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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.
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I like the game but I wish the maps were larger as they feel way too small and I can't try half the things I could actually make work.
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Hmm...the Malevolance engine "Sees what you did there" now. A good upgrade from the last time I played.
Now I have to solve Androids for ALL cases now instead of only strings of only up to 7 in a row.
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I think that the "best time" statistic is trivial the way it is presented. The malevolence engine could create something that would take a very long time to check no matter what you've created and that would be your "best time". For example, on the third level, "Lavalamp", the engine gave me a very long series of red and red only and at the very end of it three blues in a row. I felt like this was meant as punishment, but it wasn't logical, as any working setup would have had to go through that whole series to come to the conclusion that it's alright. It would make more sense to have the statistic "highest decisions/time unit" than "best time". That being said, I absolutely love this (kind of) game
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@144325
Lmao, no. What's with all of the spaghetti conveyor-belt?
HEre's a much smaller solution:
?lvl=3&code=p12:5f3;c13:5f0;c11:5f3;p12:8f2;c11:7f3;c11:8f2;c12:7f3;p11:6f2;c12:9f3;
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Is this really what you're supposed to build in the 3RD FREAKING LEVEL?
?lvl=3&code=p12:5f3;p13:5f1;c11:5f0;c10:5f3;c14:5f3;c14:7f0;i13:7f6;c12:7f0;c11:7f0;p10:8f3;p11:8f1;c10:7f3;c9:8f3;c9:9f3;c9:10f2;c10:10f2;c11:10f1;c11:9f2;c12:9f2;c12:8f3;p15:8f0;p15:9f2;i13:9f7;c14:9f2;c15:7f1;c15:6f0;c9:7f3;c10:6f3;i14:6f1;c13:6f3;c13:8f3;c13:10f0;c14:10f0;c15:10f0;
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The gray bar with the 4-colors is the "dot writer." If that's all you see, your machine rejects the empty string, and most cases should accept the empty string.
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@ErikM The malevolence machine only checks strings about 12 colors long, if you make a machine that works with 0-12 long but doesn't work over 12 long strings, it will display that message.
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What does it mean when I get a message of "The Malevolence Engine sees what you did there." but the level completes green anyway?
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I've gotten so addicted to this game that I have begun programming it into my TI calculator. And once I finish that, I'll finally have something to do in psychology class!
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A fantastic game. Love the binary sort of logic thing.
The bad stuff:
Not enough instruction. Sometimes I have to click several times to get my click to register.
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I thought this was the hardest game ever. I've been at it for over an hour and only beat 7 levels. Then I discovered you can swap the B/R branch with spacebar. That changes everything! Wow. I'm shocked I got as far as I did.
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It's very difficult to tell what the hell this game is about when you start playing it. Persevere, tho, it's a neat Turing machine style puzzler.
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lol... bridges... i can tell you, police! is hard without them... possible though ^^ why cant this be explained somewhere like screen filling? ^^
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An explanation of the "output Robot" and "valid output" would be nice. i have watched the tut video like 4 times, and i cant understand (cant pass level 3). I am sure this is a great game, reminds me a bit of the game "Alchemy" or somthing like that. thanks :) (5/5?)
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As for level 3, you have to think in terms of what you don't care about. Start with a branch right below where the bots come in. You don't care whether there's no reds or a million of them, so how can we get the machine to ignore reds? Loop them. Cycle any reds back into the branch using a conveyor. Now that red is being ignored, you have but two outputs left: there is a blue, or there isn't. Link up 3 loops like that (I'll let you figure out how) and then you got a machine that ignores reds and looks only for blues!