Khursheed Fateh's Blog: Sliding Puzzle 9x9 - 1

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Sliding Puzzle 9x9 - 1 - 221011Tu

Sliding Puzzle - 9x9 - 1

Version: 221011Tu

Other versions
Version	Link
220915Th	I solved sliding Puzzle-15 game - 220915Th

On evening of PkT 2022 Sep 14 Wed my niece asked for my help while playing sliding “puzzle 15” game. I found that she had solved top 3 rows out of total 4 rows. I felt happy on watching that and at the same time felt sorry because I had no idea how to solve that puzzle game.

Therefore for helping my niece in solving that puzzle game I started learning online that game myself. After reading some articles about that game on couple of sites/pages I found the strategy/method required for solving “puzzle 15” game.

Till late night, on that day, I kept learning and practicing solving “puzzle 15” game so that I could teach my niece next time how to play and solve puzzle games like “puzzle 15”.

While I was learning and playing that game i remembered that a few years ago i had made a similar game on computer. So on my next session on computer I started that game for playing and found that that game was actually Puzzle-8 game. Fortunately the strategy I had learned for Puzzle-15 game worked on Puzzle-8 game also and then I solved Puzzle-8 game for the first time. Major difference between Puzzle-8 game and Puzzle-15 game is dimension of their grid.

During that session of learning and playing and solving sliding Puzzle-15 game online and Puzzle-8 game on PC on game made by me in c# (c sharp) an interesting idea visited my mind. The idea was to make an upgraded version of the Puzzle-8 game I had already made on PC in c#. Major improvement I wanted to make was to make the game flexible in its size so that it could be played as 2x2 (Puzzle-3) to 9x9 (Puzzle-80) puzzle game. I kept upper limit to 9 for keeping game’s user-interface user friendly.

Quickly I started work on that idea of mine and made the new and upgraded version of Puzzle-8 in a few days in c#. In this blog in the following I am going to discuss the new and upgraded version of Puzzle-8 I named Puzzle-9x9.

Following are some screen-shots of the above mentioned sliding puzzle game demonstrating different states of application (sliding puzzle game) I made in c#.

[ Application preview ]

This image I added here as a preview of my slef made Puzzle-9x9 game I am discussing here.

[ (01) Sliding Puzzle-9x9 is loaded ]

Sliding game application is loaded and is ready for use.

[ (01a) Menu]

[ (01a1) Game's Game menu is displayed ]

Puzzle game's Game menu is clicked displaying its only option i.e. Quit.

[ (01a1a) Menu's Game/Quit option is clicked ]

Puzzle game's Game/Quit menu option is clicked and an alert message window is displayed. This window confirms wether user really want to quit application or not.

This alert window opens when user tries to Quit application using application menu's Game/Quit option or clicks form's red colored Close button on its top right or clicks system menus close option.

[ (01a2) Game's Help menu is displayed ]

Puzzle Game's Help menu is clicked displaying its 5 options.

[ (01a2a) Help/About is displayed ]

Game's Help/About option is clicked and a window is opened displaying basic information about Puzzle game application.

[ (01a2b) Help/Purpose is displayed ]

Game's Help/Purpose option is clicked and a window is opened displaying Purpose of this Puzzle game application.

[ (01a2c) Help/User-Interface is displayed ]

Game's Help/User-Interface option is clicked and a window is opened displaying information about User-interface of this Puzzle game application.

[ (01a2d) Help/How-to-use is displayed ]

Game's Help/How-to-use option is clicked and a window is opened displaying information describing how-to-use this Puzzle game application.

[ (01a2e) Help/Copyright ]

Game's Help/Copyright option is clicked and a window is opened displaying Copyright notice for this Puzzle game application.

[ (01b ) Action ]

[ (01b1) Button New is clicked ]

Button "New" is clicked. This diables "New" button and enables Shuffle" button and "Puzzle grid size" option and "Start" button. Puzzle grid with default/currently-set grid size is also displayed.

[ (01b2) Puzzle grid size option is expanded ]

Puzzle grid size comboBox is clicked displayling Puzzle grid size options available.

[ (01b2a) New Puzzle grid size is choosen ]

From "Puzzle grid size" comboBox new puzzle grid size is choosen and therefore new puzzle grid is displayled arrording to the selected grid size.

[ (01b3) Button Shuffle is clicked ]

Button "Shuffle" is clicked and tiles on sliding puzzle grid are shuffled. This option can be used for getting new tile arrangement.

[ (01b4) Button Start is clicked ]

Button "Start" is clicked. This action disables "New" button, Puzzle grid size comboBox, Shuffle button and Start button. This action enables Close button.

This action turns tile color to Steelblue for those tiles which are not on their correct position and Green to those tiles which are on their corrent position.Now Puzzle is ready for playing.

Now Puzzle is ready for player to solve it.

[ (01b4a) Some moves are made ]

Sliding puzzle game looks like in this image after some moves are made. Useful information is displayed under button sectio n on right side.

[ (01b4b) Puzzle is solved (1) ]

Puzzle is solved and a congratulating message is displayed.

[ (01b4c) Puzzle is solved (2) ]

Puzzle was solved and a congratulating message was displayed. After closing that message application looks like this. In status line application is telling that game is solved and now player must click "Close" button to close this game and get option for starting new one.

[ (01b5a) Solved Puzzle is closed ]

Puzzle was solved and then closed. In this situation application looks like in this image. All tiles on their correct position are in green color. Button "New" is enabled and everything else is disabled in action section.

[ (01b5b) Un-solved Puzzle is closed ]

Puzzle was not solved but was closed. In this situation application looks like in this image. All tiles on their correct position are in green color and others are in purple color. Button "New" is enabled and everything else is disabled in action section.