Thanks, OneManBand. I am playing v1.0.3. I have another question about the cycling mechanic (not sure what the proper name for this is), wherein you can toggle on and off each action of a 2-cycle run of a module. In the tutorial demonstrating this mechanic, the game does not teach the player to toggle off modules that would waste actions for grabbing or pushing when there is nothing to grab or push. While this does not impede the execution of an otherwise working solution, it makes the solution less elegant (and less efficient, at least to me) because it is wasting actions. Does the game care about this when evaluating the efficiency of a solution?
I chose the simplest method for evaluating the effectiveness of a solution. The best solution is a solution that uses a smaller number of modules.
Is there always a solution that would use ALL of the source tiles given for the level, regardless whether or not alternative solutions exist that may use only some of the source tiles? In other words, can a source tile be solely a red herring? I am very impressed by the intricacy of many of the later levels. The assembly of modules needed in the solutions are quite elaborate (at least the solutions I used). Did you start out with some interesting assembly and then mod it to create a working level? Also, for level 69, I just discovered that the game actually would accept a solution that overfill the quota for one source before completion of the quotas for the other sources (a factoid I never tested until now). Regardless, I want to know if there is an intended solution for this level that would fill the quotas for ALL of the sources equally so there is NO overfill?
I did not try to make the levels so that they distract attention in some way. Quite right. If the level gets very interesting in my opinion, I have tried to make it so that only one solution was at this level. But this does not always guarantee that no one will find an alternative solution in it. Later you'll see some similar levels. As for the level 69 I can show my solution: https://imgur.com/a/GG8FHv3
OneManBand, Did not want to peek at your solution yet... But don't quite understand your reply. So are you saying that it is POSSIBLE to always find a solution that fills ALL of the QUOTA equally with NO OVERFILL of one particular source?
I meant the opposite: NOT always POSSIBLE to find a solution that fills ALL of the QUOTA equally with NO OVERFILL of one particular source. For example, if the collector C1 is located near the generator, and the collector C2 is 5-6 cells further, then it is most likely impossible to solve the level without overflowing C1 collector.
Thanks for the clarification. This is important, as I have been stuck for many days on this and other similar levels because I was uncertain if I am supposed to find a solution without any overfill of collectors. Knowing that this is not the intended constraint, I re-explored level 69 using my previously discovered solution that allows for overflowing collector and compared it to your intended solution for the level. Here was my original solution: https://postimg.cc/image/69cz4y7jf/ On the surface, your solution and my solution look similar. However, the subtle difference between them also translates to a not-so-subtle difference in efficiency between these two assembly. In particular, even with overflow (in this case, C2 is the overflowing collector), an efficient solution is one that minimizes the overflow before all of the quotas are reached. In the screenshot I posted above for my solution, the C2 quota (6/6) is met when C1 and C3 are half-filled (3/6). When I tried out your solution, by comparison, the C2 quote is met when C1 is only 2/6 filled and C3 is half-filled 3/6. This initial lower efficiency is magnified, however, when the quotas for all of the collectors are filled. While I know the game does not care about these differences in solution efficiency, I thought you might be interested in knowing that there are some interesting mathematical optimization concepts at play behind the scene in your game.
I have been hopelessly stuck on level 35 for the last week. I am missing something fundamental here. Can anyone offer a clue to get started? Thank you. I'd rather not look at a walkthrough, yet.
Thanks gamecoder, that was all I needed. My current solution overfills one of the two collectors slightly, but it got me past this level.
OneManBand, Have you considered implementing a hint function for the later levels? I am now on the final two pages or maps of the puzzles. While I am enjoying the game in general, I have often found the puzzles in the game to be far too difficult even compared to those in the original (which itself is already a difficult game). The difficulty curve is also quite uneven (perhaps this is intentional), as if playing previous levels frequently does not prepare the player well enough to tackle the later levels. Indeed, the paucity of posts in this thread (at least when compared to the thread for the original game) may speak to the difficulty many other players are also experiencing with the puzzles in this sequel. While I have seen a couple of YouTube channels showing some walkthrough or solution videos for this game, they are all incomplete (as of today) and had not even reached the levels where I am currently to be of any help to me.
I understand that the game is quite complicated, but I didn't plan to implement a hints system in it. The only thing I can offer now is to look at the solutions you need: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3b8uln3v7knoprj/AACOOc94gIrMGtapIpQWBMYpa
OneManBand, Thanks for your reply. I am disappointed that such a hints system feature would not be possible in a future update. I have yet to look at your solutions for the levels I am currently stuck, simply because I do not know a way to partially look at it without revealing the whole solution. However, I truly appreciate that you are willing to share your stock solutions, as I plan to compare my solutions for the levels I have already solved to your solutions to see how similar or different they are. Perhaps I can learn some new tactics and strategies from these levels that will help me to tackle the later levels.
OneManBand, Are you aware that there are two YouTube channels, namely Puzzlegamesolver and Tap Games, which may be ripping off your stock solutions you have shared publicly and posting them as their own solutions for your game? I discovered this by accident when solving Level 97 and Level 99. These two levels are ones on which I have been stuck for weeks. When I finally got the solutions, I compared my own to your stock solutions and found them to very similar but NOT identical. This is not surprising because of the severely constrained map space for these levels. Nonetheless, they still differ markedly in the order of the modules as well the initial orientations and positions of these modules. Here are my solutions for these two levels for comparison: https://i.postimg.cc/tCx0DwrV/The_Sequence2-_Level97-_Sol-_SH-6_Oct2018-_IMG_9607.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Ssv5ffCr/The_Sequence2-_Level99-_Sol-_SH-6_Oct2018-_IMG_9624.jpg In fact, there are so many minor variations that it would be extremely rare for two players to come up with completely identical solutions for these two levels. Yet, when I viewed the solutions posted on these two channels, they are completely identical to each other in every single step and are themselves completely identical to your stock solutions. I found this to be simply too coincidental to be believable. I did not check the solutions for other levels posted on these channels as I still have not finished the game. But it is hard to ignore that these channels may be ripping off your stock solutions and posting them as if they are their own work.
There has always been channels and websites with solutions for this kind of games. Some players will use it, some others will try hard to find the solutions on their own. I try a lil bit of both. Let them be. Kudos to OneManBand for creating such an amazing game, and challenging puzzles.
Finally finished game. All 121 levels. Final score 1065. Many of my solutions are not likely the optimal solutions, and I have not check them against the stock solutions posted by the developer. Congrats to the developer for creating a worthy sequel! This is truly a very challenging puzzler.
