Question

The game of “Jump It” consists of a board with n positive integers in a row, except for the first
column, which always contains zero. These numbers represent the cost to enter each column.
Here is a sample game board where n is 6:
0 3 80 6 57 10
The object of the game is to move from the first column to the last column with the lowest total
cost.
The number in each column represents the cost to enter that column. You always start the game
in the first column and have two types of moves. You can either move to the adjacent column or
jump over the adjacent column to land two columns over. The cost of a game is the sum of the
costs of the visited columns.
In the board shown above, there are several ways to get to the end. Starting in the first column,
our cost so far is 0. We could jump to 80, then jump to 57, and then move to 10 for a total cost
of 80 + 57 + 10 = 147. However, a cheaper path would be to move to 3, jump to 6, then jump to
10, for a total cost of 3 + 6 + 10 = 19.
Write a recursive function that solves this problem and returns the lowest cost of a game board
represented and passed as an array.
Note: your function shouldn’t output the actual sequence of jumps, only the lowest cost of this
sequence.

Answer 1

Below is the C++ code I hope that i have provided sufficient comments for your better understanding Note that I have done proper indentation but this code is automatically left alligned on this interface

#include<bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
int recursiveCost(int *arr, int currentIndex, int numberOfElements)
{
    //base cases
    if(currentIndex==numberOfElements-1)    //we reached end of column
        return 0;
    if(currentIndex==numberOfElements-2)    //neighbor column is the last column
        return arr[currentIndex+1]; //cost to move to last column

    //compare neighbor element and adjacent to neighbor
    return min(arr[currentIndex+1]+recursiveCost(arr, currentIndex+1, numberOfElements),
               arr[currentIndex+2]+recursiveCost(arr, currentIndex+2, numberOfElements));
}
int main()
{
    int arr[] = {0, 3, 80, 6, 57, 10};
    int n = 6; //number of elements
    int currentIndex=0;
    cout<<"Lowest cost is "<<recursiveCost(arr, currentIndex, n);
}

Below is the screenshot of output

I have tried to explain it in very simple language and I hope that i have answered your question satisfactorily.Leave doubts in comment section if any