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[CrixOMix]

Side note: I feel like if I solved academics I would have a much easier time with the binary ones. Any hints on academics for me?

[Wyrm]

Side note: I feel like if I solved academics I would have a much easier time with the binary ones. Any hints on academics for me?

I know where you're coming from thinking wise, but my academics solution at the moment is messy, but takes up a whopping 72 parts, so it would be hard to use it as a sub component, although I'm certain redoing it would make it a lot smaller....

[CrixOMix]

Side note: I feel like if I solved academics I would have a much easier time with the binary ones. Any hints on academics for me?

I know where you're coming from thinking wise, but my academics solution at the moment is messy, but takes up a whopping 72 parts, so it would be hard to use it as a sub component, although I'm certain redoing it would make it a lot smaller....

Could I at least see it? Because I haven't solved it yet and I might be able to come up with my own optimizations

[man-man]

Side note: I feel like if I solved academics I would have a much easier time with the binary ones. Any hints on academics for me?

Academics being the string reversal?

I didn't use that as a subcomponent to solve the binary addition/subtraction

That said, my solutions for the addition/subtraction are gargantuan and messy (likewise for the reversal), so... yeah. that's my advice, whatever it's worth.

[CrixOMix]

yes, the string reversal one is impossible for me... ANyone care for a hint?

[man-man]

yes, the string reversal one is impossible for me... ANyone care for a hint?

Choose your own level of spoiler and only highlight as far as you want to be told.
My solution:

• Place a green and a yellow, they mark the start and end of the reversed string as it's built
• With each pass, take the last element of the original string and put it onto the end of the reversed string (more detail on this in bullet #4)
• When the yellow is followed by the green, you've consumed the whole original string and should remove the markers then stop
• Bullet #2 is accomplished by reading up to the green whilst remembering the last element, then reading up to the yellow (and removing it) before writing [remembered element] + yellow

or if you'd rather just see it in action. (Solves the tests in 7:3 with 59 parts)

[CrixOMix]

Lifesaver man! Thanks a million, I did sneak a quick peek at yours, but after getting the basics I went a built my own which actually ended up being a tad faster (6:21) and only 51 parts. Here it is: http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=23&code=g12:2f3;y12:3f3;p12:6f3;q11:6f1;q13:6f5;r13:5f0;b11:5f2;c12:4f3;c12:5f3;g10:6f3;g14:6f3;p14:7f7;b15:7f0;r13:7f2;q10:8f3;q14:8f7;b9:7f2;r11:7f0;p10:7f3;c8:6f1;c8:5f1;c16:6f1;c16:5f1;c16:4f0;c15:4f0;c14:4f0;c13:4f0;c8:4f2;c9:4f2;c10:4f2;c11:4f2;c12:7f3;c12:8f3;c12:12f3;q9:8f0;q15:8f6;b8:8f1;r16:8f1;y8:7f1;y16:7f1;c12:9f3;c10:9f2;c11:9f2;c14:9f0;c13:9f0;b9:9f2;r15:9f0;q12:10f7;c11:10f2;c13:10f0;c12:11f3;

[PleasingFungus]

adding lots of things to the input is slow; would it be possible to have a "fastmode" checkbox which skips/speeds-up the animations and adds as fast as possible? Or a "add 5 blues" button

UPGRADE UNLOCKED: The symbol-adder is now four times faster!

maximum string length; not a massive issue, but it means some bad versions of androids can't be broken since the overflow they have is so massive. A minor issue, but the good practise side of me wants to make them break!

Yeah, Androids particularly is vulnerable to that 'exploit' (I've lost count of how many variations of it have been posted in this thread), but... with the queue/tape-machine as it is, I'm not sure how I'd make more space. Add a scrollbar...?

Ignoring this, it seems to still keep trying to write once it reaches the end of the string.

Feature! (It has to do something. So it just overwrites the last symbol.)

The delete seems a little bugged visually. It offsets things vertically a little bit...

Ugh. Fixed.

The colour of the in and out labels (bottom right corner) seems the wrong way round; I assume every time that the white is selected and the grey is not, and its the other way round. Could the currently selected option be highlighted in some way by an underline or similar?

I've reversed them! Not sure why I had things that way in the first place.

One more thing - an easy way of saving machines or restoring ones which work. nothing is more annoying than pasting in a friends machine to look at and then accidentally losing the one you had before! A quicksave slot (which swaps the current display with the stored one) for each level would be /so/ useful!

