itch.io

Ah, neat, so it's basically just "you may move any straight line of bees".

I'm a bit confused about moving a line of bees. It says:

"Similarly, if a Bee moves and there are other Bees in a line extending from it, every Bee along the axis that line forms may move together with the initial Bee. There may not be gaps in the line or queue."

Suppose I have a row with 4 bees: [B B B - B].

1) Can I move the 3 adjacent bees? (even though there's a fourth bee on that axis)

2 Can I move just 2 adjacent Bees? (even though there's a third bee next to them)

Ah, solving that might require the use of Wikipedia, if you're not already familiar with it. (But, it's nothing too complicated.)

Hint for jigsaw crossword: Abg rirel jbeq vf havdhr, ohg bar bs gurz pregnvayl vf.

I've finally created a Ko-Fi page. No pressure to donate.  https://ko-fi.com/playcebo

P.S. Unrelatedly, I'd like to recommend a free puzzle book called Bobogram, filled with some challenging but very fun rule-discovery grid puzzles: https://uiqoo.kr/bobogram/ (I learned about it via the Thinky Puzzle Game community.)

Fixed. Thanks

Thanks so much for all the bug-finding! Fixed. 

(nerdy details: When improving 194, I added code to abort the tile-burning process early upon failure [i.e. tilesBurned == 0], but it turns out I never coded the AI to increment tilesBurned as it burns tiles. So it burned 1 tile and then said "welp, I burned 0 tiles, so I guess I'll give up now".)

Sorry about that! Fixed now. Turns out it was an order-of-operations issue!

if(  stoneNumber % DRAIN_FACTOR * DRAIN_FACTOR == 0   )
      { drainMultiplier = 2 }

Thanks! It's fixed now (apart from a visual bug with M-stone).

Sorry about that! The save files are stored using "Unity PlayerPrefs". I do not know what causes those to be deleted. Perhaps running a cleanup program?

FYI, there is not much support for stones 101 - 200. They all have the same sprite, and they're hard to use since you're still capped at 100 Energy. They are unlocked by completing the mining levels M1 - M10. (Composites only. Primes above 100 don't have any effect.)

Completing M10 does give an additional reward, which you might want to use for some of the Ribbon challenges in the tournament (if you haven't done those already).

Thanks! I did a small update addressing most of these issues:

• Swapping 47 and 53 is a neat idea (47 might be a fun boss!), but for now I just tweaked the final boss instead. (He now has two 87 (sticky+cycle) and always starts with a 67.)
• Not immune: Oops! Fixed. (It was immune on-board, but not when played.)
• I doubled the effects of 11*11 and 13*13, and improved 194. Thanks for the suggestion! (I didn't make 11*11 and 13*13 very strong.)
• Immune to 47/89: Ah, that's a tricky one. For now, I've kept it as-is. (My logic for excluding them was that 47 and 89 only affect the card, while 37 affects the 7-stone itself (in a sense). Plus, I'm unsure how to make immunity to 47/89 feel right.   I might change it so that attempting to steal or discard a 7-stone simply turns it face-up and plays a sound effect.)
• 89 unplayed / M unsuppressed: Hopefully fixed... I have total spaghetti code here, because two different stones share the same number.
• 94: Discarding will now occur before burn, because automatic actions should always go first.
• Concede bug: Fixed.

Thanks for letting me know! It seems that the new damage animation is blocking clicks. I will fix that ASAP! [edit: fixed now!]

3x3x3 Flow Free feels like the perfect balance for really fun puzzles that replace the monotony of the familiar 2D grid with a more densely-connected space -- without being overwhelming. Though I wish I could pan around with the right-mouse-button! (Also, the arrow keys seemed to freeze sometimes, perhaps due to gimbal-lock?)

Thanks! N-Step Steve is certainly a high compliment, it absolutely has those crazy moments of realization that I try to replicate.

Regarding puzzle 11: It seems I accidentally made LEFTOVERS too hard in v1.21 when I changed it to cross KEY (to remind players that words can cross). I forgot how hard it is to find words that cross over diagonally. I think I'll do a tiny update to revert that tonight.

(I also appreciate that "high score" means high difficulty instead of "survive for a really long time -- normally I don't like high-score games because they get more tedious as you get better.)

