1 Solving the Puzzle

When you start a new session of the “Grid Logic Puzzle”, you will see a grid of black, white and blue squares. This is the puzzle. You solve the puzzle by setting blue squares to the correct color, either black or white, and correcting erroneous squares. Setting blue and erroneous squares is accomplished by clicking on the squares, which alternates a square between black and white.

To figure out what the correct color of a square should be, you need to examine the grid for patterns. You will see there are patterns that repeat across the grid, and in some cases overlap. By looking at the patterns as a whole, you will be able to spot squares that diverge from the patterns, and these are erroneously colored cells. You will also be able to identify the logical color for blue squares.

To make things a little easier for you, the puzzle will keep track of which squares you have clicked with a colored outline.

When you are able to ensure all squares are colored correctly, then the grid will automatically turn green, to show that it matches the puzzle solution. At this point, you will no longer be able to modify the square colors.

2 Menu Options

The graphical user interface (GUI) provides a number of options besides solving the given puzzle.

2.1 Puzzle

These options deal with the puzzle itself.

2.1.1 New

The puzzles are generated randomly, and sometimes puzzles are generated with no clear solution. In such a case, you may want to generate a new puzzle. Or, you may just want to see what is out there.

2.1.2 Generator

Puzzles are generated from five parameters. Selecting this option will show you a toolbox where you can set the puzzle parameters and then generate a new puzzle from the parameters.

The parameters are the following, and futher details can be found in the theory documentation.

• Variable count: Number of variables used to generate the puzzle. Half of the variables are used to generate the X coordinate for the grid, and the other half are used to generate the Y coordinate for the grid. Consequently, this should be an even number greater than zero. Also, be aware the number of squares in the puzzle is two raised to the power of the number of variables. So, if you set this above 14, there will be problems.
• Term count: How many different interacting patterns appear in the puzzle. A higher number means a more complex overall pattern.
• Term size: The size of each pattern. Counterintuitively, a higher value means a smaller pattern.
• Flipped cells: How many incorrect cells to generate in the puzzle.
• Blank cells: How many blue cells (which are the blank cells since they are neither black nor white) to generate in the puzzle.

2.1.3 Quit

Self explanatory :)

2.2 Help

This menu contains both documentation links as well as a hint system.

2.2.1 Usage

Pulls up this documentation in your favorite browser.

2.2.2 Theory

Pulls up documentation about the underlying theory behind the puzzle generation, also in your favorite browser.

2.2.3 Hint

Will correct one of the original incorrect squares. Note, this will not correct any squares you have inadvertently given the wrong color :(