Match Blox (Compute's Gazette)
"Match Blox" is a solitaire puzzle game in which you try to solve any of the give variations in the fewest number of moves possible. Each game is played on a 3x3 matrix of squares and each square is colored blue or orange. The object is simple: Manipulate the squres until they match the pattern displayed.
The article for this game can be found on page 50 of Compute's Gazette Issue 41 (November 1986)
Why TAS This Game?
The continuation of TASing games from my all-time favorite magazine, Compute's Gazette. This makes my 83rd TAS from this series.
Again, this was another magazine that I never had. Not sure if I really missed out on casual play here, but apparently...I missed out on some great logical challenges. Regardless of how I would have felt back then, I can say that I'm more excited about this game (in terms of TASing) than back then.
Game Difficulty and Ending
This game doesn't have a selection of difficulty, as it is a pure logic game. The ending is solving all 5 available puzzles, which afterwards...its a repeat.
Effort In TASing (BOTed)
This was one of the most exciting TASes I've created. Why? Because this is the first time that I have created a TRUE Brute Force solving program...where the possibilities could be enormous for a human. Here, my brute forcing was done externally against the emulator. The game doesn't have any AI or RNG responses, so the given puzzle stands to be solved in a purely logical way.
My approach was to write a C# application to accomplish this. It took me about 1 1/2 hours, which afterwards...the results were shockingly fast and delivered the most minimal moves possible. The only thing, outside of these brute forced solutions, were to apply them against the 5 different solving patterns. Doing so in the right order optimized my efforts an additional 179 frames. So I am extremely happy about the outcome here.
| Puzzle Selection (Order of selection) | Puzzle Name | Solving Moves | Brute Force Attempts | |
| 5 | 5 Points | 2,3,9 | 113 | |
| 4 | 4 Corners | 7,5,2,1 | 510 | |
| 3 | No Center | 4,5,1 | 82 | |
| 1 | Uni-Color | 1,5,7,9 | 373 | |
| 2 | Cross | 2,4,5,6,9,5,8 | 28128 |
Solutions (Updated)
This is the new order that I solved the puzzles in. This is an improvement that came from trying more RNG seeds.
| Puzzle Selection (Order of selection) | Puzzle Name | Solving Moves | Brute Force Attempts |
| 2 | Cross | 1,3,2 | 87 |
| 5 | 5 Points | 2,4,1 | 142 |
| 3 | No Center | 5,4,9 | 171 |
| 1 | Uni-Color | 2,7 | 27 |
| 4 | 4 Corners | 6,5,4,1 | 1024 |
Human Comparison
Nobody seems to know this game or have played it. :(
nymx: Uploading a 401 frame improvement.
CoolHandMike: Claiming for judging.
CoolHandMike: Solutions for these puzzles look optimal. Poked around and the inputs look good too. Match Blox is a fun example of a simple puzzle game.
Accepting to Standard. Congrats!
Notes: Used gameplay reference page from magazine:
- Only Orange squares can be changed. Pressing B for Fire on a blue square does nothing. Change tiles with Up, Down, Left, Right keys.
- Pressing Fire on a corner tile reverses the color of that square and the three adjacent squares. Ex: Pressing Fire on (7) would change the colors of (8, 4, and 5).
- Pressing Fire on an edge square reverses the color as well as the two adjoining squares. Pressing Fire on the center top tile (8) would change the color of that tile and the ones to the left and right (7 and 9). Pressing Fire on the tile on the second row on in the first column (4) would change that tile and also (7 and 1).
- Pressing Fire on the Center square reverses its color and so are the colors of the four edge squares. Pressing Fire on (5) would also flip the color of that tile and (8, 4, 6, and 2).
fsvgm777: Processing. Also replacing the movie file with one that sets the re-record count to 0, due to the submission having botted rerecords (per current policy).