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[jamsilver]

Damn you! How did you manage to do them both and still have so much free space?

I think the secret really is in the use of this sub-component.
It scans through a binary number, consumes only the last bit and branches on whether that last bit was a blue or a red. Also it is very compact indeed! The use of this subcomponent three times forms the heart of my M-2 and M-3 machines. I need to say that I stole it from my housemate Matthew - my own attempt at a machine that did this used many more pieces (the first time this sub-component appears is probably in level 13)

[Draknek]

Oh, that's nice. That's very nice.

My smallest version of that subcomponent looks like this: much larger and much slower.

[jamsilver]

Oh, that's nice. That's very nice.

My smallest version of that subcomponent looks like this: much larger and much slower.

That is exactly what my own original machine was! I genuinely think you and I were held back by our background in automata Alan!! Matthew has had no such automata experience and so wasn't given over to thinking in a "I must maintain two states: 'just had a red', 'just had a blue'" sort of way.

Interesting to those of us who claimed / assumed that those who have been through automata classes have an advantage!!

[jamsilver]

Here we go, a suggestion of a new level:

Level M-4: Subtraction

This is the machine I came up with to solve it.

[PleasingFungus]

J.S. - after I fixed the broken test on M-3, your first solution worked, but your 'optimized' version didn't! Might want to have that looked at.

One more thing - Cats, you could really do with a test on M-2 where A has more bits than B but is indeed greater, you do have a test where B is longer than A, but not visa versa.

Do you think that's a problem? I don't see that being a very interesting / exploitable case - beyond there being such a small number of tests that it's easier to identify/answer each one specifically than to actually solve the problem, that is. (And that's more of a fundamental problem with the game design.)


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Interestingly, level links with www. at the start apparently send you to the start of the game: see that second link.

Yep! That's because Flash caches local content (like your saves!) by URL, and www.pleasingfungus.com is considered to be distinct from pleasingfungus.com. Likewise, if I ever put the game up on Kongregate or somewhere like that, your saves wouldn't transfer.


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Oh, that's nice. That's very nice.

My smallest version of that subcomponent looks like this: much larger and much slower.

That is exactly what my own original machine was! I genuinely think you and I were held back by our background in automata Alan!! Matthew has had no such automata experience and so wasn't given over to thinking in a "I must maintain two states: 'just had a red', 'just had a blue'" sort of way.

Interesting to those of us who claimed / assumed that those who have been through automata classes have an advantage!!

Interesting! My version of that component looked almost identical to Draknek's - it made it very hard for me to fit the number required for the M-series in. I definitely see how it'd be much more viable, using the miniaturized version!

(And, yeah, it was the automata-class way of thinking that made me build that way.)

Here we go, a suggestion of a new level:

Level M-4: Subtraction

Not your intent, but you've given me an idea. I could remove the M-levels from the game entirely, and move them onto the website asthe start of a custom-level database. That way, they'd be there for people who wanted to play them, but people wouldn't have to play them to feel that they'd beaten the game... which I think is probably too much to ask.

[jamsilver]

Me and another housemate have been thinking, and it doesn't look that likely that multiplication would be a possibility in manufactoria =(

Although, if such a machine were to be possible, I wonder whether an addition/subtraction machine could be made that could handle two's complement. Then this algorithm looks promising!

[jamsilver]

One more thing - Cats, you could really do with a test on M-2 where A has more bits than B but is indeed greater, you do have a test where B is longer than A, but not visa versa.

Do you think that's a problem? I don't see that being a very interesting / exploitable case - beyond there being such a small number of tests that it's easier to identify/answer each one specifically than to actually solve the problem, that is. (And that's more of a fundamental problem with the game design.)

The reason I suggested the test case was because I just noticed that my M-2 machine would have failed such a test had there been one. It depends on how a machine deals with inputs of different lengths, if you preprocessed the inputs to prefix reds on then you'd expect it to work regardless of which input was longer than the other. However, my machine deals with a length difference when it comes to it and actually I'd made a mistake so when B was longer than or the same length as A then all was fine, but when A was longer than B it broke.

It's not a big thing to be honest. I've fixed it now, but I do feel it shouldn't have passed as it was =)

[PleasingFungus]

One more thing - Cats, you could really do with a test on M-2 where A has more bits than B but is indeed greater, you do have a test where B is longer than A, but not visa versa.

Do you think that's a problem? I don't see that being a very interesting / exploitable case - beyond there being such a small number of tests that it's easier to identify/answer each one specifically than to actually solve the problem, that is. (And that's more of a fundamental problem with the game design.)

