[GAME] Symbolism

[Virelsa]

Symbolism

www.richardlocke.co.uk/release/symbolism

A game of arcane glyphs, logic and ancient alien technology

[Stephen Lavelle]

Oh this is super great.  Lots of really fun level design here.  :D 

I was initially skeptical of the idea, but you do good things with it.  Great work.

I made it as far as this level in my first sitting - I enjoyed working it out, and I look forward to seeing the rest :)

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[Hand-E-Food]

This is very interesting.  Like Stephen, I'm stuck there.  Clearly we're not too serious of a threat.  :-)

[Jared Piers]

I too am stuck there.  I really like it so far though.  Big fan of symbols in general

[Virelsa]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I'm relieved you like it!

My playtester got a little thrown by that level too. The only advice I can give (unless you want a more direct hint) is just to keep experimenting.

What did you think of the pacing so far? I've tried to introduce things gradually to avoid frustration but wouldn't want it to tip over into being too simple to be interesting.

[Stephen Lavelle]

(I did that puzzle and really enjoyed it, fwiw!)

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[Stephen Lavelle]

fwiw, this is the level I checked out at

had fun up until this though :)

[edderiofer]

Agreed. In addition to learning two things and being mystified by another in this level, there's still the matter of actually solving the thing, which is a beast in itself.

On Thursday, 3 August 2017 23:22:56 UTC+1, Stephen Lavelle wrote:

fwiw, this is the level I checked out at

had fun up until this though :)

On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 10:57 AM, Stephen Lavelle <anal...@gmail.com> wrote:

(I did that puzzle and really enjoyed it, fwiw!)

On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 2:02 AM, Jared Piers <jpier...@gmail.com> wrote:

I too am stuck there.  I really like it so far though.  Big fan of symbols in general

On Wednesday, August 2, 2017 at 6:54:21 PM UTC-6, Hand-E-Food wrote:

This is very interesting.  Like Stephen, I'm stuck there.  Clearly we're not too serious of a threat.  :-)

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[Virelsa]

Ah, yeah, okay. That one does introduce two or three new things, doesn't it? I'll stick another level in before that one, I think, to establish ideas more gently.

Was it fairly intuitive that the red things (horses) would pull the yellow things (chariots)? If not, I'll make sure to amend that.

Thanks for the feedback!

[edderiofer]

That was easily-worked out with some experimentation, but even after I know that I'm still clueless as to what the dark blue "7"s are. And I'm also unsure as to how to complete the level anyway.

[iczuba...@gmail.com]

Reached the last level, but I'm quite stuck there. Feels like a more complex Conway's game of life, trying to calculate the many interactions that happen at once. Great game!

[Skalmantas Šimėnas]

Same here, that 7-with-an-hourglass level hit me in the knees hard. A lot of mechanics behave extremely weirdly in it and after some experimentation, you're just stumped. There's just a sheer overload of the numbers involved (I mean, 18 green cells, really?) and duplication of reds made me even more clueless. Also, most of the levels are a bit too big, in my opinion, just wastes time when I know what I am doing.

[Virelsa]

Ah. It's a shame they look like sevens - they're not supposed to! The reason for their existence requires a bit of explanation, which may be very tedious, I'm afraid. Feel free to skip the next paragraph if you're not interested!

The hourglasses had originally ticked down one at a time, the order determined by the PuzzleScript engine (so from top-left to bottom-right, a column at a time). The dark blue 'sevens' didn't exist at all. My playtester found this was confusing (or at least inconsistent) because the rest of the symbol interactions obeyed cellular-automata-like rules i.e. the outcome in each space is determined by its contents and its neighbours. The hourglasses didn't follow this pattern - the order and timing of their 'decay' was instead determined by some arbitrary decision of the game engine. To remedy this, the hourglasses' behaviour was changed such that they decay one at a time in a clockwise order around the central blue symbol that spawned them - several such groups can now simultaneously decay at once. The dark blue sevens are actually supposed to look like decayed or depleted versions of the blue symbols. They don't interact in any way and disappear once there are no more hourglasses adjacent to them. They were intended to tie the hourglass group together and provide a central focus for the clockwise decay sequence. I think you're both completely right though - they confuse more than they help! I may just make them transparent instead so they don't get in the way.

Hope that sheds some light!

[ncr...@gmail.com]

I really like this so far.
Was this by any chance inspired by Terry Cavanagh's DAS PÜZZELSPIELEN?

[Ali Nikkhah]

Very nice game, I enjoyed playing it. I was able to solve the empty level and the level after that, but then I quit because I was too tired. I will return to it some time later. The hourglasses and the broken blue symbols didn't intimidate me much since I figured they may have little to do with the goal of the level (apart from providing the yellow squiggles). I'm relatively slow at puzzle games where I can't use my intuition, so in games like this, where distraction is also a factor, I mostly end up eliminating possibilities and then solve the rest by trial and error, but it was really fun trying to figure out all the rules (especially in the last two levels I solved).

[Skalmantas Šimėnas]

You've completely missed my point, I'm fine with the depleted blues and hourglasses in that level, everything else is the overwhelming part.

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[Virelsa]

New version available at:

www.richardlocke.co.uk/beta/symbolism

Changed in this version:

• Decayed blue symbols are gone (I never much liked them)
• New level that hopefully better introduces hourglasses
• That level has been redesigned to be less confusing and perhaps more interesting

[iczuba...@gmail.com]

I found a bug (or feature) in the last level: In the squares where the decayed blue symbols used to be (the non editable squares above and below the top and bottom hourglasses, respectively), if a symbol is placed there when the time ends (or when you press a key to go back to editing) that symbol remains for the next iteration; those squares are not reset until you do a "hard" reset (pressing R).

> New version available at:
>
>
> www.richardlocke.co.uk/beta/symbolism
>
>
> Changed in this version:

> Decayed blue symbols are gone (I never much liked them)New level that hopefully better introduces hourglassesThat level has been redesigned to be less confusing and perhaps more interesting

[Virelsa]

Nice spot! Thanks for the heads up. Should now be fixed in the latest beta.

On Sunday, August 6, 2017 at 12:29:26 PM UTC+1, iczuba...@gmail.com wrote:

I found a bug (or feature) in the last level: In the squares where the decayed blue symbols used to be (the non editable squares above and below the top and bottom hourglasses, respectively), if a symbol is placed there when the time ends (or when you press a key to go back to editing) that symbol remains for the next iteration; those squares are not reset until you do a "hard" reset (pressing R).

I hadn't actually played Das Puzzelspielen before, but I'm giving it a go now.

[iczuba...@gmail.com]

Yes, it is fixed now. Still very difficult that final level, though ;) Haven't solved it yet...

[Isaac Schankler]

I've been stuck on the last level long enough that I forgot what half the symbols do... whoops!