19 March 2014

Sokoban lessons - Squares and small diamonds

The square (8 or 9 boxes) is one of the most nice figures, and one of my favorites. Monry, Kenyam, GRIGoRusha, François Marques, Thomas Reinke, and especially Kevin B. Reilly, is the authors who more have dealt with this figure.

In this post I made a selection of the most interesting and beautiful squares. I also include a selection of "small diamonds" (= square rotated 45°). Condition: the puzzles may have other goals, but independent of the figure, and a maximum of three goals.


You can download all puzzles (except commercial) here:
 





Author: unknown (Thinking Rabbit)
Title: 倉庫番2 ("Sokoban 2"; Thinking Rabbit, 1984) #37
Note: published later in Soko-Ban (Spectrum HoloByte, 1988) #44, Sokoban (Game Boy, 1989) #09-07, and Sokoban Perfect (1989) #174
Date: February 1984
Difficulty: 4.5
Best moves/pushes: 483/191

The second "square" of Sokoban (the first is the previous level Sokoban 2 #35 = Original #43).





Author: Masaki Nakajo
Title: Sokoban Revenge #199 八点鐘 (Eight o'clock)
Date: 1991
Difficulty: 5
Best moves/pushes: 383/141

Excellent storage problem. See another version similar: Ultimate Sokoban (PlayStation, Itochu Corp., 1996), Stage 2 Chapter 2 Level 3.





Author: unknown (Thinking Rabbit)
Title: Ultimate Sokoban (PlayStation, Itochu Corp.), Stage 3 Chapter 3 Level 4
Date: September 1996
Difficulty: 4.5
Best moves/pushes: 360/121

Another beautiful level of unknown author.





Author: Jean-Pierre Kent + monry
Title: JPK Levels #11 a
Date: November 1998. Remodel: c. February 1999
Difficulty: 5.5
Best moves/pushes: 444/130

Rotary level, with
central storage and rooms around, arranged by monry (added a wall and move a box).




Author: monry
Title: monry-light #83 一体問題シリーズ (One problem series)
Date: 1998.12.4
Difficulty: 6
Best moves/pushes: 192/47

A original storage problem.





Author: monry
Title: monry-light #92 どっち? (Which way?)
Date: 1998.12.13
Difficulty: 6
Best moves/pushes: 320/89

Another excellent and fun storage problem. Pay attention to the rooms on the left.





Author: monry
Title: monry-light #114
Date: 1999.3.22
Difficulty: 7
Best moves/pushes: 477/92

Remodel of previous monry-light #102. It is the last puzzle in the monry-light series, and perhaps the best of the "squares" of monry, with a difficult storage. Note in the upper-right corner the "mechanism" with a double room and a captive box, that allows the passage from N-S and S-N, changing conveniently the position of the captive box (up/down in the double room).

Monry has a lot of squares. See especially monry-light #6 (good), #11, #26, #34, #38, #43, #53, #102, #104, #106 (the beginning is very weak, but the second part is very good); and FirstStep 801, 803.





Author: Kazuo Fukushima
Title: #2
Date: 1999.7.30
Difficulty: 5
Best moves/pushes: 101/29

A magical small diamond. Hint: If you move any box of the central "four" in the diamond, the level has no solution :)





Author: Hirohiko Nakamiya
Title: Nakamiya #8
Note: also published in Monster Sokoban 8-3
Date: July 2000
Website: miya.s16.xrea.com/selection/bannin/
Difficulty: 6.5
Best moves/pushes: 288/67

Beautiful and difficult square. See also Nakamiya #1 (Monster Sokoban 8-4), I think more harder.





Author: Kenyam (Kenya Maruyama)
Title: Kenyam Set A #12 back and forth
Comment:
Tried to make it more difficult, but failed... Anyway, this is yet a relatively difficult one among my SetA works.
Date: c. 2000
Website: www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Domino/7999/soko/skrmc_a.htm
Difficulty: 7
Best moves/pushes: 325/82

Storage area in the center and rooms around. Surprisingly difficult, despite the fact that the storage area has four entrances.

See also #17, #21 and #39, all three compact and very difficult.





Author: Kevin B. Reilly + Jordi Doménech
Title: kevin465 a
Set: The beautiful world of remodels 3 #20
Comment: reduction and redraw map, added 3 boxes
Date: c. May 2000. Remodel: 2010.8.27
Difficulty: 5.5
Best moves/pushes: 527/137

Another nice storage problem.





Author: Howard Abed
Title: SokoCreation #62
Date: c. September 2000
Difficulty: 6 (H.A.)
Best moves/pushes: 95/24

Totally classic: a square within a cross-shaped structure.

See also other versions, more difficult: Sokoban Revenge #135 (Hidemitsu Kobayashi, 9 boxes), #211 (Yoshio Sakae, 9 boxes), and #299 (Hiroshi Inoue, 9 boxes, hard); monry, monry-light #35 (+1 wall), Arpad Fekete #2 (9 boxes), niwa, Houdini II - old (9 boxes and "start with end position", hard), Přemysl Zíka, Secundus gradus ad Olympo #20 (+1 wall).