The reason I suggested the test case was because I just noticed that my M-2 machine would have failed such a test had there been one...

Ah! Conscientious of you. I've uploaded a new version with the test for that case.

(I think the Big Rewrite will be next - I'll upload it to a new URL, so you can keep your saves with the current one if you like, but there won't be any updates to that version thereafter. I'll finish up replacing the placeholder art (for the robots, mainly), add an ending, clean up a few other issues...

...and, well, you can never really finish a game - but I think that'll be that for Manufactoria!)

[kurisukun]

GREAT stuff.   As a Computer Science student, I find this stuff awesome!

Haven't beaten it entirely yet, having one heck of a time figuring out what I'm even supposed to do on some of them, but it's great stuff.

Quick question: Given the instruction set available, is this "game" turing complete?   I've noticed the later levels ask some ridiculous stuff of you, but It's been so long since Automaton I've forgotten the proofs for figuring out if the language is.

[Massena]

This game is fucking amazing.
Is there a shortcut for deleting stuff?

I'll post back when I stop playing

Also, I can't seem to open the links for solutions people are posting, the loading stops at 60-80%

[PleasingFungus]

Haven't beaten it entirely yet, having one heck of a time figuring out what I'm even supposed to do on some of them, but it's great stuff.

Which levels specifically have confusing instructions? It might be something I can fix.

Quick question: Given the instruction set available, is this "game" turing complete?   I've noticed the later levels ask some ridiculous stuff of you, but It's been so long since Automaton I've forgotten the proofs for figuring out if the language is.

It is indeed Turing-complete! (Well, there's a finite grid, tape-length, and symbol-type selection, which limits it in some ways - but aside from that.) It's based on a slightly esoteric computational model called a queue machine, which I chose because it gave Turing-equivalence with a very small number of operations.


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Is there a shortcut for deleting stuff?

If you mean for deselecting your current tool (so you can click/drag-delete stuff), then any hotkey not bound to a component (for instance, '3') will do the trick. If you mean for deleting the current selection, then not presently; I've added one to the next version (just now!), but that one won't be out for... at least another week, I'd say. (It breaks save compatibility, see.)

Also, I can't seem to open the links for solutions people are posting, the loading stops at 60-80%

I've had one other playtester with the same problem... that was a while ago, though. Are you using NoScript?

[FishFace]

Excellent game. A couple of bits of feedback:

• Number one priority for me: Colour blind mode! 0x0F0 and 0xFF0 look identical to about 10% of males - either make one a different colour, or use symbols instead of (or as well as colours) This really makes it very difficult to debug some of the machines!
• A shortcut for the delete tool would be useful very useful.
• Undo would be nice
• Loading levels seems a bit haphazard - sometimes I paste a level in and it just goes back to the one it was on before.
• A way of altering the direction of the "nothing read" would be useful for packing stuff in, but might spoil an aspect of the game

[Massena]

Also, I can't seem to open the links for solutions people are posting, the loading stops at 60-80%

I've had one other playtester with the same problem... that was a while ago, though. Are you using NoScript?

No, but I am using AdBlock.

Now I'm just getting to the level select screen, but I can't see the solution.

[CrixOMix]

So I recently Stumbled upon this game. And I must say. A+++ I love it so much! The only problem is I'm not AMAZING at this kind of thing. I can't figure out satellites for the life of me... I know when I learn how to do it I'll kick myself because it's simple, but I just can't do it. Same for the sailors one. I don't know if it's too much to ask, but could one of you post your solutions to all of them? or as many as you have? I learn by looking, and this kind of thing is really interesting to me! Thanks in advance!

[jimmythechang]

This game is...phenomenal. Is there a key for deleting tiles? When I hit backspace on some of the levels with the belt selected I get an X that lets me remove things, but on levels with Writers implemented the cursor simply swaps to the yellow Writer.

You said you'd be interested in making this game more accessible to non-CS majors once you got the kinks ironed out? I think if you gave people a crash-course in finite state machines and the like this game would be huge.

[PleasingFungus]

WARNING
WARNING
WARNING

Wall of text incoming!

If you're not one of the people I'm replying to, feel free to scroll to the bottom.. There's a lovely surprise there!

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Number one priority for me: Colour blind mode! 0x0F0 and 0xFF0 look identical to about 10% of males - either make one a different colour, or use symbols instead of (or as well as colours) This really makes it very difficult to debug some of the machines!

This came up in the very first reply in this thread, but I still haven't dealt with it, so... actually, I'm not sure what the conclusion is there.

The main problem is that just changing shapes won't work. The pushers, and especially the pullers, have only a few pixels to work with... they really need different colors.

