Solving Scramble Squares Puzzles is easy! Just import the Legespiel-Solver from Github into your favorite IDE, implement a GameConfig, run the Solver class using this new configuration and you are done! OK, I guess it is a bit difficult, if you don’t happen to be a software-engineer. That’s why I built an (hopefully) easy-to-use web application.

How to Use it

There are six steps that the user has to go through when using Scramble Squares Solver Online:

1. Load Example: If you are too lazy to read the rest of the instructions, just load one of the examples and figure things out on your own. Good luck!
2. Define the Pictures: You have to tell the program some names for the images that are on your cards. For each picture you also have to define which picture (or pictures) it fits with. Using the Pippi Langstrumpf Absolut knifflig! as an example: The first part of the horse (“Horse 1”) fits with the second part of the horse (“Horse 2”) and vice versa.
3. Dimensions: Tell the program how many rows and columns the scramble squares puzzle has. Usually there are three rows and three columns. Thus, in all likelihood, there is nothing to do here.
4. Define the Cards: For all – usually nine – cards tell the program what pictures are on each of the four sides. This is a bit tedious, but using a keyboard (and Tab) you can get it done much faster.
5. Calculate Solutions: Just one click to display all solutions!
6. Submit Game, because it’s nice to be nice. It might even be published as part of the List of Scramble Squares Puzzles with solutions.

Creating a good user interface is hard! Especially, if you are trying to do it for something non trivial. I hope, I did a decent enough job using the great Vaadin Flow framework. In any case, I would be very happy about a comment. Or even better: Submit a new Scramble Squares Puzzle using the Scramble Squares Solver Online!

More Information

The Java program “Legespiel-Solver”, which Scramble Squares Solver Online uses to do all the heavy lifting, is free software and published under the permissive MIT-licence. You can download the complete Eclipse project at Github. There is also an article that explains how the actual algorithm works (Backtracking in The Nursery – How to Solve Scramble Squares), which is a great starting point, if you are interested in that sort of stuff.