Most of the ones I had remaining (when I had 43 completed) turned out to be simpler than I expected (going down in 10-15 minutes after taking a mind break). Minutae was a bit trickier (took me closer to 30 minutes), but was very satisfying to resolve — lots of very subtly different choices to make. Snapshot was probably the most annoying (lots of iteration over a strictly limited possibility space), but once I figured out a set of possibilities that I had been ignoring it didn’t take too long.
Now I just have 39 and 50 left, and all my brain has been able to do at work today is iterate over possible solutions for 39. (I think I have it but I can’t check until I get back home!!! )
I am very excited to open the second gate in level 1 and see what the deal with it is (no spoilers plz).
I was somehow able to open two out of four gates on level 50, but I accidentally rewound too far when retracing my steps. Since then, despite my best efforts, I have been unable to replicate this feat. I am sobbing and crying right now — crumpled on the floor, shaken to the core — my spirit broken and my heart in shambles. I am naught but a hollow spectre tossed to and fro by the capricious winds of this immeasurable void, never again to partake of the light of life (j/k I’ll just need to bust out some paper for this one).
Yeah one of my testers made a map, and a person on twitter beat it in their head. I first beat it in my head, but it took me a long time and a lot of restarts.
I would say staying organized is one of the most important aspects of that puzzle.
I just tried to beat level 50 again since the first time I made the puzzle (over a year ago) and succeeded – As far as I can tell, it is NOT generalizable for any number of gates, at least not the way I do it. If it’s possible to get more than 4 hearts in there, I don’t know how.
I had an epiphany in the shower this morning on how to modify my 2/4ths solution into 3/4ths of a solution, and was able to verify it worked before leaving for work. Then on my way to work I had another epiphany on how to turn it into a full solution with only marginally more effort. Very clever puzzle.
I will say, the solution here is a lot simpler than my failed (likely impossible) attempt at infinite regression would have been.
so far puzzle 12 was the hardest, the rest have been a little easier to see the possibilities and then rearrange the order of operations until i get the right one. i like knowing that, unless i’m mistaken, every square has a purpose so if I’m not utilizing them then I am missing a piece of the puzzle.
17 had multiple screens though so I had to tap out for today
neat, itch made a video featuring my game. not exactly sure what metric i hit or if it’s more of a editor’s choice thing or something, but cool nonetheless.
I finally got around to starting this after not seeing it since its beta (alpha?) days, I really love all the added “polish” it has in its finished state. I think how everything sorta drops into place at start is cute, and I like the checkmark deal as a sort of “I solved the puzzle, now let me Zorro slash my symbol to seal my victory”.
I’m through the first 20 puzzles and the difficulty curve feels a good bit smoothed out, but it is hard to tell for sure as I also played through several of these puzzles years back and while I didn’t recall their actual solutions it’s possible I had some faint recognition guiding my hand (I very much remembered most of 17, I think that was the one most seared into my subconscious). Anyways I seem to be at a point where I’m past most of the familiar puzzles and have a new mechanic to play with so we’ll see how it goes but so far it very much seems to be in pretty great shape!
yeah, there are less mechanics introduced in the back 30 so that’s where it starts to get more involved. i think you’ll find a few familiar levels there but they’ll mostly be new to you.
i’m not sure where terry started to feel the heat, but he did mention a transition between “playful warmup” to “devious and deliberate” in his review. other playthroughs i’ve seen start to have pretty long level clear times around 20, too.
also, it doesn’t look like i mentioned it here yet, but i’m at 10.8k browser plays with this game. it’s had pretty consistent traffic since release!
Yeah I’d say there is a bit of a… difficulty transition around stage 21 or so. 21, 22 and 23 all took me a good amount of time to figure out with me currently stuck at 24 for the moment (I don’t skip unless it becomes disastrously hard). I will say you do a really good job of capturing that “gah I’m stuck one move away from this working” feeling with these puzzles.
Anyways gonna probably slot this in as my current “pick away” at puzzler and hope to get through a puzzle or two a day (of course I likely just jinxed myself to getting stuck on 24 for a while now with that). I’ll make sure to note when I either finish it up or it breaks me
i think 23 is the one people have the most trouble with in that set of levels you just did. the game is definitely a slow burn, so that’s probably the right approach.
