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Solve three mini-game algorithm tasks

OptiverSoftware Engineer · Technical Screen
MediumSoftware EngineerTechnical ScreenCoding & Algorithms

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Solve three mini-game algorithm tasks evaluates algorithm design, data structures, correctness, complexity, edge cases, and implementation details in a realistic interview setting. A strong answer states assumptions, handles edge cases, explains trade-offs, and shows how to validate the result clearly.

Solve three mini-game algorithm tasks: (a) Move-House Puzzle: Given initial and target arrangements of N labeled blocks ("houses") on a 2D grid with one empty cell, where a move slides one adjacent block into the empty cell, return the minimal number of moves to reach the target or -1 if impossible; describe your state encoding and search (BFS or A* with an admissible heuristic). (b) Arrow-or-Odd Stream: Given a stream where each token is either an arrow (←, →, ↑, ↓) or a non-negative integer, output 1 if the token is an arrow with the same direction as the immediately previous arrow token, or if the token is an odd integer; otherwise output 0; achieve O(

  1. time and O(
  2. extra space per token. (c) Find Identical Strings: Given up to 10^6 strings (possibly Unicode), return all strings that appear more than once with their frequencies; discuss hash-based vs external sort approaches, memory limits, and normalization of equivalent strings.