
Battleship Solitaire - dhotson
https://lukerissacher.com/battleships
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mrec
It's missing some really basic instructions, i.e. clicking cycles between "not
marked", "marked as water" and "marked as ship". Just saying "Click squares to
set where you think the ships are." is singularly unhelpful.

~~~
Treblemaker
I found the process of discovery (including the ship orientation hints
mentioned below) was part of what made it enjoyable. Of course, after about
five minutes the rules and strategies have become apparent and it does become
truly mindless...

~~~
Treblemaker
And yet I keep playing it....

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flipacoin0
This is great! I'd love to see it as part of Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle
Collection [1]

[1]
[https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/](https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/)

~~~
8_hours_ago
This reminded me of Tents [0], which is one of the games in Simon's puzzle
collection that I reach for while waiting for code to compile.

Someone should add this game! Simon has very good developer documentation [1],
and the code is very cleanly written C. Seriously, every C developer should
take a look at it, it is inspiring [2].

[0]:
[https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/tent...](https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/tents.html)

[1]:
[https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/devel/](https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/devel/)

[2]:
[https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/puzzles.git](https://git.tartarus.org/?p=simon/puzzles.git)

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kazinator
Solitaire Battleship is very similar to "nonogram puzzles", e.g.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram)

[https://www.puzzle-nonograms.com/](https://www.puzzle-nonograms.com/)

You have a grid where the rows and columns are labeled with how many squares
there are (additional info: you get splits, like "3 2" means there is a run of
3, and 2). You have to work out the image.

This Solitaire Battleship is hard though, because of the sparse placement and
has other elements to it.

There is a similarity to this and the reconstruction of an image from
projection data. Horizontal and vertical histogram data has been used for OCR.
(You can recognize a glyph from the histogram patterns.)

This is also related to the backprojection technique used in CT scans to
reconstruct the slice images.

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CapitalistCartr
This looks to be as addictive as 2048. I still play that one.

[https://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/](https://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/)

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starshadowx2
I've been able to solve all the ones I've gotten so far, but I'm stumped as to
how to do this one
([https://i.imgur.com/6qmZX7z.png](https://i.imgur.com/6qmZX7z.png)) without

1\. trial and error, or

2\. using the checking tool to see what I did wrong (cheating in a sense)

I feel like there's a strategy that I'm missing here. I'm just not sure what
my next step should be, which would probably help me get all the rest done.

~~~
starshadowx2
Actually nevermind, it's obvious now that the 5-piece was in the 5 row.

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keenerd
Here is how to solve them with SAT:
[http://kmkeen.com/battleship/](http://kmkeen.com/battleship/)

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vinchuco
I was confused at first, but by 'mistakes' the author only means false
positives, and not false negatives.

I guess... "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new"

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macrael
A fun little game, it seems like there are some solutions that are ambiguous
though and it only allows one as the solution.

~~~
toast76
Fun puzzle, but I had the same problem. Example:
[https://imgur.com/a/t4T5l](https://imgur.com/a/t4T5l) The solution is valid,
but the expected result has the two dots in a different position. EDIT: I just
realised, although it isn't clear in the instructions, that the shape of the
boats is an implied part of the solution.

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luminiferous
Not so, but only because of rules about the notation that are not stated. The
dot in the top left (which I am assuming is one of the initial positions that
the game gives you, from the darker background color) is, due to its shape,
necessarily a size 1 ship. It does not continue downwards. Similarly, the
initial position on the left-middle shows it going upwards. The initial
positions not only tell you that there is a ship going through that location,
but also in what direction, if it's the end of said ship.

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twiceaday
Here is one I ran into that is clearly wrong:
[https://i.imgur.com/1leWCg9.png](https://i.imgur.com/1leWCg9.png)

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QuadrupleA
Hey, author here - ships can't touch diagonally.

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sparky_z
Yeah, maybe you should put that closer to the top. It took me 5-10 minutes to
realize that I hadn't scrolled down quite far enough to see that extra rule.

It's especially easy to miss if you're already familiar with the original
2-player version of Battleship, since there's no such rule in that game.

~~~
kazinator
Milton-Bradley's official rules do not have that restriction:
[https://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/BattleShip_(2002).PDF](https://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/BattleShip_\(2002\).PDF)

It's been a while since 1970-something, but I remember a no-ajacency rule
clearly from a variant played in Czechoslovakia.

Here is some site giving Battleship with a "no touch" rule:
[https://www.yourturnmyturn.com/rules/battleships.php](https://www.yourturnmyturn.com/rules/battleships.php)

It appears to be European; you can switch to a Dutch and German version of the
site.

Maybe this is European vs. American rules?

The German version of the Battleship page gives Rule 1 as "Die Schiffe dürfen
nicht aneinander stoßen" which seems to mean that they cannot touch each other
(not simply that they mustn't overlap).

The point of the no touch rule is that you can use your brain: from the hit
information, you infer water areas where the enemy must not have ships.

Under the Milton-Bradley rules, the players can just clump their ships
together into a small area; it's just more or less pure guessing. If you hit
two squares side by side, you cannot infer that they are sections of the same
hull; they could belong to two parallel hulls, or to two ships "parallel
parked". It's dull to be able to infer next to nothing.

Solitaire Battleship itself goes back to 1982:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(puzzle)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_\(puzzle\))

It seems to have had the no-touch rule from the beginning.

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jack9
Simpler version of Nonograms.

Crossme Nonograms is one of the best non-sudoku mobile games that is somehow
more fun.

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alejohausner
For a while, the NY Times Sunday mag had just this kind of puzzle, in print
form.

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twiceaday
This puzzle is a bit janky and is able to have multiple solutions but only
accepts one [1]. I recommend checking out similar-style puzzles called
"nonograms" which are widely available.

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/1leWCg9.png](https://i.imgur.com/1leWCg9.png)

~~~
vishvananda
That solution is not correct. Your boats on the top right are touching. They
cannot touch, even diagonally

