Talk:Battleship (puzzle)

Suggested edits

I found this particular article's language a bit hard to understand. "Firstly, one can be told, for particular squares in the grid, whether each square contains a submarine, a longer ship (and whether it is the north, south, east, west, or middle of a ship), or water (meaning no ship)" as an example. The sentence is a bit run on, and could be divided into multiple sentences to increase understanding of what it is trying to say. There were a few other areas like this.

I also find that it would be nice if the rules were described a bit more clearly, and some sort of diagram might be useful.

There is also a computer program of this called "Fathom It!" for Windows that is not mentioned in the article. It might also be nice to include some links to puzzle sites. However, I do not know enough about Wikipedia and if such a thing would be entirely allowed.

Just my opinion. Augwich (talk) 17:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)Augwich

I added a public domain graphic to the page (it was generated with the solitaire battleship generator that I created for my web site) and edited the article to make it clearer in parts where it was confusing.

Since "Fathom It!" is a pretty popular program, it should get a mention in the article, as long as it doesn't come across as an advertisement (which is against Wikipedia's policies). It might be OK to have a link to one or two puzzle sites, but again, it can't come across as an advertisement.

Hope that helps! - carolyn⁸¹ (user • talk) 16:17, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Nonogram

Am I correct in thinking that battleship puzzles are a subset of nonograms -- i.e., all battleship puzzles are valid nonogram puzzles, but not vice versa? - furrykef (Talk at me) 14:09, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

It's true that a solved battleship puzzle is basically the same as a solved nonogram puzzle. However, I don't know if a battleship puzzle would be a 'solvable' nonogram puzzle. There might not be enough clues. And certainly, nonograms are not valid battleship puzzles since they don't have ships, and black squares can touch each other, etc.- carolyn⁸¹ (user • talk) 17:47, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Battleship is not Nonogram. In Nonogram, you are told the lengths of consecutive black squares. In Battleships, you are only told the number of black squares.

Chaotic iak (talk) 16:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Please add example game

It's not clear to me how this puzzle differs from a standard Battleships game (other than being for one player). Perhaps adding an example game will help. cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 12:42, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Date of invention may be earlier

Although the article cites Argentina in 1982, I am convinced I first encountered Battleships much earlier and in London.

I firmly believe a daily Battleship puzzle was published in the Evening News / Evening Standard during the early- to mid-1970s. These two newspapers (the Evening News was taken over by its rival the Evening Standard) were/are evening edition papers in London, England.

I can't provide supporting evidence for this timing, except to say that I remember struggling with the puzzle in my early teens before I went to University. At that time I was missing key aspects of the logical process to solve the puzzle but was fascinated by it - which is why I remember so clearly. My father bought the paper every day. That places it in time and location. Duncanpt (talk) 19:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)