Crazy Sheep — Edge-Matching Puzzle Solver

i Click Solve the puzzle to run a real recursive backtracking search in your browser. Nothing is uploaded or fetched. The illustrated boards are generated from the solver’s returned layouts.

Solver workbench

The large board shows the selected solution.

Ready to search.

Distinct layouts — Board rotations and identical-twin tile swaps are merged.

Search nodes — Recursive placements tested.

Search time — Measured in this browser.

Displayed solution Show piece numbers Show little sheep details Include board rotations (220)

White sheep

Brown sheep

Gray sheep

Black sheep

How the rule works

Every tile edge carries half a sheep. Two touching edges match only when their colours agree and one is a front while the other is a rear.

Each tile may be turned to any of four orientations.
The board is filled from its bottom-left corner upward.
Two pairs of tiles carry identical patterns, so each pair always shows the same number.

What “distinct” means

The raw search returns 880 legal placements. Merging the swaps of the two identical tile pairs leaves 220 layouts, and merging the four whole-board rotations leaves the 55 distinct solutions catalogued by Neal R. Wagner.

For each candidate placement the solver checks only neighbours already placed: the tile to the left and the tile below.

Solution meadow

Run the solver to create a clickable SVG thumbnail for every distinct arrangement it finds.

Your complete solution gallery will appear here after the search.