Increasing Paths, part 1

Problem Overview

• Determine the number of strictly increasing paths in a 2D grid.
• Input is a grid up to 15x15 with values 0–65535; output is the count of paths of length >=2 moving only up/down/left/right.
• Paths with identical values but different cells are distinct; total increasing paths <= 2,000.
• Real-world domain: grid pathfinding and matrix analysis, common in coding interview problem settings.
• Asked in Hudson_river interviews; a classic interview question.