These puzzles are amazing. Spent half an hour yesterday trying to purple 49 and got nowhere. Just came home from work had another go and purpled it within a minute... Solutions seem to come out of nowhere. I have solved all 100 puzzles now and just need to master 92 & 100. All bonus puzzles done too. And X3. Already a little sad that i'm almost done... I'm thinking about programming a puzzle solving algorithm myself. Just to be able to enjoy the puzzle in another way. I did this for Trainyard, which I still play daily. The algorithm finds solutions you could never have thought of. Maybe for Dwelp it would too. What is your thought on this, Roundabyte? Have the solutions your algorithm found surprised you? Needless to say I also voted Dwelp Game of the Week.
Well done, Pantsjo! Creating yourself an algorithm for solving the puzzles would be awesome! How can someone be so passionate about my little game?! That's the puzzle I'm facing these days... I strongly encourage you to do so! I'll be extremely curious how it works out and especially how fast it is, so if you do, please keep us posted! The primary use for my creating the algorithm was to find out what is the best solution for a puzzle. It can indeed print out every solution, but I wasn't interested too much how they looked, but rather the optimal number of moves. Here's a funny tidbit from the early days of development: Somewhere in the first week or so, I have designed a puzzle just by adding dots to form a symmetrical shape, not working out from the solution back to the starting position, as I did with others. Then I tried to solve it. Back then, my solving skills were quite limited, so I couldn't figure it out. Then I decided to write an algorithm that would tell me if the puzzle had a solution. A couple of hours later, I had a working piece of code which proved that the puzzle had a solution. So I had to find it. Back to the couch, I spent about an hour struggling with it. It seemed that I couldn't crack it. Then, I had a flash: "There is a mistake in the algorithm!" Rushing to the computer, I quickly fixed the glitch and ran it again, only to see this output: No solution found. "Yes, yes, yes! I knew it doesn't have a solution! I knew it!". So I put it away. But a bit later, after reviewing my code, I found out there was yet another mistake in it. Having fixed that, I ran the famous puzzle through it again. Now it said it was solvable... "Oh, no... Is this ever going to end?" I copied the solution almost squinting, so I wouldn't be able to make it out, and pasted it in an email to my sister, saying: "Here is the final position of this puzzle. Knowing this, could you please try to solve it and tell me if there really is a solution to this stumper?" Later that day, I got the reply: "Yes, it can be solved. You have to think outside the box!". I tried, but I couldn't do it back then. But at least I was finally sure that the algorithm was showing the right solution. That puzzle was forgotten for months, until I stumbled upon it again, and remembering how hard it was to solve, I decided to add an ultra-hard pack and named the puzzle X1...
Well, your encouragement gave me the final push; i started this little project. I might have some results this weekend. Thanks for that neat X1-story. From it I gathered that your algorithm gave the final situation as a result? So not the steps taken to get there?
Updated. 19 went purple automatically. The X-levels are now counted too, but not the B-levels, so y2kmp3 should have now 106/106. I made some progress, but am at 101/105 now. X6 is my only unsolved. To master still 90, 99, 100 and X4. Slowly progressing
Oh dear.... Something most unfortunate has happened. I just got the update, and all my progress is gone. I've been reset to level one, and everything I'd finished is gone. I'd accomplished quite a bit, too (though not as much as some of the awesome players posting in this thread). I love this game (it's my GOTW choice, and one of my GOTY choices as well). So I'll restart and keep at it. I must admit that a bit of the wind has left my sails for the moment, though. :/ Also, didn't it used to save your progress within a level when you went on to another level? Maybe I'm imagining it, but I could swear I remember that. OK, it does save the progress of unfinished levels. But if you finish a level and later go back to redo it, your progress has been reset. Was it always that way?
