That is the case for a lot of them. It's true, the game doesn't explain that, and I, too, sometimes thought it was me not understanding the controls.
If anyone still needs help, my walkthrough now has videos for all levels, including the secondary secrets: http://www.appunwrapper.com/2015/01/16/shadowmatic-walkthrough-guide/
Hmmph. At levels 6.7 and 7.6 I'm going to call it a day I don't feel much motivation to continue.(unless there's something really awesome at the end, but I think I've alreadly worked out what's going to happen... It involves the pieces in the level select menu 'making' something, is it?) The puzzles are just too... Un-logic-able. 6.7 is such a pain: the blocky figures make 'organized' shapes from too many angles. 7.6 I know think I know exactly what needs to be made but anything that seems correct (I've made a perfectly recognizable ballerina with a ribbon) doesn't light up any lights at all. And y2kmp3, most levels had an 'anchored' center piece. The ones that didn't, had limited movement anyway. I'm giving up. I don't think there's that many more levels left, but seriously, however little is left, I've had enough. Shadowmatic is one breathtakingly beautiful torture-tool.
I'm sorry you're having such a rough time with it, but at the same time I'm glad to hear another puzzle fan is frustrated with it. I was starting to wonder if maybe I was just being too whiny & hard on the game. Personally, I think I would have been happier with it if they stopped at two pieces. Either that, or worked out a better control system for the 3-piece puzzles. The controls are just too awkward and feel like they forced it because they were worried about the game being too easy.
'...feel like they forced it because they were worried about the game being too easy.' My thoughts exactly. 'puzzle fan': a bit of an exaggeration there. but I do enjoy solving and designing puzzles. 'being too whiny & hard on the game': actually, I just realised we kind of are. It's just that the production and graphics are so top notch that I can't help but feel a bit let down by the actual 'game'. Still a nice interactive toy if you ignore the aim of a recognizable shadow. Now, I kind of want to just finish it off to see how the last few levels pan out. I'll need to clear my mind with some twitch arcade games first before I do that though
Solved 6.8 finally (without hint). This level is utterly broken. I was only able to arrive at an initial solution by chance because the game completely blotched on the progress bar and led me to join the pieces at the correct places even though the orientation of each of the pieces were completely incorrect. Thus, I was able to reach 5 1/2 dots on the progress bar while the shape was still completely unrecognizable. Two of the pieces were, instead, off by exactly 90-degree. Somehow, the game can't see this to be in error as long as the pieces were joined at the correct points. I am glad that I am done with this level. Alas, another empty victory. Won due to a glitch.
I agree, playing around with the pieces and just seeing what kind of shapes you can make on your own can be fun, without worrying about the solutions. But for that to work, they'd need to allow you to skip levels without completing them. As it stands, the game forces you to figure out the solutions if you don't want to stare at the same level forever. So even if you just want to appreciate the art, you can't. I was also thinking... How cool would it be to have player-made shadows? Like a way to upload the shapes you find to the server and let others try to figure out how to make it. Would add almost unlimited gameplay.
Wow, player made shadows would be awesome. But then there's the problem of players making shapes that just look like a blob, with no distinguishable features. How would the already troubles detection system deal with the hordes of solutions that could be considered acceptable?
Yeah, I've been surprised by that sometimes -- but not usually with 3-piece puzzles. With three pieces, it's almost always stingy on giving those lights. :/
Update #2: Finally finished game. Completed all levels and found all secrets. Completed all challenges except for time based and social media challenges. This is a game that, on the surface, appears to be a near perfect puzzle game. Indeed, if you confine yourself to playing only the first part of the game, the slick production values, smooth interface, and interesting game mechanics will surely impress you and entice you to continue to play the game (as I did). However, once you reach the later third of the game, the game's core mechanics and interface that worked so well before completely broke down. The system used by the game to manipulate the pieces when there are more than two of them is not at all intuitive, made worse by the game's "anchoring" of the center piece (which you are left to discover yourself, contrary to what the game's tutorial suggests that all of the pieces are freely movable) which breaks its own method of positioning the pieces. This means that the pieces can only be positioned in a very limited way that would be compatible relative to the "centered" piece, resulting in huge variability in the tolerance between levels in what the game deems to be the "correct" silhouette. The game also fails to recognize pieces which are facing toward or away from the plane of the device screen but which essentially cast the same silhouette. This, among other reasons, causes a particular silhouette which otherwise looks correct to be completely rejected by the game. It also means that the progress bar is essentially useless as an aid to tell the player whether or not the player is on track, since it only begins to light up when the player is so close to the shape that it is already recognizable. In one of the secret puzzles, the game even breaks its own rules concerning how the pieces are used, leaving me completely puzzled even after I found the solution to explain why this is the case. This dichotomy in gameplay experience is important because reading a review of the game in which the reviewer had only tried out the early parts of the game will lead to a much more positive opinion than a review of the game done by the reviewer who finished the game and understood both the massive technical and gameplay issues that only became obvious in later parts of the game. If you do not mind a bit of spoilers, I highly recommend that you read AppUnwrapper's review of the game (link in Post #58). It is the first review that I read with a critical analysis of the game's core mechanics and explains why the game's mechanics fail completely to scale to puzzles involving more then two pieces and how the developer is blinded to their own solutions when creating the pieces that do not offer sufficient clues to the player to solve the puzzles and are generic enough that many other reasonable solutions can be achieved which the developer "conveniently" ignore. **** Update #1: I tried the so-called time trials. Absolutely absurd. I like to see this being completed reliably (reliably is the key here) by the developer itself (and not needing to restart the levels over and over again just to get a favorable starting position). Complete disconnect with the original goal of the game. Because the initial positions of the pieces are random, often it is simply not enough time to even move the pieces into position, let alone having time to "tweak" them so that the game will deem their positions acceptable. This is especially sadistic given the completely glitched level of tolerance by the game that would erroneously reject a piece because it is facing a different direction even when the shadow being cast is practically indistinguishable by human eye.
