Go through the labyrinth by alternating yellow and green circles

Question

Go through the labyrinth by alternating yellow and green circles. The entrance is the yellow circle on the left-bottom and the exit is the green circle in the middle-bottom (as shown with the arrows).

You can go through one circle more than once. If you touch the circle you must go through it.

Can we go through one twice? ALso can we reverse our direction? — Sid, Mar 25 '17 at 14:28
This seems very under-constrained, making it feel like there are going to be enough valid answers to nudge this over the line of being "too broad". — Rubio, Mar 25 '17 at 20:11
@boboquack Most notably, the lack of a "no turning around" restriction which makes it trivial to find many trivial solutions — Rubio, Mar 25 '17 at 23:34
IMO it's more of a linguistic puzzle than it seems. Feel free to scroll to my answer and you'll know what I mean — Oak, Mar 26 '17 at 00:01
The rules of this question is not very well stated. I don't understand "exchange yellow and green circles" — Fluidized Pigeon Reactor, Mar 26 '17 at 08:10

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

10

Here's the answer. I have followed all the rules, I hope.

edited Jun 17 '20 at 08:22

Community

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answered Mar 25 '17 at 14:38

Sid

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you can go straight to exit from the second last yellow – JMP Mar 25 '17 at 14:43
Ah, Yes. That is also an option. I am too lazy now to edit that. :P – Sid Mar 25 '17 at 14:44
This is one of the correct answers. Great job! – Nikolay Kostov Mar 25 '17 at 14:57
Defining each area between the circles to be a single waypoint, @JonMark Perry's suggestion seems to be the only solution avoiding turns or extra loops. – Gerhard Mar 25 '17 at 17:15
@Gerhard; i quite like going round in infinite loops myself, for example right, up, left, down, and do it again! – JMP Mar 25 '17 at 17:19

Gerhard · Answer 2 · 2018-01-03T09:44:33.110

You can find a solution using this systematic approach:

Define each area with crossroad between the circles to be a single waypoint A B C D E. Then list all possible ways through the labyrinth, avoid loops, so do not go to a waypoint/color combination you already have in your path.

Start - Dy (D after yellow) - Eg - Cy - loop (only loop continuations; Eg is already in this path)
Start - Dy - Ag - By - Bg - Ay - Dg - Ey - exit
Start - Dy - Ag - By - Bg - Ay - Eg - Cy - loop
Start - Dy - Ag - By - Bg - Cy - Eg - loop
Start - Dy - Ag - By - Bg - Eg - Cy - loop

You can see, only the second try leads to the exit. So the only solution path is

Start - D - A - B - green Circle - A - D - E - exit

From this path you can derive any other solution by adding additional loops.
For instance Ey - Cg - Ey ...

Oak · Answer 3 · 2017-03-26T00:02:34.973

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Since the goal is to reach the end by exchanging Green - Yellow. Having said that and knowing that the "player" is standing on the original yellow circle, it follows that with each swap the Green Circle trades places with a Yellow Circle, and so does the "player".
<p>In other words:</p>

<blockquote class="spoiler">
  <p>You don't need to alternate between yellow and green circles. You can only swap your current circle with a green circle (because you're always in yellow)</p>
</blockquote>

I have to put the image like this because I'm failing at conceiling it, Im sorry:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/LqThd.jpg

edited Mar 26 '17 at 00:02

answered Mar 25 '17 at 23:55

Oak

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I'm not sure that this is what the OP wanted, but it's technically correct and it's a creative answer (and also the first one I thought of). +1! – Mar 26 '17 at 01:21
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If this is the intended answer then https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/words_that_end_in_gry.png applies – Rubio Mar 26 '17 at 01:26

Go through the labyrinth by alternating yellow and green circles

3 Answers3