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Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

hexapipes.vercel.app

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Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#111

Post by matsemann »

msoucy wrote: post #98

Me: "Oh I'm pretty good at Net, this should be easy" Two hours later I finally finish the 40x40. Thank you and I hate you. I've infected my friends with this. Also, since we're bragging about scores: 39s for the 5x5 wrapping, but I'll definitely be coming back to this.

Yeah, it was quite different. Half the strategies for grid-net doesn't work, and my pattern matching is off.

Same for Loopy/Slitherlink. It's the same game, but changing shapes vastly changes the game. Very fascinating and refreshing.

Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#112

Post by gereleth »

msoucy wrote: post #98

Me: "Oh I'm pretty good at Net, this should be easy" Two hours later I finally finish the 40x40. Thank you and I hate you. I've infected my friends with this. Also, since we're bragging about scores: 39s for the 5x5 wrapping, but I'll definitely be coming back to this.

Wow, did you really start with a 40x40? I only solved like two of them ever. It's pretty time consuming).

And good time on the wrap! Small wrap boards can actually be harder than larger ones because there's less chance of finding some seed tiles to start from.

Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#113

Post by matsemann »

bunsenhoneydew wrote: post #19

Love it! I first played the version of this with squares on a Palm Pilot and that was a long time ago. I was even looking for that version for my iPhone the other day but was drowning in other random games (and little network tools) until I gave up. It shouldn’t take much effort to turn it into a PWA, so then people can use it just like an app. I already saved it to my Home Screen and would certainly play this as a d…

This one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32170592

Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#114

Post by gereleth »

matsemann wrote: post #111
msoucy wrote: post #98

Me: "Oh I'm pretty good at Net, this should be easy" Two hours later I finally finish the 40x40. Thank you and I hate you. I've infected my friends with this. Also, since we're bragging about scores: 39s for the 5x5 wrapping, but I'll definitely be coming back to this.

Yeah, it was quite different. Half the strategies for grid-net doesn't work, and my pattern matching is off. Same for Loopy/Slitherlink. It's the same game, but changing shapes vastly changes the game. Very fascinating and refreshing.

I remember being pretty mad at how a straight piece isn't immediately solved after you fix one wall. Like how can it still have wiggle room?! =))

All general principles still apply though, so experience with Net certainly helps here.

Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#115

Post by gereleth »

jojohack wrote: post #101

Nice job! This reminds me a bit of a space puzzle game I made a while back ( the premise of which is to rotate the hexagon tiles to create a pathway from the player character to the orb in each level ) https://www.gorch.com/games/spacehex/

Fun puzzle! I played a few levels and I can see some similarities. Did you handcraft the levels? They don't look algorithmically generated.

Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#116

Post by gereleth »

vesche wrote: post #85

Very fun, although I don't really feel like it takes much skill. Seems to be a chill puzzle experience and doesn't scratch the same brain itch as something like a Rubik's cube or Loopover ( https://loopover.xyz/ ). I did the 20x20 in 32:31.596 and now feel like I can close this tab :P

This loopover thing is hard... I unscrambled two lines and was quickly running out of movement freedom. =)

You can try the wrap variant for an extra challenge.

Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#117

Post by matsemann »

gereleth wrote: post #114
matsemann wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it was quite different. Half the strategies for grid-net doesn't work, and my pattern matching is off. Same for Loopy/Slitherlink. It's the same game, but changing shapes vastly changes the game. Very fascinating and refreshing.

I remember being pretty mad at how a straight piece isn't immediately solved after you fix one wall. Like how can it still have wiggle room?! =)) All general principles still apply though, so experience with Net certainly helps here.

Exactly the same I was thinking off! Normally a straight piece will propagate and lock all other straight pieces either into it or parallel with it. But yeah, still gain some information, while the neighbor straight isn't locked at all times, it's at least constrained. So very cool to play the same game I already like, but with some new twists. :)

Edit: I like how I can mark known edges. So many digital puzzle games make it hard to mark the same stuff I would on a paper.

Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#118

Post by gereleth »

Waterluvian wrote: post #91

This is a fantastic game. I’m curious, did you use a special coordinate system for the hexagons or did you just make it work without any sort of coordinate system at all?

I didn't use any special coordinates, just some trigonometry. My code transforms coordinates between (x,y) - for drawing, (row, column) - for finding neighbours and (index into an array of tiles) - for managing state. It sort of grew organically and could probably be cleaned up a lot.

The hardest part was making the board repeat for the wrap variant making sure that all tiles have consistent wrap neighbours. I almost deployed a version that worked fine on odd-sized grids and went completely bananas on even-sized grids. The danger of always testing on a 5x5 board)).

Re: Show HN: Pipes puzzle (a.k.a. Net) on a hexagonal grid

#120

Post by JelteF »

gereleth wrote: post #44
mdavis6890 wrote: post #35

Great game! I humbly suggest that you flesh out the rules just a bit more. I struggled to figure out if pipes were allowed to run out of bounds, whether they all had to be connected into a single network, and the significance of the bulb-ended ones. I'm not totally dense and could make some guesses, but this still made the puzzle less than approachable for me at first. Basically I just guessed at these things, tried…

Fair enough, I'll think how to word all this.

I think simply having an image of what a solved network looks like would help a lot.
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