Elsevier

Theoretical Computer Science

Volume 313, Issue 3, 19 February 2004, Pages 473-484
Theoretical Computer Science

It is tough to be a plumber

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Abstract

In the Linux computer game KPlumber, the objective is to rotate tiles in a raster of squares so as to complete a system of pipes. We give a complexity classification for the original game and various special cases of it that arise from restricting the set of six possible tiles.

Most of the cases are NP-complete. One polynomially solvable case is settled by formulating it as a perfect matching problem; other polynomial cases are settled by simple sweepline techniques. Moreover, we show that all the unsettled cases are polynomial time equivalent.

Keywords

Combinatorial game theory
NP-completeness

Cited by (0)

1

Institute for Theoretical Computer Science is supported as project LN00A056 by Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.

2

The author acknowledges support by GA CR Grant No. 201/98/1451.

3

The authors acknowledge support by Grant 201/01/1195 of GA ČR, and cooperative research Grant KONTAKT-ME476/CCR-9988360-001 from the NSF and MŠMT ČR.