I've added a toggle, instead. (It was simpler.) Let me know what you think!

Another minor personal request - when you set a new record for least time/parts, could the previous best be displayed?

Hm. I'll think about it!


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Loving the game... reached a point of not being able to do the next one, so I've been going over the solutions to the past ones and applying all the little tricks you figure out in later levels to make them as fast as I can. Is there anywhere (official or otherwise) to compare notes on that kind of stuff? It'd be quite a long post to put in here with everything else.

There should be! Do you think it'd be worth setting up a forum? (Not for that specifically, for the game generally. But also for that.)

The sandbox links don't seem to be working for me (I click them, they load the level select screen, had to copy the component codes from the URL onto an empty level)

Sandbox links? Do you mean links to custom levels? That sounds... incorrect.


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Oh, hi, Wyrm ^_^

The main load screen doesn't work for me - when I click the spanner it brings up a screen like the following:
-snip-
I'm using Flash player 10, but on Linux.

When I go to run the thing, the game grid doesn't show. When I then try to test the machine, again it doesn't show and when it fails, the symbols are grey!

Looks like a broken custom-level-code that I'm not handling very gracefully. That specific level isn't going to work no matter what, mind you, but I'll look into it.

[man-man]

Another minor personal request - when you set a new record for least time/parts, could the previous best be displayed?

Hm. I'll think about it!

+1 support for that. I always wonder how much of an improvement I just made and rarely have the forethought to make a note of prior times.

Oh... related, I think I've noticed a minor bug whereby the "best total time" is the sum of the individual best times ever for each test... which is less than your actual record total time if you ever make a change that increases the length of some tests while reducing others. (It might be an improvement on balance, but the quoted "best ever total time" goes down even more)

There should be! Do you think it'd be worth setting up a forum? (Not for that specifically, for the game generally. But also for that.)

I only signed up here because it showed up in the search results when I was looking for somewhere relevant to see alternative/better solutions to the puzzles. Well... that, and having the guy who made the game as an active poster is a plus-point. But mostly just the showing up in the search results thing.

So... yeah, forum could be worthwhile. Although from experience, forum moderation (or removing spambots) can be a pain in the ass.

Sandbox links? Do you mean links to custom levels? That sounds... incorrect.

I guess custom levels, yes... like the link on the top of p9 to the efficient "read 'til you hit a marker" sub-component

This link, in fact. It says "sandbox_level" halfway through the URL, hence my calling it a sandbox link since I wasn't able to open it properly to find out what it was (you see, it makes perfect sense)

Tried opening it... it now stalls at the loading bar on about 95%. Refreshed and it didn't even show the loading bar (Just that big colourful pixelly f). Loaded the game without the custom URL and pasted it into the "save/open" box, and it told me it was a malformed string. After that, pressing the button to go back yielded this useful looking screen:

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9461/31151431.png

Although, repeating the process after a fresh load of the game, then pasting in a valid level code after it said "Malformed string" got me back to normality.

Lifesaver man! Thanks a million, I did sneak a quick peek at yours, but after getting the basics I went a built my own which actually ended up being a tad faster (6:21) and only 51 parts. Here it is: http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=23&code=g12:2f3;y12:3f3;p12:6f3;q11:6f1;q13:6f5;r13:5f0;b11:5f2;c12:4f3;c12:5f3;g10:6f3;g14:6f3;p14:7f7;b15:7f0;r13:7f2;q10:8f3;q14:8f7;b9:7f2;r11:7f0;p10:7f3;c8:6f1;c8:5f1;c16:6f1;c16:5f1;c16:4f0;c15:4f0;c14:4f0;c13:4f0;c8:4f2;c9:4f2;c10:4f2;c11:4f2;c12:7f3;c12:8f3;c12:12f3;q9:8f0;q15:8f6;b8:8f1;r16:8f1;y8:7f1;y16:7f1;c12:9f3;c10:9f2;c11:9f2;c14:9f0;c13:9f0;b9:9f2;r15:9f0;q12:10f7;c11:10f2;c13:10f0;c12:11f3;

Comparing side by side, the main saving on your is probably not having the final "scan through and remove the yellow" step that mine does... achieved by the master-stroke of not rewriting a redundant yellow in the cases where it's not going to be used.

