This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Waffle Solver
Jun
7
2023
One of my daily mini-diversions is to play Waffle.
Waffle is a word game, over at wafflegame.net
You are given a grid of letters and you need to swap letters until they form the expected words. It’s quick and simple, and the solution is rarely elusive.
What is challenging about it though is that it gives you between 10 and 15 turns to find the solution. The best solution is in 10 moves, which gives you 5 stars.
You’re able to play the daily waffle only once, so give it your best shot there. But if you’re short of the 5-star ranking, you can play it later in the waffle archives.
I go back and try to get 5 stars on them if I miss it the first day. And most of the time I’m able to get it. But some of them I was not getting – I was stuck on 4 stars no matter what I tried.
I thought a brute-force process might find the optimum solution, but of course I didn’t want to do that myself, so I wrote a Python script to find the way to solve it in 10 moves.
But the output was to the console, and thus not user friendly to the general public. So then I wrote a Python script to generate the image showing the moves, trying to get it to match what someone would see on their screen when they’re playing the game.
And then I wrote a Python script to grab the other puzzles from the waffle archives.
Then I put the results on Some Fun Site, so you can go there to see the best solutions to the waffle game.
I was using all that for my Python training. I hadn’t used Python before, but people at work were using it for certain scripts so I thought I’d see what the fuss was about.
Overall, I’m not a fan of Python. It can be useful, but it’s awkward to me. I much prefer PHP.
Anyway, go play the Waffle game and if you get stuck then go over to Some Fun Site to get some help.
Then Samson said to them, “Let me now propose a riddle for you; if you actually tell me the answer within the seven days of the feast, and solve it, then I will give you thirty linen wraps and thirty outfits of clothes.
Judges 14:12
