Tantrix
Over this past holiday season, I learned about Tantrix which is a game or puzzle involving hexagonal tiles. Tantrix can be enjoyed as a multi-player game or as a solo Tantrix puzzle. I was introduced to a Tantrix puzzle involving 10 tiles. I took a picture of the tiles along with a picture of the tile backs for reference. As the tile backs indicate, the puzzle is to form a closed loop of a given color for 3 through 10 tiles. All touching tile edges must match in color.
I manually solved up to 7 tiles, pretty much by trial and error without trying to formulate an algorithm or method. I decided it would be more interesting to write software to solve this Tantrix puzzle.
The software took a couple of days to write. It displays the connected hexagons with color edges shown. From there, I assembled the solution into a more meaningful display with tile graphics. The solutions are not necessarily unique - the software stops after finding the first solution.
3 tiles yellow
4 tiles red
5 tiles red
6 tiles blue
7 tiles red
8 tiles blue
9 tiles yellow
10 tiles blue
Depending on whose rules one goes by, it could be challenged that this is not a solution because of the unused cell position in the middle, but I rather like it.
2010 Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2011 Jan Feb Mar Apr Jun Sep Oct Dec
2012 Jan Feb Apr May Jun Oct Nov Dec
2013 Jan Feb Mar May Jun Dec
2014 Jan Mar Jun Jul Aug Oct Nov Dec
2015 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Oct Nov Dec
2016 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2017 Jan Feb Apr Oct
2018 Jan Feb Mar Apr
2020 Mar Apr May
