Classic Nintendo Games are (Computationally) Hard
Greg Aloupis, Erik D. Demaine, Alan Guo, Giovanni Viglietta
TL;DR
This paper establishes that several classic Nintendo video games are computationally hard problems, proving NP-hardness and PSPACE-completeness for various game versions, highlighting their complexity from a computational perspective.
Contribution
The paper provides the first formal computational complexity proofs for multiple major Nintendo game franchises, demonstrating their NP-hardness and PSPACE-completeness.
Findings
NP-hardness of five Nintendo game franchises
PSPACE-completeness of Donkey Kong Country and some Zelda games
Generalized game versions are computationally complex
Abstract
We prove NP-hardness results for five of Nintendo's largest video game franchises: Mario, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. Our results apply to generalized versions of Super Mario Bros. 1-3, The Lost Levels, and Super Mario World; Donkey Kong Country 1-3; all Legend of Zelda games; all Metroid games; and all Pokemon role-playing games. In addition, we prove PSPACE-completeness of the Donkey Kong Country games and several Legend of Zelda games.
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Taxonomy
TopicsDigital Games and Media · Artificial Intelligence in Games · Educational Games and Gamification