Given the difficulty of insane mode and the ratio between the number of people who have the medium badge vs. the hard badge, shouldn't it be rated as Impossible instead?
Secret Government Projects 1954 - 2008.xls Access granted. Click here to proceed. *Click* nothing happens. *Click* nothing happens. *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* Nothing happens. Thanks dude... :-/ Also, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fepTeFtLYgA for a complete walkthrough for this game with more levels besides. "Tribute" my Aunt Fanny. 1/5.
Ironically, this game got easier as it went along. Once you max out reproduction, the other stats are pretty much irrelevant. My final setup was leeB, fasT, repN, lovE, musL, speD, strH, powR, agiY, defE, cyan, aglE, cooK, aflP, athL, micE, homE, adaF, in that order, exactly filling up 7 of the 8 lines available. Final stats: speed 5, strength 0, agility 8, defense 0, reproduction 10. To make sure you annihilate your oppenents, make sure to get any cells with bonuses first and the rest is pretty much a cake walk.
The only think that makes this game "difficult" is the fake difficulty due to the absolutely unconscionable random controller lag. Seriously, dude, how hard is it to make a game that would run perfectly fine on an Amiga 1000 run smoothly on a 3.5 GHz system???
I came here for a nice, relaxing, untimed puzzle game where every single screen could be solved if you thought about it correctly. Instead, I found a super stress fest with over the top dramatic music, a ridiculously fast timer, flashy/distracting graphics when a closed loop was somehow made and truly randomly generated screens with no solvable pieces, eg. pieces trapped by 4 pieces all of which have no connectors, pieces on the edge of the screen which REQUIRE 4 pieces to be connected to them (absolutely impossible, of course, unless you reprogram the game so that the screen wraps around), etc. I'm going back to the Loops of Zen series. Rated 1/5, but only because I can't drive the score of this game down by rating it 0.
This is one of the strangest game mechanics I've ever seen... and this is coming from someone who's been playing video games since before Space Invaders was conceived of and "true colour" meant that each pixel could be changed independently instead of requiring a plastic overlay on the screen. Definitely an unexpected ending, too. Well done. :-)
Seriously, guys, how could you possibly make a game which can run perfectly smoothly on a Commodore 64 (a 1 MHz machine) and yet make the controls randomly lag on a 3.5 GHz system? This could have so easily been a 5/5 rating, but I'm dropping it to a 2/5 because of the fake difficulty involving the randomly sticking and/or non-responsive controls.
What's with all the lag on the star field screen at the end? At least I think it's the end... The screen at the top just keeps on saying "I can't believe it!" over and over... I also can't believe it when it comes to the lag.
For those interested in the original book, it's available for FREE download at Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org) as it's long since been in the public domain. There's also a more modern followup to it called Sphereland which is definitely NOT PD. I've had these two in a single book for at least a decade now, but I'm kind of wary of reading the latter because a) it's a sequel (and you know how those usually work out) and 2) it's by someone else.
UshasVital: I think the reason why the people with no lag are getting voted down so much is because of people like Eric Ruffiat who not only has no lag, but also insists on insulting other players and their systems and/or laughing in the faces of people getting lag just because they happen to have a system that it somehow works on. As for the people without lag who post sane and rational comments getting downvoted, I have no idea. Best guess is that it's the anonymity of the internet allowing people to be bigger pricks than they would in real life.
I tried this game back when it was BOTD and it lagged uncontrollably. Trying it again now, if anything, it's even worse! Seriously, guys, how hard can it be to make a point and click game without lag? A game like this should be playable on a 286 with Windows 3.1 instead of lagging a 64 bit 3.5 GHz system like mine. I even tried it on NewGrounds and it lags just as bad over there! Please, please, PLEASE, guys, fix the freaking lag!
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