next »

[FishFace]

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.

Looking good! A colour blind friend also approved

Fixed!

\o/

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.

Does seem to work now

But this way is so much fun!

We'll see about THAT!

With regard to Mordrak's report, the tiles get rotated 180 degrees when you flip them (instead of being reflected left-to-right) You can still get the same behaviour you want, but it looks quite confusing!

[PleasingFungus]

With regard to Mordrak's report, the tiles get rotated 180 degrees when you flip them (instead of being reflected left-to-right) You can still get the same behaviour you want, but it looks quite confusing!

Haha, oops! Fixed.

[CrixOMix]

Ok, well I beat androids with this INCREDIBLY slow and complicated algorithm. It works, but I know for a fact I suck at making things efficient. So comments please. Here's the code:

http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=17&code=c12:3f3;p12:5f7;p11:5f4;p13:5f6;c11:6f0;c13:6f2;c12:6f3;c12:8f3;c12:9f3;c12:10f3;c12:11f3;c12:12f3;c9:6f1;i9:5f0;i15:5f4;c15:6f1;c10:6f0;c14:6f2;c12:4f3;g12:2f3;r11:4f3;b13:4f3;c9:4f1;c15:4f1;q12:7f7;q10:5f1;q14:5f5;c11:7f3;c11:8f2;r8:2f3;b8:4f1;q9:3f4;q15:3f2;r16:2f3;b16:4f1;p8:3f2;c9:2f2;c10:2f2;c11:2f2;c13:2f0;c14:2f0;c15:2f0;p16:3f4;

Anyways, I am COMPLETELY stumped on Robo Mecha and Rocket Planes. I'd like at least some hints on those... I love beating levels but some just feel impossible :D

SPOILER ALERT: (sort of?)
EDIT: I mean really, how am I supposed to know the LAST color... It's easy to know the first color, which got me thinking, hey, what if I switched the order, then put the first one last, then switched the order again. But then I remembered I have NO idea how to switch the order of the colors... Haha :D

[Wyrm]

Ok, well I beat androids with this INCREDIBLY slow and complicated algorithm. It works, but I know for a fact I suck at making things efficient. So comments please. Here's the code:

http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=17&code=c12:3f3;p12:5f7;p11:5f4;p13:5f6;c11:6f0;c13:6f2;c12:6f3;c12:8f3;c12:9f3;c12:10f3;c12:11f3;c12:12f3;c9:6f1;i9:5f0;i15:5f4;c15:6f1;c10:6f0;c14:6f2;c12:4f3;g12:2f3;r11:4f3;b13:4f3;c9:4f1;c15:4f1;q12:7f7;q10:5f1;q14:5f5;c11:7f3;c11:8f2;r8:2f3;b8:4f1;q9:3f4;q15:3f2;r16:2f3;b16:4f1;p8:3f2;c9:2f2;c10:2f2;c11:2f2;c13:2f0;c14:2f0;c15:2f0;p16:3f4;

I've optimised my android for pieces so it only takes up 27, which makes it clear as mud. I do quite like http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=10&code=p12:5f3;p11:5f3;p10:5f3;p13:5f3;p14:5f3;y9:5f1;g15:5f1;c15:4f0;c14:4f0;c12:4f3;c9:4f2;c10:4f2;c11:4f2;c8:4f2;c16:4f0;c13:4f0;c8:5f1;c8:6f1;b9:8f1;q10:8f3;q11:8f3;q12:8f3;q13:8f3;q14:8f3;r15:8f1;c9:7f2;c10:7f2;c11:7f2;c12:6f3;c12:7f3;c12:9f3;c15:7f0;c14:7f0;c13:7f0;c16:6f1;c16:5f1;c16:9f1;c16:8f1;c16:7f1;r13:10f2;b11:10f0;c10:10f0;c9:10f0;c8:10f1;c8:9f1;c8:8f1;c8:7f1;c16:10f1;c15:10f2;c14:10f2;p12:10f3;
Which is my "neat" version (c+p it to the right level obviously...), since you can understand how it works just by watching it on strings.

