Under the Sun - A 4D puzzle game Stegabyte Waste no time! Guide a stranded castaway through a series of puzzling desert islands. 4/5 - Apple 'n' Apps 4/5 - Gameze… Free Buy Now Watch Media DetailsWaste no time! Guide a stranded castaway through a series of puzzling desert islands. 4/5 - Apple 'n' Apps 4/5 - Gamezebo You must reach the campfire by nightfall. But with each step time moves forward and the world changes, making things difficult. Trees grow, bridges crumble, animals age, waters rise; everything gets in your way! Luckily, time can be reversed if you make a mistake. Take as much time as you need to solve this sailor’s timely puzzles! Features • Four-dimensional puzzles where timing is everything • Reverse your steps if you make a mistake • Many obstacles along the way including tortoises, rocks, jellyfish, rising tides and more! • Very challenging • Over 50 puzzles to solve Information Seller:Stegabyte Genre:Adventure, Puzzle Release:Feb 24, 2015 Updated:Feb 24, 2015 Version:1.0 Size:117.9 MB TouchArcade Rating:Unrated User Rating:Unrated Your Rating:unrated Compatibility:HD Universal Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel TheGreatEscaper Well-Known Member Oct 10, 2014 999 4 18 #2 TheGreatEscaper, Feb 26, 2015 Wow! This game was a nice surprise. The puzzles are some of the best designed I've seen for a while. While there is a fair amount of trial and error involved at the beginning, once the mechanics click it gets down and dirty very fast. Already stuck on the tenth level xP. Graphics and music are actually quite nice, better than I expected. A must try: it's free! There's an IAP to remove ads, which I will definitely be getting amaurote Well-Known Member Aug 30, 2011 216 0 0 #3 amaurote, Feb 26, 2015 cute graphics y2kmp3 Well-Known Member Jun 25, 2010 1,777 2 38 #4 y2kmp3, Feb 26, 2015 TheGreatEscaper, This is a great recommendation. Tried a few puzzles. Definitely agree with solid puzzle mechanics and interesting concept of the ability to fast forward or rewing time to change landscape and obstacles. Need to watch out for red herrings that might otherwise throw you off track. tullonator Member Feb 26, 2015 8 0 0 Programmer Melbourne, Australia http://www.stegabyte.com #5 tullonator, Feb 26, 2015 One of the devs here, Thanks for trying it out and the positive feedback It's pretty fresh so let us know if you have any issues, or if you find anything confusing or difficult. Cheers! y2kmp3 Well-Known Member Jun 25, 2010 1,777 2 38 #6 y2kmp3, Feb 26, 2015 Last edited: Feb 27, 2015 tullonator, Great to see the developer dropping by. I am enjoying the puzzles a lot. Interesting mechanics, particularly ones that are not entirely obvious such as lifting. Some questions for you: With lifting, is it possible for the lifted object (such as rock) to be dropped? For turtles, they automatically run after and land on the next move. But for rocks, this is obviously not true. Are there any known levels in which shortcut solutions have been discovered already since the game's initial release? For example, 4-1 can be completed with 3 moves left (dial ends just before 3 when level ends) and 4-2 can be completed with 1 move left (dial ends halfway between 2 and 1 when level ends). Are there any errors in the par move numbers you discovered in the game? I am currently stuck on a puzzle that requires 1 more move than hinted by the game. Don't want to name the level yet, but I want to check first that you have verified that all of the levels are truly solvable at par. What is the maximum number of moves a level can have? For me, 4-2 having a par value of 33 is excessive for a crate-moving-type puzzle game (which, ironically, can be done in just 32 moves). tullonator Member Feb 26, 2015 8 0 0 Programmer Melbourne, Australia http://www.stegabyte.com #7 tullonator, Feb 27, 2015 Figuring that out is part of the puzzle As far as input goes, you can only move left, right, forward, back, up, down, and sit. You can also rotate and zoom the camera. So nothing to explicity throw a rock off your head I wrote a tool to solve the levels but it was reeeaaally slow, so aren't sure yet; we did find one ourselves after we put the build up. We have analytics in there and will be watching over the next few days to see if anyone finds any short cuts. brybry Well-Known Member Jan 24, 2013 178 0 0 #8 brybry, Feb 27, 2015 Cute game and appealing visuals. Simple idea, but creative and unique puzzler. This game should get more recognition. y2kmp3 Well-Known Member Jun 25, 2010 1,777 2 38 #9 y2kmp3, Feb 27, 2015 Last edited: Feb 27, 2015 Thanks for the info. Very helpful. Care to share what that level is with the shortcut solution? As stated in my previous post, both 4-1 and 4-2 can be completed under par (4-1 with 3 moves left and 4-2 with 1 move left). Additionally, 3-4 can be completed with 1 move left. BTW, 3-5 is very clever. Nice new mechanic that is left to the player to discover. tullonator Member Feb 26, 2015 8 0 0 Programmer Melbourne, Australia http://www.stegabyte.com #10 tullonator, Feb 27, 2015 Nice! We were aware of 4-1, we'd fixed it but didn't quite make it into the first release. It didn't seem to matter too