I've been wanting to develop a sudoku game in BYOND for some time, to the point where I even developed a puzzle generator. Problem: Generating puzzles is only semi-fast, but rating them (to the extent that's even doable) is very slow, so adding features like difficulty level is kind of impossible. The only way to get appropriate puzzles is to generate tons of them and reject (or cache for higher levels) the ones that don't fit. About 50% of all puzzles generated are super-easy.
My best thought for a speedier solution here is to develop a Java applet to do this work, since it will doubtless be faster, and have it send its results to a BYOND interface. Any other thoughts?
Lummox JR
ID:265567
 Mar 20 2006, 8:03 pm
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Mar 20 2006, 8:46 pm
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Drumersl
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That seems like a good solution. My guess is that you are creating a “library” of Sudoku puzzles that program can choose from? I would try to add a check to make sure that duplicates or shifted puzzles are not created to speed up the process. For example, if you have one easy puzzle and you just flip the puzzle over, it is basically the same puzzle, so maybe you could figure out some preliminary checks before you use the rating algorithm.
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I agree with the building before hand. Make a generator to pump out a couple thousand puzzles, then make a game to read the pregenerated puzzles. Although this sounds good, the size might become an issue. That way your users see almost no time for opening, and you just have to sit there for a few hours while building up the puzzles.
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Drumersl wrote:
That seems like a good solution. My guess is that you are creating a “library” of Sudoku puzzles that program can choose from? No; I could do that with my C++ generator. What I want is a game that can generate its own puzzles, even if it needs some sort of callable helper app to do it. I would try to add a check to make sure that duplicates or shifted puzzles are not created to speed up the process. For example, if you have one easy puzzle and you just flip the puzzle over, it is basically the same puzzle, so maybe you could figure out some preliminary checks before you use the rating algorithm. The odds of random generation creating functionally identical puzzles are astronomical, so this isn't a concern. Lummox JR | |
Gah! A Java applet to increase speed? Gads no. If you want to increase your speed, at least use something speedy. BYOND works almost exclusively on Windows, so you're pretty safe using a Windows executable written in your choice of speedy compiled languages.
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Ah, but when was the last time you embedded an ordinary Windows executable in the browser? =) I'm assuming that's what Lummox meant, since he said "Java applet" and not "Java application" - which are two pretty different things.
I'll agree that Java is slow, but in fairness that's mostly the API's fault. For pure number-crunching (like generating Sudoku puzzles) I'm willing to bet that it's faster than BYOND. | |
I would be pissed off if I couldn't play a game Lummox wrote because he assumed everyone would be using windows. 'Coz I'm not.
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If you have a graphical BYOND client on a non-Windows platform, you have a software emulator that could probably handle a simple number-crunching app. If you don't have a graphical BYOND client, don't complain because you can't play any of Lummox's games anyway.
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PirateHead wrote:
If you have a graphical BYOND client on a non-Windows platform, you have a software emulator that could probably handle a simple number-crunching app. If you don't have a graphical BYOND client, don't complain because you can't play any of Lummox's games anyway. Except SotS II, which will run in text mode but probably still doesn't look terribly great on a 'nix system. Lummox JR | |
I'm pretty sure BYOND doesn't run under WINE. And I can't tell Lummox's code to run 'wine SDKgenerator.exe' as opposed to 'SDKgenerator.exe'
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Jp wrote:
I'm pretty sure BYOND doesn't run under WINE. And I can't tell Lummox's code to run 'wine SDKgenerator.exe' as opposed to 'SDKgenerator.exe' Which is moot anyway, as I said in no uncertain terms I would not be using an .exe for this. Lummox JR | |
I seem to have hit a snag with my Java applet idea. Apparently, Java is incapable of using byond:// URLs because it doesn't recognize the protocol. Based on DM's speed at working with sudoku, though, I still think Java is the best choice of workhorse. The question arises, though, how do I get a Java applet in the browser to talk to DM?
Lummox JR | |
Scoobert wrote:
Howabout submiting it in a form. using hidden fields with java changing values? Java can't really do that; JavaScript can. Lummox JR | |
this webpage seems to explain how to get java to talk to javascript, which can then pass information to BYOND. its not the most convenient method, but it doesn't seem like it should be a problem if you're just having the applet do a bunch of calculations and pass some result back to BYOND.
i haven't been able to test anything mentioned on the website to see if it works. | |
OneFishDown wrote:
this webpage seems to explain how to get java to talk to javascript, which can then pass information to BYOND. its not the most convenient method, but it doesn't seem like it should be a problem if you're just having the applet do a bunch of calculations and pass some result back to BYOND. Well, the example on that page doesn't work, but it doesn't surprise me since it's an older page. Apparently it's using LiveConnect, a Netscape technology that seems to be difficult at best to implement in an applet. Lummox JR | |