[Game] 12345

[Ivan Koswara]

Hello!

I've made a game in PuzzleScript, 12345. Focusing more on difficulty over sophisticated uses of PuzzleScript. The game is intentionally made quite difficult.

Comments, suggestions, and feedback are appreciated! Especially about level design.

Thank you for your attention!

[Zeigfreid Okugawa]

Surprisingly fun! However, it doesn't do a good job of singing its own praise. You know? I started and I thought, "oh no, a mimic puzzle..." I think you might benefit from re-arranging the levels.

In general I didn't find this game "too hard", that is to say: I played a good 20 levels of it before deciding to stop. Most of that time was spent in a state of delight. I like the arithmetic metaphor: I am very partial to algebra, and my 3 attempts at puzzle-script games have all stemmed initially from concepts in algebra. However, I usually end up layering on more meaning later in order to make the game more visually and narratively interesting. That's just me though!

Anyway, lovely.

Level 18, "out of bounds" was my favourite. I love moments in games where I feel like I'm "cheating". (and while 1-- === NaN is pretty clear, it isn't obvious that 5++ === NaN, so I really did feel like I was cheating when I figured it out).

I gave up on a level that looks a little like this:

##.+.##
#...4...#
#...4...#
#...3...#
##..-.##

[Dennis Au]

I find it interesting that even after playing so many levels with the same cross shape that minor alterations to the starting pieces makes it fresh and new again. Certainly it remains challenging, but I don't know, maybe facing one cross shaped level after another feels a little frustrating somehow? I know that personally, I'm learning to really hate that cross shape ;). It might be nice to space them out a bit. 

I like that there are two types of levels, the ones where you need to get rid of all the numbers and the ones where you need to match the numbers to the targets. The variation between the levels, going from elimination levels to target levels and having occasional split levels seems to keep things interesting.

I enjoy the fact that you can often reason out the sequence of operations you want to achieve before moving blocks around: which numbers you need to increment, which ones you need to decrement, which ones you need to merge, etc, and that's one layer of the puzzle, and then the sequence of moves you need to achieve those operations in order without accidentally clobbering something is another layer on top of that.

Personally, I'm not terribly fond of levels 23 and 24. I ended up solving both using trial and error, just randomly trying different starting sequences until I ended up with a group of numbers that I could recognize as being reducible to nothing. 

Speaking of nothing, I found that I didn't think of the zero block as a zero at all, but some kind of eraser block. I guess that's partially because of how you introduce it, and also because I can't merge zeroes with each other but can merge them with other numbers.

Got up to level 25 before deciding to take a bit of break from it.

#######

#34543#

###4###

#-...-#

##---##

#######

#######

[Matt Slaybaugh]

You did a good job of exploring all possible ways of adding parameters to restrict options, making for some fun levels.

I would re-order the level, though, as Zeigfried suggests. Some intermediate levels are much easier than preceding ones.

[Zeigfreid Okugawa]

I totally agree with Dennis that having two victory conditions and alternating is really neat. When I play a puzzlescript I generally get a little bored towards the middle, and this fundamental variation really helped. I'll remember that.

Something else I'll remember: Gadgets! Thanks for the links on your blog. I had never heard of gadgets in the context of computational complexity, but after reading the paper on the NP-Completeness of Mario/Zelda etc... I've become super curious. It seems like a really fun sort of "dark art". When I was working on my first puzzlescript (which I never finished) I started to do something like that: I started to make puzzles out of modules, and tried to enumerate all the kinds of modules. I wanted to really understand the puzzle, rather than just shoot from the hip with level design. I think you've got a really clear understanding of 12345's puzzle space.

On Friday, January 17, 2014 3:42:44 PM UTC+1, Ivan Koswara wrote:

[Ivan Koswara]

I don't quite get what you mean by "a mimic puzzle". Or I'm not used to such terminologies. :P

The initial levels aren't that hard, although I'm trying to make it a bit harder than usual games. Just because I love difficult puzzles, I guess. And I prefer more abstract games, games without too much "dressing" that don't affect the underlying puzzles. Hence the simplistic designs.

5++ == NaN is actually pretty clear if you've seen 5+5 == NaN too :P But yeah, it's a bit unexpected!

Heh, that cross shape. Originally I planned to make all the levels to be played on the same arena, before I relaxed it a bit and just make sure my levels stay 5x5 (7x7 including the outer border). And I love levels that are related; see 11-12, 19-21, 23-24, and two levels at the late part of the game that are not consecutive but obviously related.

Glad to hear about the two types of levels! I originally want to only have elimination levels, but I introduced the target levels by accident (have you played the easy version?), and I find a whole amount of fun levels that can be achieved by target levels, hence keeping them around.

I enjoy the fact that you can often reason out the sequence of operations you want to achieve before moving blocks around: which numbers you need to increment, which ones you need to decrement, which ones you need to merge, etc, and that's one layer of the puzzle, and then the sequence of moves you need to achieve those operations in order without accidentally clobbering something is another layer on top of that.

This is exactly my intention. Glad someone notices that! I love puzzles where you begin by reasoning globally. (Also partially why I have small levels; with large levels I usually end up by putting several small puzzles in one, which doesn't qualify as global. Although the fact that all movements are connected might make things more...intricate.)

For 23-24, you're supposed to get an understanding of the mechanics first. If you observe that you can reassign 1->1, 2->2, 3->4, 4->8, 5->16, and noticing merging doesn't change the sum and a sum of 32 vanishes, you'll be able to deduce which block you need to give the plus to. This is what I had in mind when I designed a majority of the levels, including these two.

Regarding the zero block, yeah, probably an eraser fits better! The name "zero" (as in zeroing a box) stuck to me though. Besides, I think besides the level names and the internal name of the object, there is no reference that it has the name "zero", so I can get away, I suppose. :P

Regarding intermediate levels being easier, it's because I stick to introducing the new elements at levels 11 (zero/eraser), 16 (plus/minus), and 26 (death/poison). I guess I might be a little too cocky?

Heh, gadgets. They are just little things used for a computational problem called 3-SAT; if you can create the gadgets, you've proven that your game is "hard" for computers to solve!

Thank you for all the feedback!

[Joseph Larson]

On Friday, January 17, 2014 1:14:06 PM UTC-7, Zeigfreid Okugawa wrote:

Surprisingly fun! However, it doesn't do a good job of singing its own praise. You know? I started and I thought, "oh no, a mimic puzzle..." I think you might benefit from re-arranging the levels.

In general I didn't find this game "too hard", that is to say: I played a good 20 levels of it before deciding to stop. Most of that time was spent in a state of delight. I like the arithmetic metaphor: I am very partial to algebra, and my 3 attempts at puzzle-script games have all stemmed initially from concepts in algebra. However, I usually end up layering on more meaning later in order to make the game more visually and narratively interesting. That's just me though!

Anyway, lovely.

Level 18, "out of bounds" was my favourite. I love moments in games where I feel like I'm "cheating". (and while 1-- === NaN is pretty clear, it isn't obvious that 5++ === NaN, so I really did feel like I was cheating when I figured it out).

I gave up on a level that looks a little like this:

##.+.##
#...4...#
#...4...#
#...3...#
##..-.##

This level is giving me a nervous breakdown.