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

hexapipes.vercel.app

51–60 of 164 posts

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

#51
post #10

Is there always a single possible solution ? (I did a bunch of small ones and always found a solution pretty quickly)

if the pipes are cut from a Spanning Tree connecting all the hexagons (like the one you witness once you have solved), then yes, for those give pipe pieces, there should be only one solution.

Is this true? I can almost imagine one puzzle that can create two different spanning trees. Maybe I ought to draw it up to verify.

Spanning trees may be required but not sufficient for a unique solution.

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

#53
post #50

This is super fun! Just played a few and my best on the 5×5 was 0:42. Thanks for sharing! Love your description too—would love to see a more in-depth write up if you get the time! It's so fun when you can flip from solving something to generating it. I'm also a fan of solving games with code and have made an Upwords bot that plays perfectly but realized I could use it to try to find better "hyperparameters" for the g…

my first 5x5 try was 0:58. I was actually very surprised when it came together as it felt like i was just randomly fitting pipes to their nearest neighbors.

Yes, much like falling asleep, falling in love, or going bankrupt this was quite the "slowly, then all at once" type of affair.

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

#54

Very cool! I suggest adding a daily puzzle with a share result (day number and how long it took to solve) like all the games in the wordleverse do. My spouse and I would enjoy doing one daily and sending our results to each other.

Good idea! I'm already thinking of how to implement... I really need another vacation or two, lol

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

#57

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…

Those kinds of edge cases can be easily overlooked by people that play a lot of these types of puzzle games. Great feedback.

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

#59
post #40

Why are the SVG tiles specified to 599.99999999 instead of 600 or something? I think a SVGO optimizations run would reduce the size of the assets a tad.

There aren't really any assets though. I just create the svgs dynamically. Maybe I need to place some strategic `Math.round` calls here and there, never thought of this =).

Yeah so if you can math.round or math.floor them a bit the paths are a lot cleaner - if you're dynamically creating them anyway though then I don't know that it gains you much performance. It might gain some performance on render for larger maps? Not sure.

Didn't get a chance to look at your source.

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

#60
post #3

Wow! What fun. You have to make this a phone/tablet app...

Well, this seems an appropriate place to plug the phone/tablet app we made with these puzzles, called Noodles 2. It's the same puzzle style, with square, triangle and hex shapes, with some extra mechanics - disappearing pieces, infinite grid (it wraps around). gereleth, great job on the puzzles - I played a few of the bigger hex puzzles and it was real smooth. :) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lumm…

I just found Noodles 2 the other day when searching for a new puzzle game to play. I'm absolutely addicted to it; I've already completed hundreds of levels. Wish there was a way to "lock" a piece in place (like via long press) so I don't accidentally rotate pieces I've solved. Great game!
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