I think the fastest I've been able to do any level is 6 seconds. I haven't really been trying too hard, because it seems too frustrating. I have worked at improving my times so I can get higher on the leaderboards. But certain levels like 6.9 cause me so much grief that I stopped bothering even to try to get it under 3 minutes! I think, for the most part, my times are where they're going to stay.
I was able to finish all of the one-piece puzzles in under 4 seconds each. However, this was only accomplished by restarting the levels over and over again in order to attain a favorable starting position so that there is enough time to swipe the pieces into position. It may be possible to do the same with the two-pieces puzzles and three-pieces puzzles, but is this really a gameplay experience you want? Such a shame to have a game that starts out so strongly with extremely polished visuals but ends up being a game with utterly broken mechanics that do not scale to the more complex puzzles, at which point the game turns into an exercise in frustration and ridiculously unfair challenges that are more punishing than simulating.
Hi AppUnwrapper and y2kmp3, First of all, thank you for playing and exploring Shadowmatic in such a detailed way. Also, thank you for all the comments on each of the nuances. We are planning to fix the balance and some progress meter issues in some levels and your feedback was very useful. Also, we have intended that the players will enjoy not just finding the hidden silhouettes but also just creating various new shapes using the shadows. We initially had some plans regarding user-generated content and will announce it soon. Thank you guys for the discussion.
Shadowmatic, I appreciate your effort and plan to fix the game's balance and other nuances gameplay issues in the next update. At a minimum, please consider relaxing the time limits (4 seconds, 9 seconds, and 20 seconds) placed in the time trial achievements. The current limits are way too constrained. A doubling to tripling of those limits (8-12 seconds, 18-27 seconds, and 40-60 seconds) are more reasonable choices. Here is an example in which the silhouette recognition is completely broken (I have blocked out the positions of the 3D pieces to avoid spoilers). The silhouette looks nothing like the target shadow and yet the progress bar reports it to be otherwise. In fact, the level should be solved using this nonsensical shape. Here is another example in which the game breaks its own implicit rules that all of the pieces should be used (again, I have blocked out the positions of the 3D pieces to avoid spoilers). Indeed, this is the only puzzle in the game that is solved this way. Yet, it does not need to be this way. In fact, I was able to locate multiple alternative solutions in which this third "loner" pieces could be "hidden" within the other pieces to form the intended silhouette. This misdirection is frankly unfair and unnecessary.
Yeah I was working on that last one for a long time, not knowing what was wrong. Then I just pulled that last piece out and rotated it and started getting a light on the meter. It's crazy that even if you do use only the two pieces, the extra piece has to be in a specific position as well.
Oh... That is interesting, since I was entirely unaware of your solution when I solved this level. The fact that you found the same solution as mine means that the intended position of this third place is likely there (unless it is a glitch). Love to hear the developer's explanation on this one.
I think I initially pulled it out just to play around with it and see if it can fit the sillouette better. Then all of a sudden I got a light after a while of messing with that one piece. Ideally, the game shouldn't even take that third piece into consideration as long as it's not interfering with the appearance of the desired shadow from the other two pieces.
I added the new levels to my walkthrough: http://www.appunwrapper.com/2015/05/27/shadowmatic-walkthrough-guide-world-2-childhood-additional-levels-2-9-2-19/
How is this these days, still functioning? I never did pick it up and seen its been on a low price for a while.
