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Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

dogbunnypuzzle.com

341–350 of 485 posts

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#341
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought there was no solution because I thought the arrow pointing on the line from the flower meant you could only go that direction from the flower, but the solution relies on someone behind able to move backwards from the flower. Granted there is the blue feedback if you are on the flower, but it’s confusing when you are trying to plan ahead. edit: Fun puzzle though!

Oh. I solved it by following the arrows, didn’t know I could go the other way.

I followed the arrows too. Took me 15 mins or so to solve. I think the former comment meant that he thought that once you are on a node that is in front of an arrow, you have to follow that arrow, but that is not its meaning obviously.

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#343
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another quick reward effect you could do to avoid flashing colors is to make the animals jump up and down, as if they’re happy to get their food

I liked the insanely rapidly flashing colors.

Rapidly flashing colors may be dangerous for people with epilepsy.

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#344

I'm convinced there is only one way to solve this: Write a program to unroll the constrained state transition diagram into an unconditional state transition diagram and find the shortest path. The unrolled version would still be pretty small so you can just iterate over it.

This can be easily solved by a class of algorithms called "search algorithms". Most famous ones are "Breadth-first search" and "Depth-first search". They have many variations like "Depth limited depth-first search" and "Iterative deepening depth-first search". If you include heuristics, then you have other variations like "A" and "Iterative deepening A". These are pretty well known and relatively easy to implement.

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#345

I'm convinced there is only one way to solve this: Write a program to unroll the constrained state transition diagram into an unconditional state transition diagram and find the shortest path. The unrolled version would still be pretty small so you can just iterate over it.

This can be easily solved by a class of algorithms called "search algorithms". Most famous ones are "Breadth-first search" and "Depth-first search". They have many variations like "Depth limited depth-first search" and "Iterative deepening depth-first search". If you include heuristics, then you have other variations like "A " and "Iterative deepening A ". These are pretty well known and relatively easy to implement.

Hacker news change the star into italics. The variations are called 'A*' and 'iterative deepening A*' (Need a backslach prior to the star to show it properly)

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#346
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's a genius[1]. Took me an age to figure out what the rules were and then a fair while to actually get it done. [1]Well compared to me anyway

I inferred rules that turned out not to be true: 1) I thought that, obviously, rabbits and dogs couldn't occupy the same space, lest the dog attack the rabbit, causing a lose-condition 2) I assumed that only one animal could occupy a node. The game, until the last move, is winnable with those extra rules.

Rabbit and dog never need to occupy the same space.

But yes, I never thought about rule 2 until I got the dog and one rabbit in place and hadn't won.

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#347
post #175

(author here) Great feedback! Yes, I am the "Land of Lisp" guy Sorry about the potential epilepsy trigger- that was the fastest way I could think of to code a quick "reward effect", I will do something different in the next version. I didn't really expect anyone to care enough to solve the puzzle lol. Now that I know people like the puzzle, I will build out the website and post regular puzzles, follow my Twitter @lis…

I thought there was no solution because I thought the arrow pointing on the line from the flower meant you could only go that direction from the flower, but the solution relies on someone behind able to move backwards from the flower. Granted there is the blue feedback if you are on the flower, but it’s confusing when you are trying to plan ahead. edit: Fun puzzle though!

Funnily enough I understood all the rules, but still was mentally blocked for a while because I just didn't even consider moving back from the flower as a possibility. I guess there was something about that arrow that was very enticing.

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#348
post #58

When dog and rabbit are on the same node, it was somewhat hard for me to pick the right one to move (on mobile Safari), but I eventually managed. Very nice game.

If the author is looking for ideas here, with minimal impact on the existing design, I'd recommend putting the most-recently dropped animal in the back to allow for cycling through which one you pick up.

Another possibility is a "hover" state when when you mouseover a node with 2 animals, they animate quickly into a side-by-side orientation so you can easily pick which one you want to interact with.

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#349

Feedback: 1. It was good enough that I finished. This is success! Good job! 2. It took me too long to realize characters could occupy the same space, and the game doesn't draw characters occupying the same space very well. 3. The flashing lights at the end are too fast, slow them way down and it will still look good. You'll probably only have to change a number in your code.

I found this particular puzzle pretty easy, but I have a lot of experience with puzzles (recently because my kid likes them). If you want to train novices up to solve very difficult puzzles of this style (or whatever style), start with very simple puzzles and build your way up in a sequence of steadily increasing difficulty, introducing only about one new trick at a time.

I disagree with this completely. The level of difficulty is just enough to get the brain properly churning with a manageable level of frustration without being completely impossible.

Re: Show HN: I may have created a new type of puzzle

#350
post #212
post #175

(author here) Great feedback! Yes, I am the "Land of Lisp" guy Sorry about the potential epilepsy trigger- that was the fastest way I could think of to code a quick "reward effect", I will do something different in the next version. I didn't really expect anyone to care enough to solve the puzzle lol. Now that I know people like the puzzle, I will build out the website and post regular puzzles, follow my Twitter @lis…

Thank you.. As fun as it was to solve the simple puzzle, nothing will replace the joy I felt when I showed it to my 8 year old daughter to see her solve it in 2 minutes flat with no instruction at all. Thank you for making it possible. I had to ask her to persist for a bit as she didn't exactly see what had to be done. She knew what had to be done once she accidentally swiped and saw to rabbit get dragged along. May…

Your daughter is awesome.
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