This problem is based on a children's game, Chutes and Ladders, where players take turns jumping a number of steps along a path. If they land on the base of a ladder, they rise to the top of the ladder in the same turn. If they land at the top of a chute, they slide down to the bottom in the same turn. The idea is to get to the final step on the path. In the children's game the number of steps to move in a turn is determined randomly, so the game requires no decisions. In the version here, Up and Down, players get to choose the number of steps to jump forward in each turn. Both figures above show spaces numbered from 0 to 28, with several chutes and ladders. They show two different possible sequences of moves, assuming jumps of 1, 2 or 3 are allowed. Each jump is illustrated starting at a gray dot and ending at an arrowhead, jumping 1-3 places ahead, sometimes ending there, and sometimes shifting up a ladder or down a chute. The players in Figures 1 and 2 finish in 5 and 4 turns respectively. Figure 2 demonstrates the minimum number of turns for this path configuration and a maximum jump of 3.
It gets harder a figure out the best path if there are more chutes and ladders and many more spaces along the path! Be careful of your algorithm, given the large limit on the number of spaces specified below.