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arXiv · 2411.02251

Parks: A Doubly Infinite Family of NP-Complete Puzzles and Generalizations of A002464

Igor Minevich·Gabe Cunningham·Aditya Karan·Joshua V. Gyllinsky
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Abstract

The Parks Puzzle is a paper-and-pencil puzzle game that is classically played on a square grid with different colored regions (the parks). The player needs to place a certain number of "trees" in each row, column, and park such that none are adjacent, even diagonally. We define a doubly-infinite family of such puzzles, the $(c, r)$-tree Parks puzzles, where there need be $c$ trees per column and $r$ per row. We then prove that for each $c$ and $r$ the set of $(c, r)$-tree puzzles is NP-complete. For each $c$ and $r$, there is a sequence of possible board sizes $m \times n$, and the number of possible puzzle solutions for these board sizes is a doubly-infinite generalization of OEIS sequence A002464, which itself describes the case $c = r = 1$. This connects the Parks puzzle to chess-based puzzle problems, as the sequence describes the number of ways to place non-attacking kings on a chessboard so that there is exactly one in each column and row (i.e. to place non-attacking dragon kings in shogi). These findings add yet another puzzle to the set of chess puzzles and expands the list of known NP-complete problems described.

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Igor Minevich, Gabe Cunningham, Aditya Karan, Joshua V. Gyllinsky. 2024-11-04. Parks: A Doubly Infinite Family of NP-Complete Puzzles and Generalizations of A002464. https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.02251

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