it42:~$ ls ./arcade
You never study an algorithm here. You play a problem under pressure, invent the trick yourself — then the reveal card names it.
Binary Search · O(log n)
Crack the vault — halve the search space with every guess.
Bubble Sort vs Quicksort · O(n²) vs O(n log n)
Race two dealers sorting a deck — see why divide-and-conquer wins.
Nim / Zero-Sum Game Theory · XOR strategy
Duel the warden at Nim — lose enough times to discover the XOR trick.
Dijkstra's Shortest Path · O((V+E) log V)
Lock in the cheapest frontier city each turn to find the fastest route.
Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma / Nash Equilibrium
Cooperate or defect — play against Nash, TFT, and GTFT to find what wins.
0/1 Knapsack DP · O(n·W)
Pack the getaway bag — greedy fails; only DP finds the best haul.
Greedy Interval Scheduling
Book the most non-overlapping gigs — earliest-finish-first packs more.
A* Search · f = g + h
Navigate with a heuristic — expand fewer nodes than blind Dijkstra.
Minimax / Backward Induction
Pick the branch with the best guaranteed value assuming optimal opposition.