PSPACE-Completeness of Sliding-Block Puzzles and Other Problems through the Nondeterministic Constraint Logic Model of Computation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a nondeterministic graph-based computation model and proves that several classic puzzles, including sliding-block puzzles and Sokoban, are PSPACE-complete, even under highly restricted conditions.

Contribution

It establishes PSPACE-completeness of sliding-block puzzles and Sokoban with minimal restrictions, providing new complexity results and simpler proofs for these problems.

Findings

Sliding-block puzzles are PSPACE-hard even with domino pieces.

Sokoban remains PSPACE-complete without barriers.

The nondeterministic constraint logic model generalizes previous frameworks.

Abstract

We present a nondeterministic model of computation based on reversing edge directions in weighted directed graphs with minimum in-flow constraints on vertices. Deciding whether this simple graph model can be manipulated in order to reverse the direction of a particular edge is shown to be PSPACE-complete by a reduction from Quantified Boolean Formulas. We prove this result in a variety of special cases including planar graphs and highly restricted vertex configurations, some of which correspond to a kind of passive constraint logic. Our framework is inspired by (and indeed a generalization of) the ``Generalized Rush Hour Logic'' developed by Flake and Baum. We illustrate the importance of our model of computation by giving simple reductions to show that several motion-planning problems are PSPACE-hard. Our main result along these lines is that classic unrestricted sliding-block puzzles are PSPACE-hard, even if the pieces are restricted to be all dominoes (1x2 blocks) and the goal is simply to move a particular piece. No prior complexity results were known about these puzzles. This result can be seen as a strengthening of the existing result that the restricted Rush Hour puzzles are PSPACE-complete, of which we also give a simpler proof. Finally, we strengthen the existing result that the pushing-blocks puzzle Sokoban is PSPACE-complete, by showing that it is PSPACE-complete even if no barriers are allowed.