Evolomino is NP-complete

Fuente: arXiv
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1. Verfasser: Nikolaev, Andrei V.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Nikolaev, Andrei V.
author_facet Nikolaev, Andrei V.
contents Evolomino is a pencil-and-paper logic puzzle popularized by the Japanese publisher Nikoli (like Sudoku, Kakuro, Slitherlink, Masyu, and Fillomino). The puzzle's name reflects its core mechanic: the shapes of polyomino-like blocks that players must draw gradually "evolve" in the directions indicated by pre-drawn arrows. We prove, by reduction from 3-SAT, that the question of whether there exists at least one solution to an Evolomino puzzle satisfying the rules is NP-complete. Since our reduction is parsimonious, i.e., it preserves the number of distinct solutions, we also prove that counting the number of solutions to an Evolomino puzzle is #P-complete.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_07611
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Evolomino is NP-complete
Nikolaev, Andrei V.
Computational Complexity
Combinatorics
68Q25, 03D15
F.2.2
Evolomino is a pencil-and-paper logic puzzle popularized by the Japanese publisher Nikoli (like Sudoku, Kakuro, Slitherlink, Masyu, and Fillomino). The puzzle's name reflects its core mechanic: the shapes of polyomino-like blocks that players must draw gradually "evolve" in the directions indicated by pre-drawn arrows. We prove, by reduction from 3-SAT, that the question of whether there exists at least one solution to an Evolomino puzzle satisfying the rules is NP-complete. Since our reduction is parsimonious, i.e., it preserves the number of distinct solutions, we also prove that counting the number of solutions to an Evolomino puzzle is #P-complete.
title Evolomino is NP-complete
topic Computational Complexity
Combinatorics
68Q25, 03D15
F.2.2
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.07611