Author: ZiKo (Zbigniew Kornaś)
Title: Stage #021
Comment:
Final rearranged: 29.9.2000
G4B Month Level (11/2000)
Special thanks to Hirohiko Nakamiya for revieving this level!
Difficulty: 8
Best moves/pushes: 255/71

Hard. A square inside a ring structure. The biggest problem is how to remove the two boxes below.





Author: Sven Egevad
Title: SE 456
Comment: assemble medium
Date: c. 2001
Website: www.egevad.nu/sven/
Difficulty: 5
Best moves/pushes: 164/53

Logic.





Author: GRIGoRusha (Evgeny Grigoriev)
Title: Grigr2001 #66 The doors
Date: November-December 2001
Website: grigr.narod.ru/sokoban.htm
Difficulty: 7
Best moves/pushes: 363/118

Hard rotary level, with central storage and rooms around.





Author: Marcus Palstra + Jordi Doménech
Title: #1 Look before you leap! b1
Set: The beautiful world of remodels 1 #54 (arr.)
Date: 9.12.2001. Remodel: April 2010 (and rearranged now for this post)
Website:
sokoban-jd.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-favorite-authors-marcus-palstra_10.html
Difficulty: 6
Best moves/pushes: 866/214

This puzzle could be entitled "Square pilgrimage": one by one, the boxes walk through all the rooms of the level, to build the square.





Author: GRIGoRusha (Evgeny Grigoriev)
Title: Grigr2002 #103 Colobok
Date: March-November 2002
Website: grigr.narod.ru/sokoban.htm
Difficulty: 8.5
Best moves/pushes: 315/83

Exceptional compact! It should assemble and disassemble the square, and at the same time move the boxes at the bottom.





Author: GRIGoRusha (Evgeny Grigoriev)
Title: Grigr2002 #126 Blue Eye
Date: March-November 2002
Website: grigr.narod.ru/sokoban.htm
Difficulty: 7.5
Best moves/pushes: 350/109

Amazing! You will need 279/87 moves to place the first box. Very similar to the previous fun level #117 ("Dreams"), but I think this level #126 is a bit more difficult.

See also Grigr2002 #34, GrigrSpecial #8 (hard), GrigrSun #6 "Opened Heart" (extremely hard,
I confess that I have not been able to solve it).




Author: François Marques
Title: Le concours du moi - Bonus levels #9 Around the square
Comment:
Ce tableau est un inédit.
Il a été créé spécialement pour les participants au concours du mois d'août 2002 organisé sur le site de sokoban online.
Date: 2002.8.4
Website: sokoban.online.fr/
Difficulty: 7
Best moves/pushes: 566/208

Funny and disconcerting rotary level. It seems easy, but it is not. See also compact levels, all difficult: 100 boxes #9; Kokoban #10, #17 and #25. However, my favorite is a big square of 12 boxes: Kokoban #38 "The jail".





Author: Ghislain Martin
Title: SokoStation #175 Nœud marin
Date: 2003.12.31
Website: www.sokoban.fr/
Difficulty: 4
Best moves/pushes: 76/24

"Marine knot". Logic.





Author: Sven Egevad
Title: SE 1005
Comment: many-in-goal hard
Date: c. 2004
Website: www.egevad.nu/sven/
Difficulty: 7
Best moves/pushes: 120/29

Hard diamond, but fun and nice to solve.





Author: Thomas Reinke
Title: Calx #19 arr.
Date: July 2005
Difficulty: 8
Best moves/pushes: 197/48

Hard! Square within a mini cruciform structure. The difficulty is guaranteed.
I've taken the liberty of changing the position of two boxes.




Author: Thomas Reinke
Title: Patera #8
Date: July 2005
Difficulty: 5
Best moves/pushes: 135/24

Funny small diamond at the crossroads of
three rings. Another version with four more boxes: Quagmire #43.




Author: Marko Dzekic
Title: Marko Dzekic #1
Date: November 2007
Difficulty: 4.5
Best moves/pushes: 378/160

Simple and easy, but disconcerting storage.





Author: Přemysl Zíka
Title: First levels #142
Date: c. 2009-2011
Website: www.zusbreznice.cz/rozvrhy-zika-premysl-sokoban.cz
Difficulty: 6.5
Best moves/pushes: 677/180

Fantastic rotary puzzle.





Author: David W. Skinner
Title: Sasquatch X #19
Date: July 2010
Difficulty: 4.5
Best moves/pushes: 75/18

Small diamond within a Brigid's cross.





Author: Jordi Doménech
Title: Miniatures - Part Two #24 ZiKo style hard
Date: December 2010
Website:
www.abelmartin.com/rj/sokoban.html
sokoban-jd.blogspot.com/

Difficulty: 8.5
Best moves/pushes: 492/141

Hard! Recommended only for experienced players :P





Author: Thomas Reinke
Title: Quagmire 2 #5 Stockade
Date: November 2011
Difficulty: 8
Best moves/pushes: 218/75

Excellent and hard square! In fact, it's a cross-shaped structure, with two arms forming half ring... A lot of changes of wall with the boxes!