much as you still use the same solution. Just found another way to do 3-4 as you said; good find! Haven't found a quicker way to do 4-2 yet Our aim was to have it that each level ends with zero moves left, but there are 1000s of possibilities, and when testing it is hard to think of other paths when you already know a solution. Let me know if you find more, makes it fun to play our own game. y2kmp3 Well-Known Member Jun 25, 2010 1,777 2 38 #11 y2kmp3, Feb 27, 2015 Last edited: Feb 27, 2015 tullonator, No problem. Glad to help. You have some very clever puzzle design. PM with your email address. I can send you some screenshots in private with my solution if you are unable to rediscover it. For your game, programming a scalable and generalizable algorithm to auto search for optimal solutions may not be possible with current knowledge. In many ways, your game can be regarded as a variant of transport puzzles like Sokoban. For Sokoban, when confined to a single plane with stationary obstacles (aside from other crates that could be moved to temporarily obstruct a path), the problem is already proven to be NP-hard (Non-Deterministic Polynomial-Time hard). Because your map is multiplaner (you can go up or down) and the crates being pushed can transverse between planes, computational demands will be at minimum NP-hard as well. This does not even taken in account that the obstacles' position and persistence change over turns (which is another brilliant element of your game). For very limited subsets of Sokoban puzzles, there are algorithms based on IDDFS (Iterative Deepening Depth-First Search) that will auto search for optimal solutions. But I am not sure those algorithms can even be adapted to your game. What algorithm are you using? Is it just iterative branching? How deep is your tree? Also, can you please explicitly confirm that all levels are TRULY solvable? There is a level which I indicated previously that does appear unsolvable. Not want to identify which one yet, unless there is indeed a bug with a level. tullonator Member Feb 26, 2015 8 0 0 Programmer Melbourne, Australia http://www.stegabyte.com #12 tullonator, Feb 28, 2015 Last edited: Feb 28, 2015 I'll give it a try first when I get a spare moment Yeah, I think you'd call it a breadth-first search. My solver does work; however there are a few things in the game state that are getting updated unnecessarily. I'll go through when I get a chance and strip them out, should run a lot faster then. Let me know what it is, I've done them all except for 9-4 and 10-5. 99.9% sure the other dev Tim has finished those, I'll double check with him. If you can figure them all out you may be the first, neither of us two has actually finished the game on our own! y2kmp3 Well-Known Member Jun 25, 2010 1,777 2 38 #13 y2kmp3, Feb 28, 2015 Last edited: Feb 28, 2015 Please DO check with Tim on 10-5. Obviously, it is not just whether or not it is solvable, it is whether not the ALLOTTED NUMBER of moves is sufficient to solve each level. This was the KEY criterion. There is another level with a better than par solution: 10-3. Try it out and let me know. This is a brave admission... as I don't ever recall speaking to an indie developer about a game whose each individual member of the team had yet beaten the game himself or herself. Glewciefer Member Feb 28, 2015 6 0 0 #14 Glewciefer, Feb 28, 2015 Tim here, Mate, Well done on getting to Area 10 so quickly! I thought it would be a couple of weeks before we had anyone get that far. I've just played through 9-4 and 10-5 on my dev build and was able to successfully pass them. I'll be able to test a release version in an 1-2 hours to confirm! I haven't yet managed to pass 10-3 with better than par but I'm loving the fact that people are better at our game then we are! It's also makes theses levels fun for me again y2kmp3 Well-Known Member Jun 25, 2010 1,777 2 38 #15 y2kmp3, Feb 28, 2015 Last edited: Feb 28, 2015 Update #3: 1 level left! Solved 10-5. This was the second last one that stumped me temporarily. Another brilliant level. Many unusual moves needed to be pulled off. This one was tougher than even 10-6. What made this level so difficult is to know the steps when you need to sit and wait. Update #2: 2 (not 3) levels left unsolved. 10-6 is brilliant. Very tricky solution, requiring two critical moves very early on, otherwise you are basically trapped in a dead-end. Update #1: 3 (not 4) levels left unsolved. Great, Tim. Thanks for the compliment. It means a lot coming from the game's creator. There are 4 levels (don't want to name them yet) in the game that I was unable to complete from my first playthrough. All of them are solvable, but not in the alloted moves hinted by the game. Beyond these levels, I have completed all of the levels at or under par. So far, there are 4 levels for which under par solutions exist: 3-4, 4-1, 4-2, 10-3. As I recall, tullonator has verified and rediscovered 3-4 and 4-1. For 10-3, it can solved in 20 instead of 21 moves. There is a minor bug in 10-2. When World 10 was unlocked, somehow after I completed some of the level in World 9, 10-2 would suddenly be flagged as being completed even though