4 ms·

Interestingly, I can't be sure if this is a reference to Go or Sokoban, and it might be applicable to both.

• TeMPOraL 1y ago
  I think it's applicable to both, but I didn't play much of either :). But it's a method I employ in other similar puzzles and games, including "Baba Is You" in particular. The approach works in big part because these kinds of puzzles intentionally have very few degrees of freedom. Every element of the puzzle has a specific role to play, so if you look at a piece at random and notice something interesting about it, it's almost certain that this aspect is a part of the solution. This is very similar to math and physics problems in school as well: they're intentionally structured to contain exactly the minimum amount of data that's necessary for a single solution; take anything away, and the problem is unsolvable. Solving these, students are taught to check if they used all data provided - if they didn't, it means their solution is wrong. A less obvious realization is that this also lets you make educated guesses at the solution - since every piece of information has, by design, a specific role to play, you can start guessing what those roles are; if those guesses start to connect into a structure, it's highly likely you've just identified the middle part of the solution. Non-puzzle games, as well as real-world scenarios are, unfortunately, almost always underconstrained and full of irrelevant information; most things you see are there for random reasons, entirely unrelated to the problem you're solving. However, they may still be useful, so it's worth looking around anyway.