Recent posts by djpawl on Kongregate

Topic: The Grinns Tale / Daily quests

I got 10 Pramins yesterday for killing a Scarecog. There definitely are some very nice rewards out there, I don’t know how likely you are to get them though.

Topic: Tyrant / Tyrant Errors

Well the wording is ambiguous. You could easily understand it as “Play at least one of the following set : {Mobile magmacannon, fury walker, scropinox, hydroblade, (and) APC}”.
If you just mean to play each of these cards, it would be clearer to just drop the “at least one of”, which is pretty much obvious.

Topic: General Gaming / Manufactoria Assistance (No Solutions!)

Originally posted by xpdr:

im stuck on androids, mecha, and planes. any tips?

All the later ‘accept’ levels use the fact that reading a bit destroys it. Think of it as a recursion: you have a function that rejects if the test fails, and returns a string minus the valid bits otherwise, then start again.
The same goes for ‘output’ levels: keep in mind that since your pattern is fixed, you can only handle a limited number of operations. Which means that you have to find a given set of operations that, when repeated as many times as necessary, will have the same result.
For example, if you want to design a program that returns the sum of the first n digits, with n being entered by the user, you can’t hardcode the (n-1) additions since your code has to be valid for all n; what you do is loop one addition (n-1) times.

See how you can apply those tips for androids, mecha and planes. These ones are not particularly difficult, they’re basically here to introduce the later levels. If you’re still stuck on the ‘Move all blues to the front’, check sort algorithms on the internet to understand the logic: it’s just an easy sorting problem where all you have is zeros and ones.

Besides, I encourage you to see other’s solutions after you passed your level, so you see how others did it. It may help you figure out some techniques.

Topic: General Gaming / Manufactoria Walkthrough / Optimization Thread

I revisited Judiciary with the new algorithms we had at our disposal:

small Judiciary (accept strings that repeat midway through) (3:02, 49 parts):

?lvl=20&code=r10:11f3;p10:12f2;b10:13f1;p11:10f1;c11:11f1;q11:12f4;c11:13f1;g12:10f3;c12:11f3;p12:12f3;p13:10f1;c13:11f1;q13:12f2;c13:13f1;r14:11f3;p14:12f4;b14:13f1;g8:5f2;r8:6f2;q9:5f7;p9:6f1;r9:7f1;g9:8f1;c10:4f2;c10:5f1;b10:6f0;g10:7f1;c10:8f0;r11:3f2;p11:4f2;b11:5f2;b11:6f2;q11:7f1;c11:8f0;c12:3f3;c12:4f3;y12:5f3;c12:6f3;p12:7f3;r13:6f0;q13:7f5;c13:8f0;c14:8f0;q12:9f0;i12:8f6;c14:7f3;g12:2f2;g13:2f3;c13:3f0;

A combination of the small Police I posted above and my small Seraphim.

And the same, but using ThirdParty’s fast Police instead:
fast Judiciary (accept strings that repeat midway through) (2:16, 78 parts) (based on an algorithm by ThirdParty):

?lvl=20&code=r10:11f3;p10:12f2;b10:13f1;p11:10f1;p12:12f3;p13:10f1;c13:11f1;r14:11f3;p14:12f4;b14:13f1;b6:5f2;c7:4f2;p7:5f5;r7:6f1;y7:7f1;q7:8f6;c8:4f2;r8:5f2;r8:7f2;p8:8f0;r8:9f1;g9:3f2;q9:4f2;p9:5f1;b9:6f3;p9:7f6;b9:8f0;r10:2f3;p10:3f2;b10:4f1;b10:5f0;y10:6f1;q10:7f0;q11:3f7;b11:5f3;c11:6f2;q11:7f4;b11:8f2;c12:3f3;c12:4f3;p12:5f3;y12:6f3;p12:7f3;p12:8f3;q13:3f3;r13:5f3;c13:6f0;q13:7f2;r13:8f0;b14:2f3;p14:3f0;r14:4f1;r14:5f2;y14:6f1;q14:7f6;g15:3f0;q15:4f4;p15:5f1;r15:6f3;p15:7f4;r15:8f2;b16:5f0;b16:7f0;p16:8f2;b16:9f1;c17:5f0;c17:6f1;y17:7f1;q17:8f0;q12:9f6;c12:11f3;c11:11f1;y12:2f2;g13:2f3;c13:4f0;y12:10f3;q11:12f0;q13:12f6;

*Edited: I posted the wrong code for the fast Judiciary, it’s fixed now.