Author: Thomas Reinke
Title: Quagmire 2 #31 Stockade II
Date: November 2011
Difficulty: 7.5
Best moves/pushes: 181/44

Move it! Another amazing square at the intersection of two rings.





Author: Thomas Reinke
Title: Quagmire 2 #34 Cubic Zirconium
Date: November 2011
Difficulty: 7
Best moves/pushes: 253/75

Excellent! A nice and original storage problem. See also from Thomas Reinke, TBox #36 and #48; TBox2 #4 (easy but nice), #7, #15 (good); Anomaly #2; Quagmire 2 #24 and #32.





Author: Eric F. Tchong + Jordi Doménech
Title: Magic Sokoban 5 #64
Comment: based on Dushi 4 #3 Svengali
Date: April 2012. Remodel: September 2013
Difficulty: 6.5
Best moves/pushes: 539/156

Another nice and not so easy storage problem.





Author: Přemysl Zíka
Title: First levels #267
Date: June 2012
Website: www.zusbreznice.cz/rozvrhy-zika-premysl-sokoban.cz
Difficulty: 5.5
Best moves/pushes: 151/42

Excellent! Mini rotary puzzle within a pinwheel-shaped structure, with a ninth box of hindrance. Beautiful and fun to solve.





Author: Kevin B. Reilly + Jordi Doménech
Title: Magic Sokoban 3 #72 Homage to Greece
Comment: based on kevin894
Date: c. April 2001. Remodel: 2012.6.17
Difficulty: 5.5
Best moves/pushes: 135/39

Logic.





Author: Alberto Garcia + Jordi Doménech
Title: Alberto Garcia remixed #73
Comment: based on Fantasy #41
Date: January 2013
Website:
www.abelmartin.com/rj/sokoban.html
sokoban-jd.blogspot.com/

Difficulty: 6
Best moves/pushes: 1334/344





Author: Alberto Garcia + Jordi Doménech
Title: Alberto Garcia remixed #85
Comment: based on Birthday #138
Date: January 2013
Website:
www.abelmartin.com/rj/sokoban.html
sokoban-jd.blogspot.com/

Difficulty: 6.5
Best moves/pushes: 977/226



New additions

Note: These puzzles are not included in the downloadable file


   ##############
  ##      #     #
  #  $$$  # #   ##
  # $   $ # #    #
  # $ # $ # #..# #
  # $$$$$ # #..# #
  # $ # $ # #  # #
  # $   $.#    # #
  #  #@# .#      #
#########.## #####
#       # ... #
#         ... #
######### ... #
        #######


Author: A1master + anian + Jordi Domènech
Title: 1,000,001 candlelights #59 Four dots - b
Set: The beautiful world of remodels 6 #4
Comment:
add a wall - anian
based on version "a", delete all the top, add some walls and redraw map - J.D.
Date: 2014.10.31
Difficulty: 7
Best moves/pushes: 943/390




In addition to the levels above-mentioned, see also:

- Serg Belyaev
    svb062

- Mario Bonenfant
    mb-16

- Jordi Doménech
    Miniatures - Part One #41, #48, #59; Part Two #12, #15
    Magic Sokoban #38; Magic Sokoban 2 #74, #75; Magic Sokoban 3 #25, #43, #52, #86, #90; Magic Sokoban 4 #47; Magic Sokoban 5 #57
    The beautiful world of remodels 4 #32, #36

- François Marques
    Kokoban #22 The robot

- Ghislain Martin
    SokoStation #65, #355

- Ghislain Martin + Jordi Doménech
    SokoStation variations #53

- Hirohiko Nakamiya + hir
    nakamiya #4 break (B)

- Kevin B. Reilly
    Kevin has a lot of squares. The ones I liked more are: kevin391, 465, 488, 949, 1055, 1160, 1172, 1237, 1281, 1347, 1390, 1416, 1428, 1440, 1447, 1524, 1555, 1573, 1597, 1603, 1607, 1619, 1684 (hard), 1713, 1714, 1816, 1820, 1829, 1852 (curious), 1888, 1930, 1968, 1970, 2005, 2008, 2023, 2042

- Thomas Reinke
    Quagmire 3 #17, #43, #55, #93, #95, #97

- Shaggath
    Mulholland D #54

- David W. Skinner
    Microban II #108, #114; Sasquatch II #34, V #13, IX #26

- Thinking Rabbit
    Original #43
    Sokoban 2 (GameBoy, 1990) 11-10
    Sokoban Perfect #139 (Koji Kono), #197 (Yoshio Sakae), #268 (Yoshio Sakae)
    Sokoban Revenge #38 (Hidemitsu Kobayashi), #54 (Yoshiki Kondo + Yoshio Sakae)

- niwa
    Escapology #6, #9
    Square Dance #4 (easy but nice), #10

- Hiroshi Yamamoto #4 回流



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