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| Players | 1 |
| Length | 10 minutes |
| Equipment Required | single standard piecepack |
| Designer | James Kyle |
| Version | 1.0.1 |
| Version Date | 2004-01-17 |
| License | public domain, dual-licensed CC0 Public Domain Dedication |
Get all four monks to the top of Mt. Fuji and back.
Example (random) starting setup:
Entry in the SolitaryConfinement contest.
"I had seen a picture of Fuji-san (at Rozmiarek Games Page) and I wanted to try it. It was delightful little abstract. I echo Susan's comment on the game being easy - I solved it two times out of three. Last game might've been unsolvable (well, that's my excuse). Still, it's a game I'll probably try again, as it's easy to set up and plays fast. While it's easy, it's still fun to solve." (./) -- Mikko Saari at Gameblog
The rules don't say anything about the ace coins (or I just didn't notice it). Are they treated as 1? I tried treating them as null coins (when treating them as 1-coins the game seemed to be far too easy, but I might be wrong), which worked rather well (solved 4 of 5 games). -- KarlBartel
Karl, when I judged Fuji-san as an entry in the solitaire contest I used the ace coins as value 1. Mik, there are certainly unsolvable attempts at Fuji-san - usually when it proves impossible to get the preists onto the mountain in the first place. If I can get my priests on the mountain I can usually solve the game, although I haven't played often enough (played around 5 games) to know if I am just lucky or if this is a game feature. -- Phillip Lerche
The Country road variant doesn't work, when a null coin is on the top of the mountain. I'd suggest treating them as value 1 coins when moved to the bottom. I like this game, but it really is too easy when aces are treated as value 1. I'll write down the results of all games I play in order to suggest a slightly modified version. I'm currently thinking about either a ace-as-null version with a slightly easier first move for one of the priests, or an ace-as-six version. Now I'll get back to playing, umm, I mean 'playtesting' (this sounds much more useful ;-) ). Anyway, it's my favorite piecepack solitaire so far. Not extremely challenging, but fun. (./) (./) -- KarlBartel
A nice solitaire brain burner. It's usually either solvable or there's nowhere you can go from the beginning, but I consider that a feature instead of a bug. The earlier you know that a setup is doomed, the sooner you can start playing again. (./) (./) -- ClarkRodeffer
One player has got to move four priests up the terraces of a mountain (emulated with the Piecepack tiles in a lovely way) until they reach its summit. A priest will be able to slide a priest to the next space in the terrace it lies on, or to move to a space on the board if the value written on it equals the amount of free spaces the priest has to travel until landing on it. Thus, zero spaces can only be accessed by sliding from the other space on its terrace. Once a priest reaches the summit, it can't leave but it can move from one of its spaces to another.
The game is not particularly deep - there aren't many moves to start with, but different options soon open up as players are able to slide the priests sideways. Overall it shouldn't take more than a chain of four or five moves per priest to finish the game.
The Country Road variant does add a bit of extra length to the game, even if it doesn't require the player to change their approach to it. In the rules, unfortunately, there is no specification of what value the edge of the board has in order to go out; I move the pieces to the lowest terrace of the mountain and then treat the border as a "1" space.
Fuji-San is one of the most memorable solitaire games available for the Piecepack due to its short length and moderate difficulty, the speed with which it can be set up (or resetted in the not very frequent event that the start of the game is stalled), and its unique visual appeal. -- Antonio Recuenco Muñoz
Here are four Fuji-san puzzles of increasing difficulty. Instead of shuffling the coins, lay them out as shown in one of the puzzles. Play according to the regular rules and try to get all four priests to the summit. To really show your expertise, count your moves and check that the length of your solution is as short as the solution posted here.
If you can't solve the puzzle or your solution isn't quite short enough, read the complete solution. There are many possible solutions to each puzzle, but none shorter than the ones posted here. When you've solved all four puzzles, check out the two challenges.
554344221335 311400512200
Check the LengthOfSolutionOne or see the complete SolutionOne.
444520240311 125335325100
Check the LengthOfSolutionTwo or see the complete SolutionTwo.
523043220545 301111542403
Check the LengthOfSolutionThree or see the complete SolutionThree.
551102224335 244331001054
Check the LengthOfSolutionFour or see the complete SolutionFour.
If you think you have found a shorter solution, first check that you've followed all the rules. If you still think you have a shorter solution, send it to DonKirkby.
Find a puzzle harder than any of these. Specifically, its shortest solution should be longer than any of the solutions posted here. Such a puzzle does exist. If you find one, send it to DonKirkby and he'll post the current record holder's name on the ChallengeOne page.
Find an upper limit for the length of optimal solutions. Each solvable puzzle has one or more solutions that use the fewest moves. These solutions are called "optimal solutions". In other words, imagine you were to analyse all possible layouts and find an optimal solution to each solvable layout. What can you prove about the length of the longest optimal solutions? The lowest upper limit along with a proof will be posted on the ChallengeTwo page. Send your proof to DonKirkby or just post it on the ChallengeTwo page.
BGG page: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/35893
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