Modulus

[thordur]

Hey puzzle fans, this is a portion of a game I have been working on in puzzlescript.
I thought it would be a good idea to share some of it to see what people think of it!

I would love to get some feedback, namely what you think of the quality of the puzzles!

Link: http://www.puzzlescript.net/play.html?p=370867378c9cba4e31b86341f5d1174a

[Stephen Lavelle]

Thordur, thanks for sharing!

it felt weird to me that pressing up resulted in the following transition:

played a bit more - ah ok i see it's a core part of the mechanic.

I wonder if there's a different visual representation that'd make it feel a bit more natural?  Because it's a bit funky, right?

I quited enjoyed the first ~5 levels -but then things started to feel a bit samey/trial and errory (at least my approach to them became so) - the complexity of moving lots of objects around in a confined space can make things seem a bit arbitrary/overcomplex sometimes.  

Currently stuck on this level, which I'm happy to be stuck on:

I like that you're not going for the standard sokobon thing of wanting to place the crates on exit points.  

I liked seeing a couple of levels with chambers like this appear

I did a sokobon-style game with sticky blocks ages ago (the details of the behaviour were different to those in your game.  If I remember correctly, one time I tried to port it as an exercise, and couldn't replicate the mechanics exactly - I think I actually ended up with the style of sticky blocks that you have in this game instead :P ) and the same shape of level ended up popping out of it.

best,

S

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[Hand-E-Food]

Stephen, stop spoiling it!  That's exactly where I was stuck!  :-P

This is a lot of fun, Thordur!  :-D

[Alan Hazelden]

I really like the two-level combo of the second level Stephen mentioned above, followed by the level almost identical to it. The level after that was good too, but shortly thereafter I started approaching them less methodically and more "semi-randomly moving around until it seems to be close to a solution" which was more effective than would be ideal.

There's a lot of levels here! I skipped to the final level and found it pretty interesting, maybe trim this down to just the most interesting ones?

On 21 July 2016 at 21:26, Hand-E-Food <hand_...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Stephen, stop spoiling it!  That's exactly where I was stuck!  :-P

This is a lot of fun, Thordur!  :-D

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[Stephen Lavelle]

>There's a lot of levels here! I skipped to the final level and found it pretty interesting, maybe trim this down to just the most interesting ones?

I'd be tempted to suggest as an exercise trying to trim the game down to your 6 favourite levels, say, and seeing how you feel about it.

[Hoboken Pudding]

I dig it. I agree with Steven's first observation. It felt strange and unexpected to have that transition happen, but I can see how you need it to solve the level. I'm stuck on one of the levels so haven't had a chance to try them all yet. Good so far though, nice little challenges.

[thordur]

Thanks Stephen, Alan and Hand for checking it out! I thought about trimming some of the levels away which I do not feel are all that good
but they still had something to them so I left them there, but I think I will follow Alan's suggestion and try trimming it to just my favourite ones!
I will also try trimming it to ~six levels, although up front I feel like that is a big compromise, but it will be interesting!

I am not quite sure how I would represent the inherited movement in more easily perceivable way in puzzlescript since the guys just pop into place(which can be confusing here).
I could maybe make an in between turn with arrows on their face or something... Tweening between moves would be the obvious answer if it weren't in puzzlescript.

I am not sure I think that level in Stephen's first screenshot is that good, you don't really get whats going on with the inherited movement and it isn't really part
of the solution in a clear way(it's just one of the ways you can solve the puzzle) like in the next level where it has to happen, so I will probably modify or just throw it out.

I think one of the reasons a semi-random intuition movement works towards a solution here is because there is way less of a failure state or dead-end moves in this game
compared to other sokoban games, because you can just pull, push and form to your will, but traditionally you will end up with crates pushed up to a wall, or you will get stuck easily or something.

Anyway, I think the button half of the game is better, they have more variety and have more to say, so you guys can maybe skip to that if you are interested.

Thanks again for trying out :)  

[Stephen Lavelle]

Mechanics-wise, ignoring the fact that it's a bit fundamental a change, and you've already made so many levels, would things feel more consistent if pressing up in this situation resulted in the following transition:

I'm just trying to put my finger on how I should go about thinking about the core game behaviour...the above seems like it's more consistent, but I'm not sure if it is actually easier to understand or what...

[thordur]

So that would mean transition based on your input vs. your movement, which I personally don't really think is easier to understand.
One way to think about it is that the white guys only send and receive information about what happened to the player,
that is if they are connected. So if a white guy can't move, that doesn't matter because he doesn't send anything about himself.
Hope that clarifies something, of course this is the games job to clarify! 

[Stephen Lavelle]

I have this image of a little robot army, and they're powered if they're connected to you somehow, and they try to imitate what you do (as distinct from what you want to do).

[thordur]

Yea, that's a good way to think about it!

[Connorses]

I am loving this! I was always a fan of these puzzles where you move multiple pieces. This game has a lot of levels I breezed right through, but there are plenty of good puzzles as well.

[thordur]

Ok, so as suggested by Alan and Stephen I trimmed my game down. I also tweaked almost every level and added a few new ones, so now they are 23.
I think the game is now substantially better! There is more flow to the ideas, many of the levels in the older version were kinda cool but were flawed, for example some had
very many moving robots which made it hard to realize whether something meaningful was going on or not. So now almost all the levels have 3 guys or less.

Anyway, I would really like to hear what you people think of this updated version! :)(I also updated the graphics and uploaded the game to itch)

https://thordur.itch.io/modulus

[Alan Hazelden]

I don't think this level is a good introduction to the game's trick.

I think you should use the original teaching level, where people are forced to stumble across it by doing what they'd normally do.

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[thordur]

You are right about that! I removed the other level because it was beatable without the "trick", and figured the other level would fit as an introduction to it instead, but I didn't realize that the player would probably just do the normal thing and then get confused.
And I was here claiming it was "substancially better" :p
So it's updated now with a better introduction to the trick, and I also removed the new last level because it was flawed... It may or may not return because it's a little messy at the moment.

https://thordur.itch.io/modulus