Topic: General Gaming / Manufactoria Walkthrough / Optimization Thread

A small Police (put a yellow in the middle) (2:44, 35 parts):

?lvl=19&code=g12:2f3;q12:10f6;b11:11f2;p12:11f3;r13:11f0;q12:12f6;g12:3f3;c12:4f3;c12:5f3;y12:6f3;c12:7f3;p12:8f3;r13:7f0;q13:8f5;i12:9f1;c14:8f3;c14:9f0;c13:9f0;r8:7f2;p9:7f1;r9:8f1;g9:9f1;c10:5f2;b10:7f0;g10:8f1;c10:9f0;r11:4f2;p11:5f2;b11:6f2;b11:7f2;q11:8f1;c11:9f0;q9:6f7;g8:6f2;c10:6f1;

It’s basically an adaptation of my fast Police algorithm, modified to be more compact at the expense of speed (speed is better achieved by ThirdParty’s solution, which by the looks of it is quite similar but uses complex get-last-bit loops that are much faster).

Topic: General Gaming / Manufactoria Walkthrough / Optimization Thread

@ThirdParty: I looked at the Orphanim&Metatron (small) that have been posted, turns out the algorithmic complexity grows very fast. I get random strings that last for over 20mins.

Topic: General Gaming / Manufactoria Walkthrough / Optimization Thread

Nazlfrag, after looking at your code I realized that my exit condition was unnecessary, because it could
be handled by the main loop, just before the ‘get last bit’ part. In retrospect it seems pretty obvious, but I didn’t really realize it until I checked your algorithm.
Using this new insight, I was finally able to get rid of those pesky exit conveyers, and use the extra space to make a more compact main loop. The result is pretty satisfying, as I was able to get my solution down to 2:22min and 47 parts (as opposed to 2:43 and 89 parts, although the number of parts was greatly exagerated due to the lateral conveyers); also, it looks quite nice.
It may still be possible to optimize it further, as I only did this quick correction based on that new insight. I’ll check this again later.

Here’s the new version:
fast police (2:22, 47 parts):

?lvl=19&code=g12:2f3;b11:8f2;q11:9f1;c12:8f3;p12:9f3;r13:8f0;q13:9f5;q12:10f6;b11:11f2;p12:11f3;r13:11f0;q12:12f6;c12:6f3;y12:7f3;g12:3f3;p12:4f7;c12:5f3;r11:5f2;b13:5f0;c11:4f3;c13:4f3;p11:6f2;b11:7f2;q10:6f1;p9:6f2;b9:7f1;r9:5f3;g8:6f2;q8:7f2;p8:8f1;b9:8f0;r7:8f2;g10:8f0;c10:9f1;r13:7f0;p13:6f0;q14:6f5;g16:6f0;q16:7f4;g14:8f2;r15:8f2;p16:8f1;b17:8f0;c14:9f1;r15:7f1;b15:5f3;p15:6f0;

Topic: General Gaming / Manufactoria Walkthrough / Optimization Thread

I have a 2:43 Police solution too, much more verbose though. This is basically a faster version of the solution I had posted in the game comments earlier, which was not so well implemented.

Police (2:43, 89 parts):

?lvl=19&code=g12:2f3;c6:11f3;c7:12f2;c8:12f2;c9:12f2;c10:12f2;c6:12f2;p11:12f6;r11:13f1;b11:11f3;q12:12f6;r13:13f1;b13:11f3;p13:12f0;c18:12f0;c17:12f0;c16:12f0;c15:12f0;c14:12f0;c18:11f3;q12:11f6;c6:5f3;c6:6f3;c6:7f3;c6:8f3;c6:9f3;c6:10f3;c7:5f0;r7:7f2;c8:5f0;q8:6f1;p8:7f1;g8:8f1;q8:9f4;y9:5f0;q9:6f2;b9:7f0;b9:8f3;p9:9f0;r9:10f1;c10:5f2;p10:6f2;b10:7f2;g10:8f0;c10:9f1;r11:5f3;c11:6f2;y11:7f2;b11:8f2;q11:9f1;g12:4f3;p12:5f7;y12:6f3;c12:7f3;c12:8f3;p12:9f3;c12:10f3;b13:5f3;c13:6f0;y13:7f0;r13:8f0;q13:9f5;c14:5f0;p14:6f0;r14:7f0;g14:8f2;c14:9f1;y15:5f2;q15:6f4;r15:7f2;r15:8f3;p15:9f2;b15:10f1;c16:5f2;q16:6f5;p16:7f1;g16:8f1;q16:9f2;c17:5f2;b17:7f0;c18:5f3;c18:6f3;c18:7f3;c18:8f3;c18:9f3;c18:10f3;c12:3f3;