But you've impelled me to action! I've created a pair of mockups for colorblind-friendly colors: option A, option B.

(EDIT: Totally forgot! The top pair in each of those is the new color-setup, and the bottom pair is the old one. For contrast!)

Do either of those work?

A shortcut for the delete tool would be useful very useful.

Any hotkey not currently assigned to a component will work - that is to say, 3, 0, and sometimes other numbers. (Depending on the letter.) But if you stick with '3', you'll be fine.

You're very far from the first to ask about it, though. I need to work on my documentation.

Undo would be nice

Unfortunately, an undo feature is pretty much something you have to design into a game/program from the beginning. My unreleased next game has one, but Manufactoria doesn't, and adding one would be impractical at this stage.

Sorry!

Loading levels seems a bit haphazard - sometimes I paste a level in and it just goes back to the one it was on before.

Agh, hoisted 'pon my own petard!

You have encountered... a feature*.

Basically: each level code, as you may have noticed, notes which level it's for. (&lvl=5, for instance.) A few updates back, I set the game to pay more attention to this: whenever you paste in a level code, it checks the level and loads the code into that if the level's unlocked.

Of course, if you're trying to transfer designs from one level to the other, that is exactly the opposite of the desired behavior. (And the fact that it looks like a bug is especially unfortunate.)

My suggestion: use the select tool, and copy-paste your designs between levels! (You can also trim everything before the actual code-part out of your code - the save/load code is reasonably sturdy. Not sure if that's easier or harder) I'll try to think of a way to make the behavior less inexplicable.

*Unless you're pasting the code from one level into that same level. (For some reason?) That would make it a bug. If so, tell me, and I'll try to fix it!

A way of altering the direction of the "nothing read" would be useful for packing stuff in, but might spoil an aspect of the game

Haha, it'd be more of a programming problem than a 'game balance' one!

There is a very subtle feature already implemented that does pretty much the same thing, though. Try pressing 'space' while holding a branch! [/quote]


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Also, I can't seem to open the links for solutions people are posting, the loading stops at 60-80%

I've had one other playtester with the same problem... that was a while ago, though. Are you using NoScript?

No, but I am using AdBlock.

Now I'm just getting to the level select screen, but I can't see the solution.

Have you unlocked the level you're trying to view the solution for?


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I can't figure out satellites for the life of me... I know when I learn how to do it I'll kick myself because it's simple, but I just can't do it. Same for the sailors one.

I'll give you hints instead!

For Sailors: what's any binary number times two? Try it for a few, see if you notice a pattern.

For Satellites: Have you done Androids yet? It teaches you a skill that you pretty much need to know to tackle Satellites.

(The level-ordering is a bit messed up in the current version - among other things, Zeppelins/Minesweepers/Satellites should not be as early as they are. I have no idea why I even put them there. The dev version fixes that, among other things, but breaks save compatibility... )

(haha, enough of that, have to pull off the band-aid eventually)


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Is there a key for deleting tiles? When I hit backspace on some of the levels with the belt selected I get an X that lets me remove things, but on levels with Writers implemented the cursor simply swaps to the yellow Writer.

I have no idea why backspace even does anything! I certainly didn't program it to.

(Aside from that oddity, my answer to Massena may be helpful to you.)

You said you'd be interested in making this game more accessible to non-CS majors once you got the kinks ironed out? I think if you gave people a crash-course in finite state machines and the like this game would be huge.

Honestly, I think the game itself is pretty much a crash-course in finite state-machines! (I mean, I'm not certain. There certainly seems to be a disproportionately high percentage of CS majors posting / praising Manufactoria, so maybe that's a selection bias?... but there's at least one non-CS guy who's managed to beat the FINAL LEVEL that all the fancy CS-majors couldn't, so I think that is probably indicative in some way!)


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A NEW VERSION is up! The levels are COMPLETELY REORGANIZED and RENAMED (though you may see a few familiar faces here and there), several BUGS are FIXED and FEATURES are ADDED, MOST OF THE ROBOT SPRITES ARE GONE, and YOUR OLD PROGRESS IS GONE.

...wait, those last ones aren't so good.

But it's okay! The old version is still around, though I can't guarantee that it'll stay there forever. (And it certainly won't be maintained, much less improved.) Best to copy-paste your machines over to the new version double-speed!


There's one more thing, but I think this post is quite long enough as it is. Remind me later!

[Xieben]

I cannot get through the RC Cars level. 