Would it be possible to allow custom strings (with known outputs) to test other people's machines on? A friend's http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=21&code=p12:3f3;p11:3f3;p10:3f3;p9:3f3;p8:3f3;c12:4f3;c12:5f3;c12:6f3;c12:7f3;c12:8f3;c12:9f3;c12:10f3;c12:11f3; made me die a little inside
I was thinking that the level editor could be used for that, and I ran into a couple of issues:

• 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
• 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! Ignoring this, it seems to still keep trying to write once it reaches the end of the string.
• The delete seems a little bugged visually. It offsets things vertically a little bit:

This is lots of deletes followed by writing RYYGGG for comparison.

• 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?

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!

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

Otherwise - loving the game and keep up the good work :D

[Mordrak]

Thanks for fixing that bug so fast

Wyrm, mind slapping your friend for his Teachers-"solution"? Please? 


CrixOMix, your solution is basically a compact and fast(yup!) version of my first attempt I switched to a similar version like Wyrm's - first with relying on the limitation of the possible input strings, then (to silence that annoying voice in the back of my mind) modifying it to allow any size input strings.

And to find the last colour of a string, encode some information into the positions. Like, if the robot arrives at a certain point, the last colour must have been blue. Prepare a second point, where the last colour must have been red. If on any of those two spots a, say, green shows up, you scanned the string right to the end and know the last colour. Otherwise you can write back the string contents "delayed by 1". (I hope this makes sense to you:)


Cheers,
Mord*

[man-man]

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.

Then I came and read here and got more ideas... turned out my "read non-destructively until you find a green" unit was ass-about-face, and I just found out about pressing space to flip a branch, which is probably going to mean going over all my solutions again looking for those places where the conveyors make a little loop to go around the back of the branch.

I think the secret really is in the use of this sub-component.

I'm going to need to make quite a lot of use of this too...

Up 'til now I've been using the "just saw red/just saw blue" version, but without even the optimisation that would come with mirroring the branch. 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) but my version normally ended up looking like one of the ones in this code (using lvl20 for a conveniently sized grid) depending on what shape it needed to be:

I'd also like to share an even more specific-tests-dependent version of this point-defeating machine:

(I can't stop laughing. What a monstrosity you've built!)

And you haven't even seen its bigger brother! (Actually, I have no idea if that works, your inputs are waaaaaaay too short.)

It passes all the tests, and it does it in 1:37... saving some time by recognising the strings that go furthest to the right/left and directing them straight to the end without checking through the remaining bits.

I think my first solution to the same problem may be the least efficient thing I can imagine making without trying to be inefficient. Featuring the ass-backward read-until-marker units I mentioned, and unholy amounts of redundant string copying. It takes just under an hour in real time.

[Wyrm]

It passes all the tests, and it does it in 1:37... saving some time by recognising the strings that go furthest to the right/left and directing them straight to the end without checking through the remaining bits.

This at least has an overflow which I believe would take almost an hour to write a tape for, but it will work for any string correctly.

[FishFace]

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:

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!

[Wyrm]

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!

Level size 0? That might explain why.

[CrixOMix]

You guys are GREAT help!  I actually thought of the rocket plane solution on my own at work last night: Here it is :

http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=27&code=b10:7f2;g11:6f3;p11:7f3;q11:9f0;c12:7f3;c12:8f2;b13:7f1;p13:8f6;r13:9f1;c13:10f0;r14:7f2;q14:8f2;c14:10f0;c15:10f0;r13:6f0;q12:6f1;p12:5f7;b13:5f0;r11:5f2;c12:4f0;c11:4f0;c10:4f3;c10:5f3;c10:6f2;c11:8f3;c11:10f2;c12:10f3;c15:7f3;c15:8f3;c15:9f3;

And then I finally got the robomecha one thanks to mordrak. My brain had been contemplating something like that but I just couldn't quite formulate it completely until I had that tip.

Now for officers... I'm deathly confused!
  SPOILERS 
Ok, so it's easy enough when it ends it red, just make the red a blue, done. But when it ends it blue, you need to go from right to left and make the first red you can find a blue (reading from right to left). And I personally have NO idea how to do that... And what about when they're all blue? then you need to change all of them to red and put a blue in the beginning I guess... There's just a lot of different tests going on in one deal

[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!


-

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.


-

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.