I decided to play this instead of Extreme Ironing and it's really fun! I like how the fast enemies force you to constantly juke and avoid line-of-sight, while the slower ones effectively alter the shape the playing field by requiring you to keep some distance. Reminds me of playing tag against multiple taggers.

High Score: 50, I think?

If it's for non-commercial purposes, go for it! Feel free to modify it however you like. Just do not insert ads, and if posted publicly, please link to https://playcebo.itch.io or https://playcebo.itch.io/educated-guess

I just "released" the project on github here, if that helps: https://github.com/Jeremy-Scott-Hoffman/Hangman/releases/tag/idk

Thanks! I have added that to the recommended apps.

Icely has an edited playthrough here:

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed puzzle 6 and the double zodiac, those were some of my favorites. Puzzle 11 was absolutely meant as a two-way street, I'm actually surprised that many people didn't use it as a key to the remaining puzzles. I guess it's because of the "puzzles should be attempted in the order given" thing.

In puzzle #8, the f9 glyph is an evil milk carton, to help players confirm that "foe carton" is correct.

Small Hint 3: You are allowed to use the Wikipedia search bar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Big Hint: Some other words I could have used [(ohg qvq abg) vapyhqr "Guhzocevag", "Pubpbyngr Puvc", naq "Qvtrfgvir"].

Small Hint 1: An hour ago, I updated puzzle #1 to replace "Eclipse" with "Rosette". (edit: Because "Eclipse" was not helpful/accurate.)

Small Hint 2: Skip puzzle #1 until after [rot13] lbh unir qbar chmmyr ryrira.

Thanks! The idea of having hidden categories was what initially inspired me to make this.

Hope you enjoy finding n15, I actually just added that challenge in the most recent update. If you watch Icely's playthrough, you'll see that puzzle #12 is quite different. (And JoePlaysPuzzleGames played a version with a simpler n15 solve.)

Thanks for the feedback! A few others were also confused by the ending, so I'm now planning to replace the circle and squiggly line with just a few normal blots [covering just 5-10 letters total]. Less fancy, but hopefully more clear and more satisfying.

I added two more deck slots. Thanks for the idea! I had originally planned to have those very early in development and then completely forgot.

(No balance changes yet, except 53 was increased 20 --> 24 turns long.)

Ah, maybe I should tone down the difficulty then, if every level seemed tough even with every lab stone. Perhaps most players were winning with a specific strategy that I recently nerfed. I'll make a few tweaks to most levels in the next few days.

Also, great idea about deck slots, I'll plan on adding some shortly. Shouldn't be too tricky to do. I think I'll have it unlock after Level 7 so players aren't overwhelmed too fast.

oops, lol. yeah, I meant #5.

In v1.18, puzzle #3 had two visible listed words: "TH _ _ E" (in position 8) and " _ _ _ IS _" (in position 6). The blots in the latter are a bit of a red herring.

Thanks for the stream! Misc thoughts:

• Sorry 97 has a less elegant layout, but I want to ensure that players who skip 23 in a 20-battle challenge run don't get screwed over at the very end.  And my hope is that, for new players, the usefulness of 23-stone will feel like a clever deduction now, rather than being obviously forced.
• Those were some nice final battles (vs 100) -- I didn't make that fight harder, it's just somewhat luck-based given the variety in his deck.
• I've updated the game to remove the -1 stone from Room 2 of the lab, since it did seem a little broken to get it so early (and have two of them). I might nerf a couple mid-game fights to compensate, but I haven't decided which ones yet.
• Oh neat, I didn't think about how the Winning Deck trackers can be used to plan ahead for a 20-battle run. Great idea!
• Oh no! I didn't mean to shorten the 19 fight (20 --> 16 turns) in hard mode, only in easy mode where the board is easier! That makes the fight even harder! I'll fix that today. [edit: Wait, you won?! I posted this right before watching the last minute-and-a-half of the stream.]

In case you're interested: I finished making my own word search book, 12 Word Searches. (It's free.) The puzzles get tricky later on, so solving takes at least 2-3 hours. https://playcebo.itch.io/12-word-searches (Sadly there are not many drawings in it, just puzzles.)

Oof, I forgot how tough I made that fight. Most of your decks seemed good, it's just a tough fight that requires looking one turn ahead every turn. The AI is slightly exploitable as you saw when winning (he won't destroy two of his own stones to set up a good move), but there's also a specific strategy I use when playing that fight:

[https://rot13.no/?] Qba'g cynl n fgbar vs vg'yy trg qrfgeblrq vzzrqvngryl -- xrrc vg va unaq. Gura, svyy va n ovt ertvba nyy ng bapr, yrnivat ab tncf fb gung ur pna'g rnfvyl qrfgebl vg.?

