CalculatorGameSolver

Solver for Calculator: The Game, just for fun.

Usage

Coming when I have time... meanwhile please use the test.py file and try to understand the code.

Level parameters

TODO

Button patterns

TODO

Game description and rules (partly reverse-engineered / guessed)

The game is made of a multitude of levels. In each level you have a number on the screen of a calculator, some buttons, a goal number to be reached, and the maximum allowed number of moves required for passing the level.

Screen

Can contain any positive, negative decimal number, with or without decimal point as long as its exact representation fits on the screen. Can also display ERROR if it can't display a number.

TODO:

• Check if this is true
• Check the maximum numbers of symbols (appears to be 6, check thoroughly)
• Check if the minus sign and decimal point are counted in the number of displayed symbols

Maximum number of moves

Whole number > 0

Goal

Any whole number. All levels encountered had a whole number goal.

Buttons

Button pattern(s)	Colour	Description	TODO / unclear behaviour / notes
+X / -X / xX / /X	(dark gray)	Add / subtract / multiply / divide by X.
+/-	(orange)	Switch number sign.
x^P	(orange)	Raise number to power P.	What happens with dot and sign?
X -> Y	(orange)	Replace all occurrences of sequence X to sequence Y. Trailing zeroes (i.e 00) can be part of X or Y. If the screen number is not an integer, yields ERROR.	Can X and Y overlap? Can they be negative? Can they be float?
X	(purple)	Concatenate X on the right, if the number is not whole, yields ERROR.	Can X be negative or not an integer?
MIRROR	(orange)	Concatenate on the right a mirrored version of the current number. -X -> -XX. A float yields ERROR.
SUM	(orange)	Replaces the number of the screen with the sum of its digits. If the number is not whole, yields ERROR. If negative, SUM(-X) = -SUM(X).
<<	(orange)	Decimal shift to the right. XY -> X, X -> 0. Negative number yields ERROR.
Reverse	(orange)	Reverse digits of the number on the screen. Float numbers yield ERROR. If the number is negative REV(-XY) = -REV(XY) = -YX.
Shift < / Shift >	(orange)	Decimal left/right circular shift. Trailing zeroes are eliminated. If the number is negative, SHIFT(-X) = -SHIFT(X).	What happens with float numbers? Verify statement about trailing zeroes.
[+] X	(orange)	Increment all numbers in buttons by X (except this one). Negative numbers are decremented (i.e. -1 -> -1-X).	What happens with buttons containing floats? Does the substitution button also get incremented? Can X be negative?
STORE (RCL X)	(deep purple)	Two modes. Long press stores the screen value in the button. Short press concatenates the stored number X on the screen, on the right, if any. Can store a negative or float number. Recalling a float yields ERROR.	Is X incremented by the increment button? Weird behaviour with a negative stored number, moves count goes < 0, changes by itself, inconsistent, maybe a bug?
Inv10	(orange)	For each digit d in the screen number, replaces it with 10 - d. 0 -> 0. - -> -.	What happens with float numbers?

Portal

The screen may contain a portal. It consists of 2 positions on the screen. One is the entrance, and the other is the exit. "Numbers go in a portal, then come out and added to the other end." (whatever that means). Operates in a loop until there is no digit left to suck. The portal's entrance is always comes first, starting from the left of the number.

If the portal acts on a number that is not whole, the game either freezes or gives seemingly non-sensical output -> ERROR in that case for lack of a better option.

Other TODOs

• Check levels 84, 85, 153, 155, 173, 174, 177, 178, 188, 192, 196, 198, because they appear to have many solutions
• Load levels from a text file or stdin, output results to a file or stdout
• Better terminal interface and feedback (help, etc.)
• Optimize solver to reduce the number of tested solutions (for example, impossible, or 'dummy' solutions that are not feasible because they contain a prefix which is already a solution). Could also use some sort of a tree to avoid pressing buttons that change nothing, at a given time 🤔
• Maybe switch to an all-int representation. This would be cleaner, and so far I haven't seen any solution involving floats (check that thoroughly!)
• Add benchmarking!