Designing a Solvability Gate for 15 Puzzle Implementations
Every 15-puzzle implementation eventually hits the same quiet question: given a starting arrangement, can the player ever reach the goal? The answer is not obvious. Random shuffles fail roughly half the time, and a permissive build that lets the player play an unsolvable board wastes the user's evening. A strict gate that blocks too many starts kills engagement. Engineers building or integrating…
We haven't written up this one. Dev.to has the full story — the link below goes straight to it.
