Document Type
Article - Open Access
Publication Title
The College Mathematics Journal
Publisher
Mathematical Association of America
Publication Date
9-2015
Abstract/ Summary
In the popular game Candy Crush, differently colored candies are arranged in a grid and a player swaps adjacent candies in order to crush them by lining up three or more of the same color. At the beginning of each game, the grid cannot have three consecutive candies of the same color in a row or column, but it must be possible to swap two adjacent candies in order to get at least three consecutive candies of the same color. How many starting configurations are there? We derive recurrence relations to answer this question for a single line of candy, and also for a pair of lines in the 2-color version of the game.
Repository Citation
Rowland, D.
(2015). Candy Crush Combinatorics. The College Mathematics Journal, 46(4), 255-262.
Available at: https://scholarworks.merrimack.edu/mth_facpub/12
Publisher Statement
Copyright 2015 Mathematical Association of America. All Rights Reserved.
