@warcrack The Final Boss... Don't forget to screenshot your solution after the ending sequence! (Email to the address in the original post.) @creeps Nice, just keep chipping away. A number of folks are quietly working away in the background. There's a good deal of time remaining.
Exceptional! You were so fast and never tired. And now you solved the hardest puzzle of all. Very well done! Now let's see if anyone can share in his prize, or if he will remain the sole winner and only Puzzle Wizard...
I will take 4 iOS and 1 Mac codes, if available. Thanks for a delightful contest! This is the best puzzle game I have played. @Warcrack is awesome. I was behind the entire race playing catch up. I wonder if this is as hard as you can make it. Surely there is an IQ 200 puzzle sitting on the back burner. I am curious how you go about creating levels. They are elegant and require (extreme) logical thinking to solve. There were many a time I thought I cracked the code, only to realize that there was much more to it. Are there similar games out there that you would recommend? I had so much fun but it seems that the road has come to an end, or has it?
Wow! I had a feeling you would be good at this, m13! Very, very well done. And you started late, too. I am most impressed. I sent your codes via email. This is as hard as I can make it, currently. But if I introduce new mechanics, then I may be able to push it out towards higher IQs. But it's kind of strange because I can't actually claim to have solved all the puzzles. It's impossible for me to solve them as a normal player would because I at least somewhat know how the solution will look; I at least know what I'm aiming for, which makes it a easier for me to solve. The closest I get is when I am trying to make a really hard puzzle, I will deliberately try to make it so that it appears to be unsolvable, and then try to solve it. If I can solve it when it appears unsolvable, then I suspect it will be a good candidate for testing. But the general design process is like this: Make a fun and recognizable template that looks good in 10x8. No one would want to solve 72 puzzles that were just variations of randomly colored tiles. Incorporate the mechanic that the level is introducing and try to make it integral to the solution. Try to make each puzzle solution fundamentally different somehow. People don't want to solve the same puzzle 10 times - only on a different template. Once I have an idea, I plan it out and usually either make it easy to solve and then remove and reorder mechanics until it gets closer to the IQ level I am aiming to hit, or I make it impossible to solve and then add mechanics in tricky ways that go against what I would naturally expect. This means my natural inclination is thwarted, and hopefully so is the player's Sometimes a template/mechanic combination just doesn't work for the desired IQ level. That's just bad luck and not worth worrying about. Some puzzles just get thrown away. Other templates (like Smiley and Humble Abode) naturally lend themselves to interesting solutions when combined with specific mechanics. It helps to have a partner for different ideas and to test-solve early (my brother, in this case). I don't know if Braid is similar to Puzzle Wizard (it's probably cheaper on Steam), but it's certainly a really good puzzle game that I enjoyed. It makes you think in a very satisfying way. I decided to try to make a puzzle game after playing Braid, and this was the result. I'm very pleased that some people enjoy it Paul
Thanks. I find occasional levels easier than others and not necessarily correlating to the IQ levels. The boss level probably was the most time consuming one. You should put in anonymous statistics collection to see how much time is spent on each level before it was solved and how much time spent before giving up. You can then reassign the IQ according to real life data. As much as I hate IAP, plenty other devs would put in IAP for players to unlock levels without solving them. In fact that seem to be the app store model du jour. What is your thought on that?
We managed to get some data like that in beta (and offline testing), but it could be more comprehensive, that's true. And sometimes one slips through the cracks (like Time Travel, which needs a revamp). It also depends when you encounter a puzzle. For example: If Retro Gamer was in level 11, then it might be overrated at 125, but maybe it's not at level 3. Furthermore, and as you suggested, the IQ ratings aren't really accurate without a time limit. But it is a game, after all. Even then, most people do not finish. In beta we had Tapestry in level 2 at IQ 125. We roadblocked almost the entire group of testers! I realized it was harder than I took it to be, but not super-hard for those who've mastered the mechanics. As you learn to manipulate things to your advantage -- like Shields, overlapping Color Swap cycles, and Rotators -- things seem easier. I don't like IAP as a player or as a developer. I think it cheapens the achievements of others and, ultimately, it cheapens the game. I especially don't like exploitative IAP that targets young people. However, at some point I may consider making it free with 4 or 5 levels available and then charging (once) to unlock the remaining ones.
I agree with everything that you said. I can imagine that it is hard to measure difficulty of a level when you also have a learning curve to factor in. I wish you success in the app store. It is truly a gem.
