Algorithm and data structure for solving the game “Globs”/flood fill/“FloodIt”

Question

Suggest an algorithm and data structure for solving the game Globs (http://www.deadwhale.com/play.php?game=131). It\'s pretty fun in a geeky kind of way.

State t

Answer 1

A brute-force recursive search will find the maximum score. You have at most 5^25 ending states to consider. Many intermediate states will be equivalent; it may be faster to recognize these and prune the search space of duplicates. Keep track of the highest score found so far as you search, along with the path (sequence of moves) that it took to get there.