Love it!<p>If you like this sort of thing, be sure to check out Simon Tatham (creator of PuTTY)’s Puzzles: <a href="https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/" rel="nofollow">https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/</a><p>The Android and iPhone ports are also excellent and free from ads/garbage.
Interesting tidbit, the Battleships puzzle is NP-complete (<a href="http://www.mountainvistasoft.com/docs/BattleshipsAsDecidabilityProblem.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.mountainvistasoft.com/docs/BattleshipsAsDecidabil...</a>) - there's no known solver algorithm that can do it in polynomial time, as the size of the puzzles / boards expand.
Thank you for making it mobile-friendly. I almost made my own Android version of this just because the usual site I played it on wasn't usable and the best I could find in the Play store was mostly there to sell you $1.99 packs of 50 puzzles as if there was any actual effort put into generating them (seriously, they acted like 1 free puzzle per week was generosity).<p>Although can we get a setting to switch left and right click's default actions? I prefer puzzle games like this to use "click where there is something, right click to mark where there isn't something".
Ooh, this is a fun variant of nonograms! If you like this puzzle, I think you'd enjoy those too: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram</a>
Weirdly I find the 15x15 puzzles to be easier in general than the 6x6 ones. Maybe it is because the 15x15 ones aren't packed as tightly so you don't have to use as much second order logic?<p>The only suggestion I would make is have a middle click that marks a spot as a possibility.
Another similar puzzle game is Dungeons & Diagrams on Zachtronics’s <i>Last Call BBS</i>. You have to build a dungeon on an 8x8 grid by deciding which spaces are wall tiles, with some constraints (such as “dead ends must have monsters and vice versa”). That game likewise tells you a sum that each row and column must meet.<p>Someone made a free clone here:<p><a href="https://netchips.dev/" rel="nofollow">https://netchips.dev/</a>
Bimaru is a fun puzzle. I remember putting an Android App in the store containing the phrase "Battleships", only to receive a copyright claim from Hasbro, and Google immediately took the App down from the Store.<p>I rewrote it as a web version, should be still available: <a href="https://www.kleemans.ch/static/bimaru-web/" rel="nofollow">https://www.kleemans.ch/static/bimaru-web/</a>
This doesn't work for me on Firefox Mobile on Android at 10x10 or above. It's as if the touch targets get too small to select: I can click on the numbers to turn them red, but I can't seem to select any square.<p>Works well on smaller sizes and on Chrome on the same device.
I find the implementation of dragging really annoying compared to similar engines. What I'm used to is:<p>* click and drag will only operate in a single line, either horizontally or vertically<p>* click and drag will only perform the same operation (considering both original type and new type). In particular, if I've already filled in every other cell as water, dragging in "ship" mode should only fill in the empty cells, not overwrite the water.<p>* there should be "undo" support, both Ctrl-Z and U as well as a button<p>Another feature usually <i>not</i> found in similar engines, but really useful in order to regain some of the experience from solving them on paper:<p>* have a nearby text box for keeping notes; clear it when a new puzzle is started
I think "doesn't engage the language center of my brain" is more accurate (and less pejorative) than "mindless". It certainly engages spatial reasoning and some logic.
Given the rules, it would be a better experience if squares only have two states: ship block or empty. There is no point to letting the user draw water. The feature probably exists with the intent of letting users mark squares that can't possibly be ships, but why wouldn't the game do that step by itself based on the blocks placed? That would make the game a lot less tedious.
Kinda addictive. I lost a few hours to this today. I hope you’re happy. ;) After getting pretty quick at the 15x15, it has minesweeper vibes. Works great on iPad, and the implementation is nice. Thank you for sharing.
I've spent quite a few hours on this thing when I've needed something non-linguistic for my brain to engage in. If it was World of Warcraft, I'd probably be a level 30 rogue.
Nice! In line with other apps like this (e.g. LinkedIn's queens), I think the grid should be marked complete once you have all the boats, without needing to mark all the water.
This is one of the puzzles at BrainBashers:<p><a href="https://www.brainbashers.com/battleships.asp" rel="nofollow">https://www.brainbashers.com/battleships.asp</a>
This is advice to the creator:<p>I think there are unstated rules. Some are implied by the hints (eg 'you can fill water around a ship') but it's not clear to me at first <i>why</i> that hint works. It looks like ships can never share an edge, just based on the puzzles so far.<p>I am enjoying the game. Thanks for introducing me to something new.
I usually play it on here:
<a href="https://gridgames.app/battleships/" rel="nofollow">https://gridgames.app/battleships/</a><p>In this version, the field can be prefilled with some ship parts
Cool to see this here. I like the design and instructions.<p>I’m publishing a paperback book of (numeric) logic puzzles:<p><a href="https://www.kakurokokoro.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.kakurokokoro.com</a>
having played a lot of this puzzle on <a href="https://www.puzzle-battleships.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.puzzle-battleships.com/</a> ... I'd love a couple QoL improvements, one from there and one to be better than that one<p>- counters for columns/rows would be a nice idea to steal<p>- inverse control (so, lmb for ship) would help with not interfering with default behaviour, for people switching to/from different puzzles<p>Also ship helper really should come with each type on its own line - your listing is harder to parse than on that website
I think there's a bug. If we have two two-length ships, that are next to each other in a connected in an "L" shape, it's not possible to define it on the board.
This implementation seems to work a little better: <a href="https://www.puzzle-battleships.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.puzzle-battleships.com/</a>
"Ships can't touch diagonally."<p>But it lets you do it and then tells you it's wrong at the end.<p>When the "4" has a strikethrough, the strike is almost impossible to see.
Do some puzzles require trial and error solving? I’m in a 7x7 that doesn’t seem to have a way to 100% rule in/out squares early on.<p>Good chance I’m not seeing one, but I’ve been staring at it for a while, and not seeing it.<p>If someone told me “yeah, all puzzles have exactly one solution, but may require trial and error”, I would feel (only slightly) less dumb.<p>The puzzle is:<p>Ships: 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1<p>Top numbers: 4 2 1 2 1 1 3<p>Left numbers: 2 1 4 2 0 4 1<p>Freebie ship square: col 4, row 3<p>Edit: one thing I just realized is that I could have eliminated the diagonal squares from the freebie.<p>Side suggestion: I can’t go back to my puzzle — would be nice if the puzzle was hashed into the URL somehow.<p>Edit 2: Also just realized that the freebie square(s) may point in a direction, so the adjacent square is guaranteed a ship. Don’t know why I didn’t figure that out sooner. I assumed it wouldn’t hint at that or else it would’ve just filled it in for you.
I've been using Simon Tatham's Puzzles for years, but I appreciate this clean, web-based implementation of Battleships. The mobile responsiveness is particularly well done. One suggestion: it would be great to have a 'pencil mark' feature for noting potential ship locations, similar to how Sudoku puzzles handle candidates.