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@bufar: There's an extra-length string in that level - you failed that particular string, but everything else passed.
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@Darvious: the "alternating" creiteria for robobug is interpreted by the malevolence engine to mean "no two adjacent symbols the same color". You just need to see what the machine wants in those special cases and adapt your design to match.
As for other things you don't know, try the fact that you can approach a branch from any side, not just the 'top'. This makes the later designs much more compact, in your case try hooking two branches up side-by-side so that a bot with alternating colors bounces in between the two. I'll leave the rest up for you to figure out...
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Love the game mechanics and the humor. But I feel like I should be getting paid for playing it.. too much like my day job! =)
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this game is great it is one of the puzzle games that actually make you think but isnt so challenging to take away from the game 5/5
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Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Reminds me of Zach Barth's games (who I see you have acknowledged in the credits), but with much better implementation.
Please, oh please make more. My brain needs the exercise.
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PleasingFungus:
Thanks for the reply. My problem was mostly figuring out what everything did on the first few levels. For one thing, I wasn't using the conveyor belts correctly, ex I would try to turn a corner and the pieces would fall off the edge. Also, I didn't figure out that things didn't have to go in the unmarked end of the sorting nodes until relatively deep in. Basically, what would have helped a lot is seeing an example of a solved puzzle in each of the tutorial stages--"Here's what this part can do, now you try." A lot of times the game tells us what a part can do, but doesn't show it very well. Once I caught on though things were pretty intuitive, it was just that initial hump. I guess the only other thing is that I wasn't sure what the hotkey labels were for the parts at first--I thought they were the number I had in inventory until I noticed they didn't decrement as I used them.
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My last comment was... regrettable. Poorly worded. Also, wrong. And pretty much everyone's been calling me on it.
So: here is the REAL problem with randomly generated strings.
Let’s say we start throwing random strings at the player, instead of pre-made tests. Many of the ‘accept’ levels have pretty stringent conditions – so most of the tests will fail. This means that the player can just run their machine repeatedly and, with a little patience, they’ll end up passing no matter whether their solution is valid or not. (Even if it’s just an empty grid – if all the strings are supposed to fail, then that’ll pass!)
We can start to constrain the strings we give – say, ‘half will accept, and the other half will reject’. Then we start to encounter the problem of randomly generating strings that match a specific pattern. This is a pretty tricky thing to do, in general – and we still have the problem that they may just, well, randomly allow a flawed solution to pass…
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Anyway, this is probably the best puzzle game I've ever played, true algorithmic logic programming, but I love the music too, and the humor is irresistible. "Robobears: Enormous metal polar bears! They like to catch fish, even though they can't eat any. It's disarming! Then they eat you."
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One trick I've found really useful is to come up with independent little sections that accomplish certain tasks, essentially "functions", and then stitch these together.
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@yash92: You need to take off one blue and one red on each iteration of the loop. You'll need to find a way to "remember" where the beginning of the input is each pass.
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I'm a system engineer and I found this game is very good for those who want to become a computer or software engineer because you must think logically.
@Novakaine, each level has a condition to accept or reject the robot eg. "Accept a robot that end with red dot". This is the point why this game doesn't show all input. If your conveyors are built correctly, it must be able to handle all input whatever they are.
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I'd really love to have seen better in-game information/help on the various parts. On the 3rd level are two new items "Select!" and "Input!", neither of which are explained anywhere that I can find. I'd assume they'd be on the page with the [?], but they're not. I figured them out, but maybe just a little popup when you hover over them or something? Otherwise, it's a nicely done puzzle game. Definitely puts the mind to work. 5/5
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If anyone is reading this, I just added a new custom level: Roboscissors. You have to divide by 3. Very doable level, check it out!
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First the bad: Mute button doesn't work. Also the instructions are really lacking, it would be lovely to have a tutorial, or examples. I understand part of the point is that you're supposed to work things out for yourself, but lots of players don't have the patience for that.
Otherwise it's such a lovely game, I wish I had more time to play it. 5/5
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This game is awesome. The game is so simple to play but the complexity it reaches is outstanding; a real challenge. I'm currently stuck at Androids.
Excellent work!
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Steep learning curve isn't helped by a sparse tutorial. Could use visual examples.
My programmer friend tells me that playing this is basically programming a Turing Machine...I asked her "how would you write a program to see if a bit string alternated between 0 and 1," thinking it was an analogous question to one of the levels, and it turns out it wasn't even an analogy, it was what was actually going on in that level, lol.
Haven't finished yet, but my initial impression is that the game is difficult, but rewarding.
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I haven't felt this way about a puzzle game since The Codex of Alchemical Engineering. This game is just as much fun, allows for the same variety and creativity in solutions, and yet works on a completely different play mechanic that I've never seen before. I've still got 3 levels left to unlock (and 6 more that I haven't beaten yet), and it already feels like my brain is being stretched to the limit... but that just makes it all the more satisfying when I finally discover the trick I need to complete a solution. There aren't many games that can keep you glued to your computer for minutes on end without even doing anything or watching anything happen... just staring at the level and thinking. Super solid 5/5.
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Never mind, I found the walkthrough and get it now. I thought that you could only feed it in at the top, not back into the side it came out of.
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I'm a computer science grad student currently taking an course in automata and computational complexity, and I just discovered this game. This is fantastic! :D :D
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I have waited until I completed the game to post in here. Simply putting it this game is AWESOME; my head had to work quite a lot to figure out all of the levels. Art is simple but efficient; levels are challenging and with an awesome difficulty curve. It's smarter than lightbot, more appealing and immediate than krispykrem's games. Also (even if no one cares) educational, implementing concepts as "finite state machines" in a cute visual environment. This game will get even more awesome if the author will add the kong built-in level sharing.
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Comment split in two for length reasons:
Shrag: the problem with generating patterns randomly is that the game would have to know whether the patterns it generated were acceptable or not. That is... somewhere between "very hard" and "impossible." It's related to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem"
:this.
Vergilius: I know I was a bit terse in places, especially when it came to the binary. What in particular struck you as obtuse or poorly explained?
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Maybe I'm missing something, but when creating a level, I can't get more than 8 tests? Is this a game thing or am I screwing up?
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There's a big ambiguity in the RC cars level that, if misinterpreted, causes the level to be unsolvable (I only stumbled across the correct solution while attempting to test how the newly-introduced printers worked). The required output for the level is "The input, but with the first symbol at the end." What I understood the requirement to be was the original sequence PLUS the first symbol at the end, but what it really wants is the original sequence with the first symbol MOVED from the beginning to the end. If this could be changed I'm sure it would save a lot of people a LOT of frustration!
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The Malevolence Engine can kiss my butt if my solutions take too long, as long as they work. It's not like you're paying me or anything! Besides, if recent events are any indication, politicians cause everything to slow down...
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The hardest one I could accomplish was the robospy. I just can't figure out certain manipulation techniques that are vital to progressing further. A gentler learning curve, or in-game examples illustrating more techniques, would simplify this game a deal and help one avoid bashing their head for some time.
I doubt I could have gotten this far if I did not already have a brief understanding of what we are actually doing in this game along with some logic and binary work.
5/5. (9/10) A very well done game brillantly executed. It just needs more levels or examples in the mid-game to ease the difficulty curve.