I came up with this type of puzzle at the same time (in fact, on the very same day in a coffee shop in Cleveland) as the Circumnavigational puzzles. However, the circumnavigational puzzles turned out to be a lot easier to construct that the jumping wall puzzles. As a result, I had made many complete circumnavigational puzzles before I even figured out how to go about constructing a single jumping wall puzzle.
The complexity lies in the interaction between the possible jumps from hexagon to hexagon and the wall segments going around the hexagons, as I'm sure you would imagine if you've attempted to solve any of this type of puzzle. I tried constructing these puzzles by first laying out an intended wall and jump pattern in a certain space of hexagons, and then trying to see what "dead ends" or incorrect combinations of jumps and walls there might be. Unfortunately, this led to several unintended solutions, often more simplistic than the solution I had intended.
This problem took a while to solve, but I finally relied on a technique used in the If Then City Block puzzles. I first draw up a physical space of hexagons, and chart out all of the possible paths from start to finish, and all of the possible wall constructions. Then I examine both sets of possibilities, and examine the differences and commonalities between them, searching for a unique combination of jumps and walls that would rule out all other possible combinations. Sometimes, this turns out to be pretty easy, as was the case with puzzle two. Sometimes, it is very difficult, and requires several revisions to the physical hexagonal space, the start/finish hexagons, the hexagons on which you are required to land, the start/finish of the wall, and the required wall segments.
Last updated: October 31, 2003
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