Hardness of Modern Games

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the computational complexity of modern puzzle games, establishing that Back to Bed is PSPACE-Hard and Hexiom and Cut the Rope are NP-Hard, providing insights into their structural complexity.

Contribution

It is the first to classify the complexity of these popular modern puzzle games, expanding understanding of their computational difficulty.

Findings

Back to Bed is PSPACE-Hard.

Hexiom and Cut the Rope are NP-Hard.

Results aid future complexity research.

Abstract

We consider the complexity properties of modern puzzle games, Hexiom, Cut the Rope and Back to Bed. The complexity of games plays an important role in the type of experience they provide to players. Back to Bed is shown to be PSPACE-Hard and the first two are shown to be NP-Hard. These results give further insight into the structure of these games and the resulting constructions may be useful in further complexity studies.