The problem with this algorithm is that the exit decision can only be made at the very end of the loop, so I had to use extremely long conveyers on both sides to exit, which adds a lot to the processing time. However, this is less significant the longer the input strings are, so this could be somewhat efficient for long inputs.

Topic: General Gaming / Manufactoria Walkthrough / Optimization Thread

Hi, I’ve been busy lately so I’m glad to see there have been lots of nice solutions posted here in the meantime. A few contributions to the page 2 list:
Here’s a small rocket planes (1:34, 16 parts):

?lvl=27&code=c12:5f3;c12:10f3;p12:8f3;r13:8f0;c13:7f3;y12:4f3;q12:9f2;p12:6f3;c13:6f3;c12:7f3;b11:6f2;b10:7f3;p10:8f6;r10:9f1;q11:8f0;y11:7f1;

a small teachers (0:51, 19 parts):

?lvl=21&code=p12:6f7;p13:6f2;b13:7f1;p13:5f5;c12:3f3;c12:7f3;c12:8f3;c12:9f3;c12:10f3;c12:11f3;c12:12f3;r14:5f0;b10:4f3;p10:5f6;q11:5f0;i12:5f1;c11:4f2;y12:4f3;c12:2f3;

and a small seraphim (0:39, 21 parts):

?lvl=29&code=c12:9f3;c12:10f3;c12:11f3;p12:8f3;q13:8f2;q11:8f4;p10:8f2;r10:7f3;r14:7f3;b10:9f1;b14:9f1;p14:8f4;p11:6f1;g12:6f3;c12:7f3;c12:3f3;c12:4f3;c12:5f3;c11:7f1;c13:7f1;p13:6f1;

Topic: General Gaming / Manufactoria Walkthrough / Optimization Thread

@Tass: Erm. As of now, there are fixed tests and random ones, the best time being only recorded for the fixed ones.
But that’s not my point here. I believe the point of the game is not to somehow get better scores than you deserve, nor to pass levels you didn’t even solve.
Unless there is a badge, which means that lots of people will want to finish the game without playing it, posting invalid solutions is pointless because they have no value to anybody that would be interested in seeing other solutions. I believe the fun (and somewhat beautiful) part of this game is that it’s basically a programming language that allows you to solve problems with many different algorithms, some being faster, some more compact, and some just more beautiful than others.
That’s the only reason sharing solutions (along with giving some advice to those who have difficulties with one problem) would be even remotely interesting. Otherwise, you should as well just provide the .sol file anyway.

For all of those who are interested in sharing levels, I think it’d be interesting to paste level codes along with a short explanation of the algorithm.
I start with a few ones:

Android (accept X blue, then X red) (12 parts, 0:38)

?lvl=17&code=i12:6f7;p12:7f3;c12:8f3;c12:9f3;q12:10f0;r10:6f2;q11:5f3;p11:6f1;p11:7f4;b11:8f1;g12:5f3;c12:4f3;

Removes the first blue and the last red; pass if last output is the null string, discards otherwise.

Engineers (accept symmetrical strings) (25 parts, 1:07)

?lvl=24&code=y12:3f3;c12:2f3;p12:5f3;c12:4f3;q13:4f6;r14:4f3;c14:5f0;b14:6f1;q13:6f2;q11:6f4;c10:5f2;r10:6f1;b10:4f3;q11:4f0;c11:3f2;c13:3f0;c12:7f3;c12:8f3;c12:9f3;c12:10f3;c12:11f3;c12:12f3;c12:6f3;p13:5f4;p11:5f6;

A simple algorithm, which uses a routine that reads first and last dot, discards if they’re different, and re-inputs the string minus the extreme dots otherwise. Recursion ends when input string is empty or down to a suts the string minus the extreme dots otherwise. Recursion ends when input string is empty or down to a single dot.

