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Puzzle Fonts
About Puzzles

Erik Demaine•Martin Demaine•@ M.I.T.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/science/ puzzles-fonts-math-demaine.html

Tetris Font

  • NP-complete with 8 columns or 4 rows[Asif, Coulombe, Demaine, Demaine, Hesterberg, Lynch, Singhal 2020]

Puzzle Font: Falling

Puzzle Font: Packing

Puzzle Fonts about Puzzles

  • Mathematical font illustrates mathematical theorems or problems in the glyphs themselves
  • Puzzle font requires solving puzzle to read text
  • Theme today: Fonts about a puzzle/puzzle game

Sudoku[Howard Garns, 1979]

Sudoku Font

  • NP-complete[Yato, Seta 2003]

Sudoku Font Variations

Sudoku Font Puzzles

  • Future work: Generate hard Sudoku puzzles

Yin-Yang Puzzles[Puzzler, 1994]

Yin-Yang Font

  • NP-complete[Demaine, Lynch, Rudoy, Uno 2021]

Yin-Yang Puzzle

https://erikdemaine.org/fonts/yinyang/g4g.html

Path Puzzles[Rod Kimball, 2013]

Path Puzzle Font

  • NP-complete[Bosboom, Demaine, Demaine, Hesterberg, Kimball, Kopinsky, 2010]

Tatamibari[Nikoli, 2004]

Tatamibari Font

  • NP-complete[Adler, Bosboom, Demaine, Demaine, Liu, Lynch 2020]