prisoner

Represent, solve and generate Unblock Me / Rush Hour style puzzle games in JavaScript.

Using

You can install with either npm or bower

$ npm install prisoner

or

$ bower install prisoner

The prisoner.js defines a module that works in Node, AMD or it will create a browser global (prisoner).

The module contains the following:

• Game({width, height, prisoner}) - a class that represents a state of the game and holds pieces. The constructor takes a width, height and prisoner (Piece) object. For example:

  game = new prisoner.Game({
    width: 4, height: 4, new prisoner.Piece({x: 2, y: 2}, {x: 3, y: 2})
  });

  • Game.addPiece(piece) - add a piece to the game.

  • Game.move(pieceNumber, direction, steps) - move a specific piece in a specific direction a specific number of steps. Returns false if the movement is invalid. pieceNumber is the zero based order the pieces were added. So the prisoner will always be 0.

    direction is a boolean the represents whether or not the movement will be positive or negative. For example if the piece is horizontal, false will move it right and true will move it left. If the piece is vertical false will move it up and true will move it down.

    steps is the amount of moves it should take in that direction. Default is 1.

  • Game.canExit() - returns a boolean that represents if the prisoner can exit or not.

• arrayToGame(array) - converts a multidimensional array to a Game. For example:

  game = prisoner.arrayToGame([
    [2, 0, 0, 4, 0,  5],
    [2, 3, 3, 4, 0,  5],
    [2, 0, 1, 1, 10, 0],
    [6, 6, 6, 0, 10, 11],
    [0, 0, 8, 0, 10, 11],
    [7, 7, 8, 9, 9,  0]
  ]);

• solve(game) - solves the game and returns an object that contains a game representing the solution, an array of games that represent the steps needed to win and the diffs corresponding to each step ({solution, steps, diffs}). Returns false if it was unable to solve.

Representing a game

Let's represent the following game (taken from Unblock Me):

You can either create a new Game object yourself and add the pieces manually like this:

var game = new prisoner.Game({
  width: 6,
  height: 6,
  prisoner: new prisoner.Piece({x: 2, y: 2}, {x: 3, y: 2})
});

game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 0, y: 0}, {x: 0, y: 2}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 1, y: 1}, {x: 2, y: 1}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 3, y: 0}, {x: 3, y: 1}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 5, y: 0}, {x: 5, y: 1}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 0, y: 3}, {x: 2, y: 3}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 0, y: 5}, {x: 1, y: 5}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 2, y: 4}, {x: 2, y: 5}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 3, y: 5}, {x: 4, y: 5}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 4, y: 2}, {x: 4, y: 4}));
game.addPiece(new prisoner.Piece({x: 5, y: 3}, {x: 5, y: 4}));

You can then check that the game is represented correctly:

>>> game.matrix
[
  [2, 0, 0, 4, 0,  5],
  [2, 3, 3, 4, 0,  5],
  [2, 0, 1, 1, 10, 0],
  [6, 6, 6, 0, 10, 11],
  [0, 0, 8, 0, 10, 11],
  [7, 7, 8, 9, 9,  0]
]

An alternative way to initialize a game is to use the arrayToGame function.

game = prisoner.arrayToGame([
  [2, 0, 0, 4, 0,  5],
  [2, 3, 3, 4, 0,  5],
  [2, 0, 1, 1, 10, 0],
  [6, 6, 6, 0, 10, 11],
  [0, 0, 8, 0, 10, 11],
  [7, 7, 8, 9, 9,  0]
]);

Solving a game

Let's solve the following game:

game = prisoner.arrayToGame([
  [2, 0, 0, 4, 0,  5],
  [2, 3, 3, 4, 0,  5],
  [2, 0, 1, 1, 10, 0],
  [6, 6, 6, 0, 10, 11],
  [0, 0, 8, 0, 10, 11],
  [7, 7, 8, 9, 9,  0]
]);

// `prisoner.solve` will return an object that has a `solution` game object.
solvedData = prisoner.solve(game);

>>> solvedData.solution.matrix
[
  [0, 0, 8, 4, 0,  5],
  [3, 3, 8, 4, 0,  5],
  [2, 1, 1, 0, 0,  0],
  [2, 6, 6, 6, 10, 0],
  [2, 0, 0, 0, 10, 11],
  [7, 7, 9, 9, 10, 11]
]

Generating a game

Coming soon...