Wow, Valentia! I'm truly sorry about that! I can't believe it has happened... I was indeed a bit anxious when releasing the update, because I have heard it happen so many times for other games too, but when the update came out and I ran it on my devices, I was so relieved to see that the progress is preserved. I have no idea how this could have happened, as I have tested it since then on my devices again by backing up, updating, deleting, restoring and so on and it always worked flawlessly. Could you please tell us what device and iOS version are you playing on? As for the progress for each puzzle, it works like in the previous version. When you don't complete a puzzle and go back to the map, the progress is stored. When you complete a puzzle, the progress is erased, so you can start the puzzle again. It has always worked like that. But, besides the fixes in this update, upon request from the awesome people in this thread, I have added an option to store the progress of a completed puzzle, to have it for reference later. When you complete a puzzle and the next button shows up, touch and hold the button for 2 seconds, until you see a text popping up at the bottom, "Solution saved for No. ...". This means that if you go to the map and select another puzzle, upon coming back to the former one, you will see it display your previous solution. Please note that when leaving a puzzle, only the current state will be saved, so if you undo some of the moves and leave the puzzle, the solution is gone (unless you complete it again and do the touch and hold trick again). If you complete a puzzle and don't save the solution, then next time you come back to it, it will start afresh, just like in the previous version. I have not advertised this feature yet, because I'm not sure it is exactly what you guys wanted. It was the best thing I could squeeze in before submitting the update (I have rushed with that because of some issues a few people were encountering on an iPhone 6 Plus in Zoomed mode). I've only mentioned it here, so maybe you can let me know what you think. Thanks!
Roundabyte, I restarted the game and got to level 22 again. Then I exited the game to read for awhile. When I finished my book I opened the game again to get in a few more levels, and the 22 levels I'd redone were gone--but my old status was fully restored! I haven't a clue what happened, but I don't care--I am rocking the game right where I was before, and I am really happy about that! I didn't restart my device, just exited the game and then reopened it later. I'm on an iPad Air 2, IOS ver 8.1.1. Thanks for explaining about progress storage. I was not paying proper attention, I think, but I've got it now. I love that you added solution storage ability! I'm going to check that out now! Thanks for such a wonderful game, and for being so responsive here. I adore Dwelp--it's everything I love in a puzzle game. This is some of the most fun I've ever had playing a game. It's clever, compelling, elegant, and beautiful to look at. I'm enjoying it so much.
Woohoo!!! You have no idea how happy you made me! I was terribly frustrated for this having happened to you, especially since everyone else I spoke to updated with no issue whatsoever and I wasn't able to reproduce this problem. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience and letting everyone here know it's all fine! Thank you for your kind words as well!
My algorithm is returning only the last step (the final position and the one before that). Taking into account that some of the puzzles have tens of thousands of ways to solve them, storing all those steps in memory would render my Mac unusable and would probably run for days on each puzzle (unless killed by the OS). If you could manage to output all the steps for each solution (or at least for the optimal one), that would be truly impressive (at least to me)! Thanks, jagdeepS! Come on, Roger! We all know you can do it if you came this far! =)
I've nit read all the thread yet, bought this game at launch but only just played today, I totally lost track of time and an hour later Im wanting to just stay home and play instead of getting my daughter from school in the flicking freezing cold. I'm up to thirty and it's challenging but relaxing at the same time. Great puzzle and easily five out five for me.
I like the integration with the "undo" tool, but what I like to see is a more persistent "save slot" that can be recalled any time. Even unfinished level states can easily be included that way. Rationale: for example level 99 I have solved but still need to master (purple) it. So I want to be able to play around with 99, but still be able to look back how I had previously solved it. Your challenge as UI designer is how to elegantly add this. It would add two buttons in the menu (Save and Recall), that would bring it to 7 buttons. There is room for it or maybe you could add an "Options" button to the menu where you hide settings like Color Blind Mode and Sound Settings to make it not too cluttered. So the menu would have Puzzle Map (still at the top for the most easy access), Game Center, Save Level State, Recall Level State, Options. Options would bring you to a different screen from which you would be dropped back to the level. Thinking about it (I solved 99, but did not master it yet), it would be super cool to have multiple slots, one for my (not optimal) solution and a second one for my unfinished ("work in progress", to become optimal) solution steps. But that might be impacting too much the clean UI design
I totally agree that one or more permanent solution slots would be much better. Indeed, the challenge here is how to elegantly integrate those in the UI, but I believe there must be a way to do it. I'll keep thinking about it and try to get it right for the next update.
Roundabyte, do you think you'll make any more puzzles like the bonus levels? I really liked those. I enjoyed thinking about the different levels and how they should merge. It's like yoga for the brain!
I was about to say the same! For those who didn't vote yet, there is still a chance today: Game of the Week (Nov 27)
