A puzzle where you join matching dots with paths declares a win too early or never

Filling the whole board looks like winning, but a board can be full of colour and still be wrong, because a path may bulge into a block or leave a stray loop behind. This entry shows what a finished board really has to look like.

Why this works

A path is thin: every cell has a neighbour before and after it, except the ends. Checking that shape, and that the walk from one end reaches the other and uses every cell, catches blobs and stray loops that a plain connection test passes.

When not to use it

If the puzzle allows paths to branch or to cross over each other, the thin-path rule is wrong for it. Then describe what a finished board looks like in your own game first, and write the check from that.

In the full entry

• What to build, step by step
• Starting values and the reason for each
• 4 common mistakes and the fix
• A diagram of every state
• 46 lines of example code with 4 checks that pass
• How your AI shows you that it works

Say this to your AI

Use the Spielerando entry "A puzzle where you join matching dots with paths declares a win too early or never" (read_entry colour-path-puzzle-win-check) in my game. Build it step by step, and show me how you checked that it works.

Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP