FloodBoard - Learn to See the Game-Board Like a Computer

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 12:11:20 +0000

I like puzzle games, and one that I’ve always played in a rather mindless way, just to kill time, is the one called Flood It. Or Color Flood. But whatever you call it, it’s the one with a grid of random-colored squares where you start in one corner and keep flood-filling from there in different colors until you’ve flooded the entire board. The fewer moves you make, the higher your score.

But the more I’ve played it, the more curious I’ve become. What is the optimal strategy? Should you always flood as many squares as possible, or is it sometimes better to choose a smaller move to set up a bigger play? And if so, when?

Well, I don’t like just wondering about these things - I want to know. So I wrote a version of the game to help me find out. I call it FloodBoard.

Training on Creativity Hacker

FloodBoard - Learn to See the Game-Board Like a Computer