Ex­po­nen­tial Idle Guides

Minigames: How to Solve

Guide writ­ten by LE★Baldy. Con­tri­bu­tions from Eaux Ta­cous for the ar­row puzzle al­gorithms and The Amaz­ing Com­munity.

This guide is cur­rently un­der­go­ing change. Keep in mind, strategies may change.

Table of con­tents

Over­all set­tings #

These tips in gen­eral are very help­ful when start­ing out and fur­ther down the line. These are not re­quired, but do help, some more than oth­ers.

pa­tience is not with me

15-Puzzle Torus Ar­row
Visual Scheme Fringe In­ser­tion Gray­scale + Num­bers
Hover/​Slide Con­trol En­abled En­abled -
An­im­a­tion Dis­abled Dis­abled Dis­abled

Minigame re­wards #

The amount of stars the you get from com­plet­ing a minigame is de­term­ined by your cur­rent dt and puzzle dif­fi­culty. This re­ward can be in­creased by us­ing the Ac­cel­er­a­tion But­ton, also known as Ac­cel. These are the base star re­ward for each dif­fi­culty level of each minigame.

15-Puzzle Torus Ar­row
Easy 1 1 1
Me­dium 3 8 8
Hard 6 14 14
Ex­pert - - 25

15-Puzzle #

All Dif­fi­culties #

The al­gorithm goes as fol­lows:

  1. Solve the top row.
  2. Solve the left column.
  3. Re­peat Steps 1 and 2 for each ad­di­tional layer un­til you reach the last 2x2.
  4. Solve last 2x2 by pick­ing clock­wise or coun­ter­clock­wise and keep ro­tat­ing un­til fin­ish.
    1. This size does not mat­ter which dir­ec­tion gaur­untee­ing fin­ish in 4 or less full ro­ta­tions.
    2. However, in most cases, there is a bet­ter dir­ec­tion to spin but is less im­port­ant than the pre­vi­ous steps.
This al­gorithm works for all dif­fi­culties and is a greater im­pact on the lar­ger boards than smal­ler boards.

Ex­ample #

Torus Puzzle #

Easy #

The al­gorithm goes as fol­lows:

  1. Solve each row up to the 2nd num­ber.
    1. Solve top row for 1 and 2.
    2. Solve middle row for 4 and 5.
    3. Solve bot­tom row for 7 and 8.
  2. Move the fi­nal column up or down to fin­ish.

Ex­ample #

Me­dium #

The al­gorithm goes as fol­lows:

  1. Solve each row un­til the last column.
    1. Solve first row for 1 2 3 4.
    2. Solve secopnd row for 6 7 8 9.
    3. Con­tinue solv­ing like a and b for the re­main­ing rows.
  2. Solve right column with swaps.
    1. Find a num­ber in the column that is in the wrong po­s­i­tion.
    2. Move the piece into your row left.
    3. Move this piece from your row into the cor­rect po­s­i­tion.
    4. Re­peat a through c un­til all pieces are in the cor­rect po­s­i­tion.
  3. Move the right column un­til up or down un­til solved.
Be care­ful to not end up with a mixed up row (ex: 18 19 15 16) after swap­ping.

Ex­ample #

Hard #

The al­gorithm goes as fol­lows:

  1. Solve each row un­til the last column.
    1. Solve first row for 1 2 3 4 5.
    2. Solve second row for 7 8 9 10 11.
    3. Con­tinue solv­ing like a and b for the re­main­ing rows.
  2. Solve last column par­ity case.
    1. Find a num­ber in the column that is in the wrong po­s­i­tion.
    2. Do re­peated swaps of those num­bers by fol­low­ing this.
      1. Pick which num­bers you are go­ing to swap.
      2. Move the top num­ber into the row next to it.
      3. Move the column up to reach the bot­tom num­ber.
      4. In­sert the bot­tom num­ber into the row next to the top num­ber.
      5. Re­peat ↓ ← ↑ ← un­til num­bers are suc­cess­fully swapped.
    3. Re­peat b un­til that num­ber is in the cor­rect po­s­i­tion.
    4. Re­peat a through c un­til all num­bers are in the cor­rect po­s­i­tion.
  3. Move the last column up or down un­til solved.

Ex­ample #

Ar­row Puzzle #

Easy #

The al­gorithm goes as fol­lows:

  1. Solve top row then the middle tap­ping tiles be­low the row.
    1. Make the cen­ter tile of a row the same as one edge tile.
    2. Make the row all the same num­ber.
    3. Solve the row.
  2. Solve bot­tom row the same way but us­ing the middle row.
  3. Us­ing the top row, fin­ish the solve.

Ex­ample #

Me­dium #

The al­gorithm goes as fol­lows:

  1. Solve the top three rows after an­other tap­ping tiles be­low the row.
    1. Make the cen­ter tile the same as its ad­ja­cent edge tile.
    2. Make the other cen­ter tile the same as its ad­ja­cent edge tile.
    3. Solve the left two tiles by press­ing.
    4. Solve the right two tiles by press­ing.
  2. Solve the bot­tom row the same way but by us­ing the bot­tom row it­self.
  3. Us­ing the first and second row, fin­ish the solve.
Tip: When you solve dur­ing step 2, tap the first row the same num­ber of times as the bot­tom row. You can then use row 2 to fin­ish the solve.

Ex­ample #

Propaga­tion (for Hard and Ex­pert) #

The al­gorithm goes as fol­lows:

  1. Solve the rop row tap­ping tiles dir­ectly be­low the row.
    1. Solve the cen­ter tile.
    2. Solve the tile to the left of the cen­ter tile.
    3. Solve the tile two spaces to the left of the cen­ter tile.
    4. Solve the tile three spaces to the left of the cen­ter tile.
    5. Re­peat steps b-d but to the right of the cen­ter tile.
  2. Re­peat step 1 for every row un­til the bot­tom row (don't solve bot­tom row).
To verify there is no mis­take:

Ex­ample #

Hard and Ex­pert #

You will want to read how to propag­ate be­fore con­tinu­ing. The al­gorithm goes as fol­lows:

  1. propag­ate.
  2. La­bel the bot­tom right cells (from left to right): A, B, C, D. La­bel the top right cells (from left to right): a, b, c, d. We will be tap­ping the top row to en­code the bot­tom row onto it.
    1. Tap a so that a is the same as C.
    2. Tap b and d the num­ber of times you will need to solve C.
    3. Tap a the num­ber of times you would need to solve D.
    4. If B + D is odd, tap c three times (once in Hard). Oth­er­wise, skip this step.
  3. propag­ate from top once more to fin­ish the solve.

Ex­ample #