Academics (reverse input string) (31 parts, 3:56)

?lvl=23&code=c12:12f3;r9:5f2;q10:4f3;p10:5f1;c10:6f1;y10:7f1;b11:4f2;b11:5f0;b11:6f2;q11:7f5;b11:9f2;c12:2f3;y12:3f3;g12:4f3;c12:5f3;c12:6f3;p12:7f3;q12:8f2;p12:9f3;q12:10f6;r13:4f0;r13:5f2;r13:6f0;q13:7f1;r13:9f0;q14:4f7;p14:5f1;c14:6f1;y14:7f1;b15:5f0;c12:11f3;

An iterative version of “put last color in front”. Yellow dot marks end of string, green dot end of the reversed string. Each loop moves the last color (the one immediately followed by the yellow dot) to the first position immediately after the green dot, then move the green marker forward. Iteration stops when green and yellow colors meet, which means that all colors have been reversed. Plus, it looks pretty.

Topic: Dream World / Best Class?

Originally posted by NeuroSurgeon:

Unfortunately for you, for real medics, sociologists are a bunch of brainless losers..

And lemme know.. You must surely be that 12 yo that takes the warrior.. Don’t worry, it happens

Real medics… like neuro surgeons?

Topic: Dream World / Best Class?

Originally posted by NeuroSurgeon:

Mages, always. In every game the “wizard side” is always the more powerfull.. But let’s see.. Mages are made to deal great damage in short time, spending a reasonable quantity of energy (whatever the name is in a game; mana, skill points, etc).

In a real game, the power of a mage is linked to his low health points, makeing him being owned by mosquitos in the close distance.. So that, it’s whole strategy is based on staying far, while tanks get hitted, and bombing everithing with aoe skills etc.. Apart all this, the mages are still the most powerfull classes..

In THIS game what can we see? Apart a graphic that even a 8 y.o. boy could do better, there is no distance, there is nothing more than a stupid button to click.. You don’t even have to run because the “tank is getting close” or because the “archer is owning you” (since we all know archer classes usually are the only ones able to own a mage)..

So you keep a character with many skill points, able to spam a lot of low lvl skills while lolling at another stupid warrior/sniper that hopes in a lucky crit..

And someone said the 2/3 of best players ranking are warriors.. Ofc they are.. Children always come to games like this first, and they always chose the most stupid and easy class “becuz he pwnnnn muahaha yoyoyoy lololololol”, and i stop here..

Is this forum the place were all failed would-be sociologists come?

Topic: Dream World / Best Class?

Originally posted by TheNameless1:

Originally posted by djpawl:

Can anyone tell me if weapons affect skill damage for Gunslingers and Warriors?

Enter a battle with two diferent weapons. Hit the mob with a skill, then change the weapon and hit the mob with the same skill and it’s done. If that isn’t enough, try several time and make a statistic.

It’s well known that they affect the damage of a normal hit, but I never tried to see if they have some influence on the skills damage.

I know that, that’s why I asked for Gunslingers and Warriors. My mage spells are not affected by weapons, which means that in PVP it would be better to have an enchanted wood stick than an über star Staff of awesomeness +3, so I wanted to know if the other classes had the same behaviour.
I quickly tried with a gunslinger (although I really didn’t want to waste energy and skill points for tests), and it seemed that specials were affected by your weapon. In which case it would be kind of unfair if confirmed.

Topic: Dream World / Best Class?

Can anyone tell me if weapons affect skill damage for Gunslingers and Warriors?

Topic: Dream World / Joining A Guild

Raising the cap does not automatically kick you, so I guess the guild master just decided to remove some people.

Topic: Dream World / Everybody Stop Whining about the Energy System

‘2. The Creator of The Game Needs Time To Expand The Game Which Means if Everyone Just Levels Up Like That Then Everybody Would Beat The Game and Get Bored With It.’
Weakest argument ever.
“They’Re Making Us Pay For Something That’s Not Even Complete, So It’s Normal To Make The Game Worse Than It Is.”

Topic: Serious Discussion / Cheat Engine

Darkruler: Hey, calm down. I did not attack anyone, nor did I say I didn’t like this website, nor did I say games in general were bad.
My point was to open some minds ; I’m not saying cheating’s good, but that some people who attack it do it on wrong basis. Look at the first post : the guy was complaining about it to be unfair, especially about Kongai, because it would be unfair since they got super powerful cards. That’s wrong (since challenges are easy to complete, and everyone is free to choose his starting cards), but there’s an important point : Kongai is multiplayer.

