If you look at a problem from another angle then you start to see other opportunities to solve the problem. I recently did just that and I myself found new ways to approach the problems I encountered.
A great way to visualize this is if you imagine working on a word find; You are looking for a particular word but can’t seem to find it. If you were to rotate the board 90 degrees, the board would almost look like new. You start to see words that you couldn’t see before. Hopefully, this new approach helps you find that word that you were looking for.
The problems that I am having with the game involve dropping blocks and managing where blocks are in the grid.
If you don’t care for the specifics you can skip this next part…
I previously approached blocks as a cluster when it came to these two problems. What I mean by that is the two blocks that you see at the top off the grid is what I would have to deal with when it reaches the bottom of the grid. That works well for part of the time, but what happens if one of the blocks are hanging over an edge? The two blocks are being dealt as a collective group. That’s not good as the two blocks are going to end up separated. This is where a different perspective comes into play.
What if after you drop the blocks you deal with them individually? What if you checked to see if the blocks hit another block separately? This can solve a lot of the problems. The “Hanging Block” problem would no longer exist because the blocks are separately calculated. This also helps in recording what block fell where. I can now figure out what block is at a position on the grid.
As good as this sounds as a fix, I am pretty sure that down the line I will come across a problem with this solution that I can’t currently see. But that happens in a lot of the things you do. So I am going to try this solution out and see where it takes me.
I realize that this is more “blog-y” than what I normally post but I did to show you some of the steps that I go through when it comes to problem solving. I also needed to write this down for myself so I can make sure this all makes sense.
Like the “blog-y” style of post? Or (to change perspectives) what style of post do you prefer? Comment below and tell me what you think.