**************************************Spoiler***********************************************
I figured out to run it through a splitter at the beginning and write that color at the end, which was the only hint I could find on this forum. 
********************************************************************************************

The problem I'm having is that the input doesn't terminate with a blank space and I can't write anything except red/blue.  The reader can't tell when the input ends and the output begins so I end up with an infinite loop that writes everything but the first input over and over.  Is there some mechanic in the game I'm missing, is this a bug, or am I just being stupid?  Thanks for your help.

[FishFace]

This came up in the very first reply in this thread, but I still haven't dealt with it, so... actually, I'm not sure what the conclusion is there.

The main problem is that just changing shapes won't work. The pushers, and especially the pullers, have only a few pixels to work with... they really need different colors.

But you've impelled me to action! I've created a pair of mockups for colorblind-friendly colors: option A, option B.

(EDIT: Totally forgot! The top pair in each of those is the new color-setup, and the bottom pair is the old one. For contrast!)

Do either of those work?

Option A is a vast improvement (a similar change for the writers would be welcome, but the positional info on those helps mitigate that problem).
For me, the red now looks quite dark, (I could see the difference fine already, I don't know how it is for other kinds of colourblindness!) however, the G/Y one looks great.

Any hotkey not currently assigned to a component will work - that is to say, 3, 0, and sometimes other numbers. (Depending on the letter.) But if you stick with '3', you'll be fine.

You're very far from the first to ask about it, though. I need to work on my documentation.

I noticed this actually on the earlier levels. 0 works on all levels, but three doesn't work on any!

Unfortunately, an undo feature is pretty much something you have to design into a game/program from the beginning. My unreleased next game has one, but Manufactoria doesn't, and adding one would be impractical at this stage.

Sorry!

Yeah, I know how complex Undo is - it's not that big of a deal; I usually try to think with Select activated so as not to delete swathes of machine :D

*Unless you're pasting the code from one level into that same level. (For some reason?) That would make it a bug. If so, tell me, and I'll try to fix it!

This was indeed the case, though I can no longer replicate it.
One a similar subject, I tried to copy and paste my entire solution to Polar Bears and couldn't (the selection would remain and the paste buffer was not overwritten) - if I select smaller chunks I could copy each of them individually. Is there a limit on how much you can copy?

There is a very subtle feature already implemented that does pretty much the same thing, though. Try pressing 'space' while holding a branch!

Heh, I use that a lot

Thanks for the replies (and apologies for the repetitions! Perhaps you should get a trac or something given the large volumes of feedback!)

[PleasingFungus]

**************************************Spoiler***********************************************
I figured out to run it through a splitter at the beginning and write that color at the end, which was the only hint I could find on this forum.
********************************************************************************************

Try a simpler approach. What happens if you just run it through a splitter, write that color at the end - and then output without doing anything more?


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Option A is a vast improvement (a similar change for the writers would be welcome, but the positional info on those helps mitigate that problem).
For me, the red now looks quite dark, (I could see the difference fine already, I don't know how it is for other kinds of colourblindness!) however, the G/Y one looks great.

I've uploaded a new version that uses colorblind-friendly colors - I went through all the art assets, so it should be consistent. Let me know if it needs more fiddling / there's something I missed.

Any hotkey not currently assigned to a component will work - that is to say, 3, 0, and sometimes other numbers. (Depending on the letter.) But if you stick with '3', you'll be fine.

You're very far from the first to ask about it, though. I need to work on my documentation.

I noticed this actually on the earlier levels. 0 works on all levels, but three doesn't work on any!

Hm. Really?

Huh, you're right.

Fixed!

*Unless you're pasting the code from one level into that same level. (For some reason?) That would make it a bug. If so, tell me, and I'll try to fix it!

This was indeed the case, though I can no longer replicate it.

Huh. I've looked over the relevant code, and I haven't the faintest as to why that would happen. Let me know if it happens again!

On a similar subject, I tried to copy and paste my entire solution to Polar Bears and couldn't (the selection would remain and the paste buffer was not overwritten) - if I select smaller chunks I could copy each of them individually. Is there a limit on how much you can copy?

Not that I know of!

Went hunting for your bug - managed to lock the game up (which I've been unable to replicate!), and then found & fixed something that might have been related to your problem. (It was trying to copy the source / destination, and getting confused when it couldn't.) Let me know if it works now.

(Perhaps you should get a trac or something given the large volumes of feedback!)

But this way is so much fun!

[Mordrak]

Hey there!

Thanks a lot for this game. It is really cool

Though a really nasty bug sneaked into your new release - if you press SPACE to flip the colours of a splitter, it gets bugged: red makes the robots go the blue path and vice versa.

Cheers,
Mord*