We consider the popular smartphone game Trainyard: a puzzle game that requires the player to lay down tracks in order to route colored trains from departure stations to suitable arrival stations. While it is already known [Almanza et al., FUN 2016] that the problem of finding a solution to a given Trainyard instance (i.e., game level) is NP-hard, determining the computational complexity of checking whether a candidate solution (i.e., a track layout) solves the level was left as an open problem. In this paper we prove that this verification problem is PSPACE-complete, thus implying that Trainyard players might not only have a hard time finding solutions to a given level, but they might even be unable to efficiently recognize them.

Tracks from hell — When finding a proof may be easier than checking it

Leucci S.
;
2020-01-01

Abstract

We consider the popular smartphone game Trainyard: a puzzle game that requires the player to lay down tracks in order to route colored trains from departure stations to suitable arrival stations. While it is already known [Almanza et al., FUN 2016] that the problem of finding a solution to a given Trainyard instance (i.e., game level) is NP-hard, determining the computational complexity of checking whether a candidate solution (i.e., a track layout) solves the level was left as an open problem. In this paper we prove that this verification problem is PSPACE-complete, thus implying that Trainyard players might not only have a hard time finding solutions to a given level, but they might even be unable to efficiently recognize them.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11697/147823
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