Again, my point was to say that when cheating does not affect others, well, it isn’t of any disturbance to anyone. There are lots of reasons for which people would cheat, like those I quoted in my post. Don’t stigmatize cheaters: of course there are people who cheat and flood highscore tables with unlikely scores, but that’s not the majority of them. In some cases, you can compare it to using walkthroughs: you may like the game, but want to skip a passage you find too boring, too slow, too repetitive, or whatever.
As for your paragraph which stated ‘I should have better things to do’: besides, thanks for the ad hominem, but I’ll do as if you didn’t lower yourself to that. I was telling that there are some reasons to cheat which seem less immoral than others. Because we people don’t like to look at ourselves before judging. You might say cheating is the source of all problem; but I maintain my two points: people do what they want as long as it doesn’t bother others (which doesn’t include multiplayer, highscores, or spamming), and we could as well criticize badly concieved games which encourage people to cheat.

That fear of being hacked sometimes drive programmers paranoid, and seem to spend more time defending themselves against hacking (which is often pointless) than ask themselves ‘why the hell would people hack my game’? There are wonderful games I’d never spoil by blatantly cheating (but still, I do play most of the games on accelerated speed, can you tell me it’s immoral to find animations too slow? Some programmers add effects over effects, and forget playability).

My point was not a critic, just an advice. Of course there are factors that make people cheat, like competition (multiplayer, highscores, again), which is a stupid (but unfortunately true) thing. But is that true for every cheater, and for every kind of cheating? I don’t think so. You put everyone in the same basket; I wanted to bring some open-mindedness, but that’s apparently not what I achieved. I’m surprised by the speed at which you decided to attack me in particular, while I only speaked in general, and never of myself. But as I said, I’m not going to judge you by your use of ad hominem attacks; I’m sure you’re a good person.
Back to the advice thing: just think about what would be so frustrating in your game that people would want to skip it. That was my solution to cheating, which may sound paradoxal: focus less on being hacked, and more about providing fun to people. If even then, some people deliberately want to spoil this fun, then it’s up to them and you shouldn’t bother about them; but I think bringing more entertainment to every other is a more valuable reward.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Cheat Engine

Note : English’s not my native language, sorry if you find horrible things. Just tell me, I’ll correct it.

You can’t prevent people from cheating, but that has been said many times. You can make it harder, and prevent most of the people from doing that though. If the others are skilled enough to get past these, as long as achievements are only personal, I see no problem. Plus, most of those who obviously cheat and ruin the fun to other people (multiplayer games, or highscores) are not part of this group.

Btw, do you really need badges to feel proud of yourself? That’s the impression I got when I read some of the posts. Do you really need others to have trouble winning badges because ‘you had so much trouble doing it yourself, that it’s unfair’?

Some games are boring or contain bad design features in term of playability, and still have badges that need hours to achieve. I fully understand some people do not want to lose any time doing these, and it’s their choice as long as it doesn’t affect the others. Sometimes due to bad luck, you may miss a very difficult badge by very little (like losing at 24500 on triangles, when you tried for a long time to win the badge) and get so frustrated you’ll want to win it another way. Sometimes a game is so long, you have played it a lot but still aren’t halfway through it, and becomes so repetitive&boring you’ll like to speed it up a bit and hack your way through a few levels. Sometimes people are kinda maniac, and feel the need to win all the badges of a given game (or even all badges on kong), which means that games that do not deserve the amount of time you have to invest in order to get achievements have a high probability to be hacked. There are many ways to defend cheaters, at least those who cheat for themselves and do not annoy others.

There’s no ‘sense of accomplishment’ in having finally achieved something you tried for hours when it is only a poor single badge on a random website; in fact, in most of the cases only a sense of ‘having wasted a lot of time and being a nerd’.

The best way to program a game that will not be hacked is to program a fun and well designed game, that people will enjoy playing more than enjoying getting some random achievements. When you don’t like a game, you don’t play it. But when this game has badges (and God knows how addicting badges are), this is just not possible. I’ve seen many games that use lots of cheat-preventing systems (like Balloon Invasion); shouldn’t that time have been better used improving the gameplay (for example, not making campaigns ultra-repetitive and worth 200 hours of play to complete) instead of making it harder to hack?

Topic: Kongregate Multiplayer Games / [Zening] Beta Testers Wanted

Same for me :)