Here are Ron's favorite games/puzzles:
Mastermind: The object of this game is to guess a code made up of different color pegs. After each guess you are given the number of pegs in the correct position and the number of pegs that are the correct color, but wrong position. You then formulate your next guess. I wrote this game (or rewrote it many time in different languages). The program creates the code and you try to guess it. The program then will use an algorithm that I came up with to guess at the same code. The object is then to be able to beat the programs ability to guess. The program can handle codes made up of 6 to 9 different colors and code lengths of 4 or 5 pegs. This provides 8 different complexity levels:
|
Code Length |
Colors |
Permutations |
| 4 | 6 | 1296 |
| 4 | 7 | 2401 |
| 4 | 8 | 4096 |
| 4 | 9 | 6561 |
| 5 | 6 | 7776 |
| 5 | 7 | 16807 |
| 5 | 8 | 32768 |
| 5 | 9 | 59049 |
Minesweeper: This is the game that is included in Microsoft Windows. The object is to guess where the mines are in a field. By selecting a square if there is no mine it will reveal how many mines are around that square, however if there is a mine you blow up. I wrote a program that will figure out where mines are given initial guesses. I think that I have come up with a new type of mathematics to solve this.