Given how tough the 5 and 19 fights are, I'm thinking I might add a 3rd difficulty level of "Normal" difficulty, between the current ones.

Eureka -- I figured out the weird sprite! Even though it's an old version of 59, it's also used in the game as 65-stone. You used 65- and 5-stone in your deck to solve a puzzle, then went back to beat the tutorial. No glitch involved!

[I somehow missed this when looking at the spritesheet, I only noticed when watching the posted video where the player accidentally made 65 while deckbuilding!]

Regarding the orientation of the final "word" (n15), here's how my logic for how it works:

The trick with Puzzle 12 is that its 12 "words" don't need to actually be words, they just have to be the leftovers.

All leftovers are read top-to-bottom, so the canonical leftovers include nonsense like "foec@rton" (f9). The leftovers are not the reversed versions like "deliver" (hence no "d7" clue). You can confirm this via the bottom-right hints, and also the bottom-left hints of puzzle 12. So for consistency, the bottom of page 12 must say "n15" just like it says "f8". *

The reason I did it this way is so that when the leftovers ( "reviled", "foecart0n",  "nowevahwonuoysa", etc.) get written backwards on the right side, the result is a perfectly-readable left-to-right message that's hard to miss.

Hope that makes sense!

*unless I changed the bottom of 12 to have hints like "n8" for "notraceof".

Oh right, I forgot that players don't care about the order! Thanks for the tip. That actually makes me more inclined to use the separated blanks, to give guidance on which word goes where... otherwise players might think the D clue is for REVILED instead of DRAWER. Plus, that'll help avoid the situation where you went down each column. I will keep the bottom hints uncovered.

I don't want to add blank lines to #11, as I want to officially reveal the 12 Words twist at #12, but I might add one green glyph to #11 to discourage players from placing word randomly at the top.

(By the way, every puzzle does have some sort of ordering, but sometimes its just alphabetical or has an arbitrary starting point.)

3. How about extra hints and individual __s, to nudge players toward filling out the word list? https://imgur.com/a/VAZhG0Z The "D" and "N" on the right would hopefully clarify the proper orientation of words. (I specifically want the message spelled out via a two-column list because the canonical leftovers are, e.g. "reviled" (r7) not "deliver" (d7), as shown by the bottom-right corners.)

I do like the idea of somehow checking or requiring that the player gets the message, but I'm not sure how to do it.

I could perhaps make the blanks more enticing to fill in, at least for the printable version:

https://imgur.com/a/VAZhG0Z

But this might tempt players to try solving it too soon? And it might be too helpful? (e.g. spoiling puzzle 6) And tedious when solving on PC.

Ooh interesting, nobody else has mentioned starting at #4! I did purposely make all the words orthogonal on the off-chance somebody would. I wonder if anybody will start sooner than that... I suspect #3 is the earliest possible (with its small green hint in the printable version).

Poetic considerations aside, "The word searches are done / _______" would actually be counterproductive since the checkbox is for the players who just found "as you now have won" and thought that was the whole message. I might revise the checkbox message to "Fill out 12th word list" or "Write 12th word list" or something. (I assume you found the full message since you mention the "meanings of the even-numbered leftovers"?)

(By the way, I reduced the listed total from ___/150 to ___/144 in v1.18 so that players like JoePlaysPuzzleGames won't worry that there's 6 secret words if they forget about Puzzle 0. And to give stuck players a hint that there are 12 groups of 12.)

Oh, thanks for mentioning Xournal... when installing it I somehow hid the top menu immediately (F10?) and thought there was no preferences menu to enable right-click erase! That's what I meant by slow. After looking into it, I've updated the page to recommend it more highly.

The 3 points you got stuck were definitely intended to be the hardest, but for puzzle 1, looking up lists is absolutely expected/recommended. I think I'll add that info somewhere to the no-zero edition, since I put "using an encyclopedia is permitted" on page 0.

I'll also be pushing the latest updates to no-zero edition since lots of people seem to be downloading it. Though I'm not sure I recommend that version.

JoePlaysPuzzleGames has a full playthrough here: