So possibly dumb non-puzzle question: I’m through the first 27 puzzles now and on the more recursive-heavy puzzles the audio is getting progressively more and more delayed to the degree that eventually all sound effects are taking place a few seconds later than they should. I assume making the game means you have at least some feel for the engine, is this because I’m playing it via browser, something baked into the engine or an all-new issue I randomly stumbled into.
it’s a problem with that version of tic80. Internal audio latency · Issue #714 · nesbox/TIC-80 · GitHub or SFX issues on Linux · Issue #1764 · nesbox/TIC-80 · GitHub
i experienced it when i was developing the game locally, too
if you’re between levels and you notice it you can reload the tab or restart the game (ctrl+r) and that should fix it.
the downloadable version doesn’t exhibit that problem because it’s using a newer version of tic80, but unfortunately the new tic80 has other problems w/ its browser export related to draw timing and vsync.
if some future version of tic80 fixes both the vsync and the sfx delay problem for browser exports, i’ll upgrade to that lol
1 Like
Had to put this down for a week due to commitments elsewhere, I just want you to know that I managed to solve puzzle 34 completely by accident. Well obviously I solved the first bit legit but in frustration I just pushed some stuff and was standing right before the X locked door with the piece next to it without any idea as to how or why that worked.
You design puzzles well, but never underestimate the ability of a fool to sometimes successfully walk through a mine field blindfolded 
haha, yeah that one is convoluted – it’s essentially a do the same thing twice level but with a different framing the second time, so you’re not really missing a pivotal deduction. it’s a pretty goofy level.
1 Like
I’m still very slowly making progress at this, got to 44 today after being stuck on 43 for a bit (44 feels initially easier but I’m pretty sure whatever the last “trick” it has is a big one as I got that “one move away and I got no clue how to unlock it” feeling").
That’s not why I posted this, something else has been bugging me. Was 39 one of the earlier puzzles you made the first time you shared your work on here with us some years back? I generally remember which ones I saw back then but I’m just not sure on this one. I basically went “no, this is a new one, although I kinda remember the shape of a solution and… huh, it worked” which is an odd feeling if it actually isn’t one of said old ones.
Yes it was.
The are some pretty tricky lynchpins in the 40s!
1 Like
Yes there are!
I’m currently 44/50 without having even looked at what 45 is, I unfortunately played 44 a bit too late in the day yesterday so I had all sorts of permutations running through my head while I was trying to sleep. I think what makes that puzzle in particular tricky is that there are two distinct theoretical solution paths/endgames having the red and blue lanterns push the O into its block to open up the goal square, or moving the portal onto the first collapsing tile (by getting its partner one into that corner so you can freely move it left and up as needed) and pushing just the blue lantern and O through it to its block and they both feel potentially solvable enough that it basically splits one attention and makes it trickier to pull it apart. Perfectly valid design, but I can see how one could get lost in the weeds for a bit there.
Okay I don’t mean to spam this thread but I got up to puzzle 47 and pushing a portal into a portal and having it literally explode me was such an unexpected twist that I nearly burst out laughing. I have no idea if it is a necessary technique one of the last few puzzles will take advantage of or just a wonderful little easter egg but it left me with a big stupid grin on my face for the next minute or so.
3 Likes
Huzzah~
Anyways this was really good and IMO the best of your three puzzle games that I’ve played. The puzzles here are clearly a few levels more developed that what Bubble Butler offered (still love the central mechanic in that game, but sometimes the puzzles felt a bit “okay, now try this slight variant on what you did before that prevents the previous solution from working”) and it has been good to see how you’ve grown in this regard. Heck pretty much all of your design has taken a big leap here, it can be poisonous to suggest to a hobbyist that “you could charge for this!” but I’d say both the quality and amount of designed content (hate that word, can’t come up with a better one while typing this) is at a professional level.
It can be hard in a puzzle game fifty stages long to keep everything feeling distinct and not like one is repeating themselves but you legit kept the variety high throughout. I do think some of the older puzzles sometimes have a bit of a different “flavor” than the newer ones (ex: 29) but they generally mesh well together and one rarely feels like they are doing the exact same thing they did before. The closest the game comes to it are some of the recursive numbers ones, and even those have enough differences from one another that they remain fairly dissimilar.
I worry seeing some of the puzzles previously might skew how I perceive the difficulty curve but I do think by the early 20s it takes a bit of a leap in terms of challenge and just keeps it at a consistently high level the rest of the way (it does let up off the gas around 40 for a bit, for clear reasons). I think having a few more moderate stages sprinkled in during the back half of the game would have been nice in an ideal situation just to give the player a chance to catch their breath. While I like a tricky puzzle it can be a bit exhausting when you just completed another very difficult puzzle and know it’s just gonna be that much of a mental challenge coming up next each time you do so. Give me one I can knock out in five minutes every so often, let me feel like a big shot for a moment
FWIW, I was stuck on 50 for a few days and was legit worried I was gonna have to walk away at 49/50 complete feeling like a putz. It might actually be my least favorite of the fifty for purely personal reasons, it felt much more open in terms of what was asked (in terms of less being guided by what the puzzle presents and instead being given a goal and somewhat blank slate to have to craft a solution in) and I am much less partial to that school of design (possibly because I am bad at it). Clearly it’s not actually open as I’d wager there’s likely only one actual solution which is still hidden behind a linchpin (once I got said linchpin I went from “I’ve been stuck at two gates for over two days now” to “oh it is solved” within minutes) and there are a few clues the level layout does provide, but I probably went through a dozen or two other ideas before I got to that one as there were just fewer environmental clues to let me work backwards from and my brain just generally works much better in that direction for whatever reason.
I wrote that up not because I think it is a badly designed puzzle (it clearly isn’t), but on the off chance that reading how parts of it altered how one player experienced it is in any way useful. That and said puzzle has been bouncing around my head for way too long so I need to expunge all things related to it >_>
Anyways that personal hiccup aside I’d say it was a rousing success! There are years where this would easily be my puzzler of the year, it’s a great set of mechanical concepts you proved to have a knack for getting to bounce off of one another in very clever and creative ways. I’m glad that this has been your most successful/played game as it is certainly well deserved.
Now to give my brain some time off to recover.
4 Likes
thanks glad you largely enjoyed it!
re: difficultly curve, yes, that is something i’ve struggled with in a lot of my designs so i’m really focusing on it for my next game given the lessons i learned here. i’m going to attempt a different kind of structure because i have some ideas on how to encourage people towards the content they’d like the best. i agree that it’s important to have varying difficulties instead of just a mountain with an increasingly steep slope.
for level 50, yes it’s much more open and closer to an “engineering” problem than the rest of the levels. i correctly identified it was the hardest level but i think when i made it some of my other puzzles were more open, too. as i tightened the rest of the puzzles up 50 remained as it was because i liked how complicated it was given it’s rather concise construction. but yeah, multiple testers created maps or notes to help them solve it. i think if i make puzzles like this in the future i’ll limit it to optional paths or like post-critical-path content.
one of the tricky things about designing puzzles in this game is that the base mechanics (particularly pushing teleporters) have so much complexity and nuance that it was really hard to make straightforward levels. manipulating and moving them never quite gets “simple” for the player, so there’s always this layer of teleporter tactics that sits on the player’s mental stack in addition to the core of the puzzle they’re actually trying to solve. for my next game i’m going to try to make each mechanic or element a lot more basic/fundamental so that i have finer granular control over difficulty and complexity.
4 Likes
so apparently in the july 2022 issue of pc gamer i uhh got a full page review??
so now we know print media gives my game an 84.
10 Likes
hot dang. they even put it on page 88 just for you
5 Likes
i do like that he mentioned that undo speeds up as you hold down the button. that’s a sore spot for me in some games with infinite undo – it takes too damn long!!
2 Likes
This fucking rules, congrats man
2 Likes