extensions proposed in https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06312v1 that makes the model intuitive.
by jasonjmcghee
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- I played this a lot as a kid. There are so many "levels" - it's fantastic and addictive - but like in a good way where you're using your brain.
by Simon-curtis
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- Thanks for the article, perfect timing. Was stuck on a secret Santa gift for the brother in law. Rush hour is perfect!
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