What is the sliding puzzle party game?

Answer

What is a sliding puzzle? Sliding puzzles come in various forms and level of difficulties. Let’s take a look at the origin of sliding puzzles. The first sliding puzzle consisted of 15 pieces that were labeled with numbers 1 through 15. The 15 pieces were placed inside a 4 x 4 piece frame. Therefore, the frame had 16 available slots for the pieces. This allowed the 15 pieces plus one empty slot. The arrangement of the 15 pieces can be varied from increasing numerical order to a random order.

The purpose of the game is to start with an initial arrangement of the pieces and end up with a specified position of one of the pieces. For example, the number “1” piece could start at the top left of the frame. The game would involve moving the “1” piece to the bottom right of the frame. The start and end positions of the “1” piece can be varied to enable further puzzles.

Think you can master this puzzle? The major constraint you have to deal with is that the pieces can only slide. They can not be lifted, turned, or skip over other pieces. Hence the “sliding” puzzle name. This constraint gives the puzzle a complexity that begs to be solved.

First answer by JillianG. Last edit by JillianG. Contributor trust: 332 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 75 [recommend question]