Previously, I mentioned that Michael Keller was working on a new variant
for his interactive FreeCell program. In fact, I wrote a solver for him
to generate solutions. The heart of my solver was to eventually go into
his program. Out of consideration, I've held off on sharing his idea,
but I think it's now time to share since it's in his FAQ page.
His idea is to limit one or more freecells to where they could be used
only once to store a card. He calls these ephemeral freecells. An
example is the traditional 8x4 layout with "c" and "d" being ephereral
freecells and being described as 8x2e2. This makes many solutions more
difficult than the traditional 8x4 scenario, but not the excessive
difficulty of an 8x2 scenario. Note: there is nothing preventing the 5H
from being moved in and out of the "c" freecell and then later being
moved in and out of the "d" freecell. However, the 5H would then be the
only card to ever use these freecells.
A drawback is that FcPro can't be used to replay solutions because some
multi-card moves might use the ephemeral freecells to move more cards
than expected, or (indirectly) use the ephemeral freecells a second
time.
Oh well, just a thought for a new scenario to consider.
Aside note: I am corrently generating short solutions for the first
2,500 deals. If anyone would like a copy, let me know.
Regards, Danny A. Jones
Received on Mon Oct 15 2012 - 10:30:35 IST