The Slider Game

Version 1.1 (released 2001-05-04)

Table of Contents

  1. Copyright
  2. Credits
  3. Purpose
  4. How to Install
  5. How to Use
  6. Famous Last Words

Copyright

Copyright © 1998, 2001 X-Watch Software, Sven Künzler. All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
  3. The end-user documentation included with the redistribution, if any, must include the following acknowledgment:

    This product includes software developed by X-Watch Software (http://www.xwatch.de/).

    Alternately, this acknowledgment may appear in the software itself, if and wherever such third-party acknowledgments normally appear.
  4. The names "Slider" and "X-Watch" must not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without prior written permission. For written permission, please contact svenk@gmx.net.
  5. Products derived from this software may not be called "Slider", nor may "Slider" appear in their name, without prior written permission of X-Watch Software.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL X-WATCH SOFTWARE OR ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Note: The conditions of this license correspond to those of the Apache Software License, Version 1.1.

<Table of contents>

Credits

This program was inspired by publications of the following people

<Table of contents>

Purpose

Slider implements the famous 3x3-puzzle. The goal is to order the numbers from 1 to 8 by moving the pieces.
 

3 5 6
1 8 2
7 4  
—>
3 5 6
1 8  
7 4 2
—> ... —>
1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8  

<Table of contents>

How to Install

Just unpack the archive and start Slider.exe.

<Table of contents>

How to Use

After starting Slider, you get a playfield which is mixed up. You may move the pieces which are next to the gap. The status line shows how many moves you made so far.

There are also few menu options:

File|New Game mixes the pieces again
File|Next Move shows the next move for an optimal solution (minimum of moves necessary). When you select this option the computer has to look up the best solution which can take a little time.
File|Solve computes this best solution and shows it as an animation. Stop the demo with the <Escape> key.
File|Quit This option is experimental. It exits Slider. Most probably you won't want to use it.
 
View|Progress show the progress during computation. Slows down the algorithm, so you may want to uncheck this.
 
Help|Info Author information and copyright.

<Table of contents>

Famous Last Words

Slider was written by Sven Künzler

If you understand german language you might want to visit my homepage at http://www.xwatch.de/. There is also a small english section available.

The goal of this program is not to provide the ultimate game design but to explore ways to solve the problem automatically. Though the task is quite simple for a human being the computerized solving is a somewhat more diffcult.

Currently, the algorithm thinks up all possible moves and their predecessors. Given a starting position, there is a maximum of 4 possible moves. But each of them has 2 or 3 predecessors and so on, thus, there is a lot of data to be maintained.

In the current release, there is much room for improvements:

If you find bugs in the program or make improvements to it, please send me an email.

<Table of contents>