That and some little tweaks around the tips of the 'wings' that probably speed it up a little bit by making the routes a little shorter. Hat, tipped 

[PleasingFungus]

I've noticed a minor bug whereby the "best total time" is the sum of the individual best times ever for each test... which is less than your actual record total time if you ever make a change that increases the length of some tests while reducing others.

I remember thinking about that while implementing the system, but the choice I made is rather odd... fixed, anyway.

So... yeah, forum could be worthwhile. Although from experience, forum moderation (or removing spambots) can be a pain in the ass.

Ahh, the humble spambot!

I'll start looking into options.

Sandbox links? Do you mean links to custom levels? That sounds... incorrect.

I guess custom levels, yes... like the link on the top of p9 to the efficient "read 'til you hit a marker" sub-component

This link, in fact. It says "sandbox_level" halfway through the URL, hence my calling it a sandbox link since I wasn't able to open it properly to find out what it was (you see, it makes perfect sense)

Tried opening it... it now stalls at the loading bar on about 95%. Refreshed and it didn't even show the loading bar (Just that big colourful pixelly f). Loaded the game without the custom URL and pasted it into the "save/open" box, and it told me it was a malformed string. After that, pressing the button to go back yielded this useful looking screen:

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/9461/31151431.png

Although, repeating the process after a fresh load of the game, then pasting in a valid level code after it said "Malformed string" got me back to normality.

Yeah, it's crashing on startup while trying to process a nonsensical code. (That's the stalling / "lovely pixelly f".) Probably not the ideal response to a problem. I'll poke at it.

...odd, though. It crashes on startup for me just as it does for you, when I give it that code, but pasting it into the level-load box works. I'm not sure what to make of that.

I'll let you know when I've figured it out.

P.S.: "Sandbox" is the name that the creator gave the level. Can't argue with your logic, though.

[man-man]

It seems that may have been because I was trying to paste it into the generic save/load box on a random level, rather than the one on the level editor. Could also be why it crashes on load if level strings are passed directly to the code for loading from the save/load box of the main game. Now the oddity is that it loads a blank level, rather than the component in question.

Meanwhile, another minor one... on the level "Robo-children" you can pass the tests with a machine resembling this, which has a distinct lack of anything to handle cases with an initial BRR, because the only tests that use that branch are supposed to be rejected.

After checking which bits are actually used... the tests will also be passed by this one (lopped off some bits that aren't required for the test cases used)

[chauncemaster]

I love this game!  It is addicting and amazing.

I've solved all the puzzles that are unlocked but it looks like the two at the bottom are still locked as in the picture below.  What do I need to do to unlock them?

[PleasingFungus]

It seems that may have been because I was trying to paste it into the generic save/load box on a random level, rather than the one on the level editor.

Er. Yeah, I'll need to handle that as well.

Could also be why it crashes on load if level strings are passed directly to the code for loading from the save/load box of the main game.

...what?

-various abusable things-

Yeah, I honestly expected people to notice this sooner. The thing with the verification model - a small number of fixed, pre-made tests - is that it's fundamentally broken. ANY set of tests can be passed just by 'recognizing' those tests and accepting/rejecting accordingly, rather than actually implementing the underlying rule. For trivial rules, such a recognizer will be more complex / slower than a (reasonably efficient) machine for implementing the actual rule. But for more complex rules, recognizers will naturally win out.

The only way I could fix this is by (1) modeling the machine as a theoretical construct and (2) testing it against the relevant grammars... which would pretty much take as much work as programming the rest of the game put together, I think. Or - perhaps that's a slight exaggeration - but not too far beyond the truth.

tl;dr yeah basically


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I've solved all the puzzles that are unlocked but it looks like the two at the bottom are still locked as in the picture below.  What do I need to do to unlock them?

Should be working now.

[YagerX]

Wow, this game is soo sexy!I've just started but from what I've seen, great job so far!

[Wyrm]

I've solved all the puzzles that are unlocked but it looks like the two at the bottom are still locked as in the picture below.  What do I need to do to unlock them?

I was going to mention that as well! :D

• The toggle for overwriting is alright, but its still a little unnatural to use; would it be possible to run tests then instead of having "save+go back to level select"/"replay" having a third option of "don't save changes and go back to level select"? Ideally then you could paste someone else's link into the address bar and then choose to save it over what you have.
• Would total best parts/total best time on the main menu be doable?
• If you do go for a new forum it would certainly help with longevity from custom levels.
• Do you offer refunds on the amount of lost concentration, sleep and time this has so far cost me you evil evil man? :D