I had yet to play the level. Up to that point, I had skipped 2 levels. I am not sure if the skipping had triggered the bug. As you said the release version (presumably, this is the version currently on the App Store that I am playing) is different from the pre-release build, it would be great if you can explicitly confirm that ALL of the levels are truly solvable at par. I will go back and retry those levels if I see your confirmation. Osker New Member Feb 28, 2015 1 0 0 #16 Osker, Feb 28, 2015 Can someone give me a clue on 3-5? I've been stuck on it forever but can't work it out! Glewciefer Member Feb 28, 2015 6 0 0 #17 Glewciefer, Feb 28, 2015 To pass 3-5 you will need to carry the rock and ride the tortoise! Glewciefer Member Feb 28, 2015 6 0 0 #18 Glewciefer, Feb 28, 2015 Last edited: Feb 28, 2015 Sounds like you've just about completed every level now! I've got the ipad now and I can confirm that there are no issues with 9-4 and 10-5. y2kmp3 Well-Known Member Jun 25, 2010 1,777 2 38 #19 y2kmp3, Feb 28, 2015 See PM. y2kmp3 Well-Known Member Jun 25, 2010 1,777 2 38 #20 y2kmp3, Feb 28, 2015 Last edited: Feb 28, 2015 Solved game! 60 puzzles. 10 treasures. Overall impression: -Brilliant puzzle game -Transport puzzle mechanics and many new twists -New mechanics introduced in each world to keep puzzles fresh -Polished presentation -Clean interface, with a great scrubbing feature to rewind and fast forward turns to see changing behaviors of obstacles. -Clever time-based theme befitting turn-based puzzle play style -Game even touches on moral values (perhaps unintentional) of altruism, sacrificing one's own life to save another 4 puzzles that can be solved in fewer moves than hinted by game (under par solutions): 3-4 can be solved in 5 instead of 6 moves 4-1 can be solved in 7 instead of 10 moves 4-2 can be solved in 32 instead of 33 moves 10-3 can be solved in 20 instead of 21 moves Highly recommended! PS: Glewciefer & tullonator, PM me with your email addresses. Like to send you some more feedback in private. (You must log in or sign up to post here.) 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Wow! This game was a nice surprise. The puzzles are some of the best designed I've seen for a while. While there is a fair amount of trial and error involved at the beginning, once the mechanics click it gets down and dirty very fast. Already stuck on the tenth level xP. Graphics and music are actually quite nice, better than I expected. A must try: it's free! There's an IAP to remove ads, which I will definitely be getting
TheGreatEscaper, This is a great recommendation. Tried a few puzzles. Definitely agree with solid puzzle mechanics and interesting concept of the ability to fast forward or rewing time to change landscape and obstacles. Need to watch out for red herrings that might otherwise throw you off track.
One of the devs here, Thanks for trying it out and the positive feedback It's pretty fresh so let us know if you have any issues, or if you find anything confusing or difficult. Cheers!
tullonator, Great to see the developer dropping by. I am enjoying the puzzles a lot. Interesting mechanics, particularly ones that are not entirely obvious such as lifting. Some questions for you: With lifting, is it possible for the lifted object (such as rock) to be dropped? For turtles, they automatically run after and land on the next move. But for rocks, this is obviously not true. Are there any known levels in which shortcut solutions have been discovered already since the game's initial release? For example, 4-1 can be completed with 3 moves left (dial ends just before 3 when level ends) and 4-2 can be completed with 1 move left (dial ends halfway between 2 and 1 when level ends). Are there any errors in the par move numbers you discovered in the game? I am currently stuck on a puzzle that requires 1 more move than hinted by the game. Don't want to name the level yet, but I want to check first that you have verified that all of the levels are truly solvable at par. What is the maximum number of moves a level can have? For me, 4-2 having a par value of 33 is excessive for a crate-moving-type puzzle game (which, ironically, can be done in just 32 moves).
Figuring that out is part of the puzzle As far as input goes, you can only move left, right, forward, back, up, down, and sit. You can also rotate and zoom the camera. So nothing to explicity throw a rock off your head I wrote a tool to solve the levels but it was reeeaaally slow, so aren't sure yet; we did find one ourselves after we put the build up. We have analytics in there and will be watching over the next few days to see if anyone finds any short cuts.
Cute game and appealing visuals. Simple idea, but creative and unique puzzler. This game should get more recognition.
Thanks for the info. Very helpful. Care to share what that level is with the shortcut solution? As stated in my previous post, both 4-1 and 4-2 can be completed under par (4-1 with 3 moves left and 4-2 with 1 move left). Additionally, 3-4 can be completed with 1 move left. BTW, 3-5 is very clever. Nice new mechanic that is left to the player to discover.
Nice! We were aware of 4-1, we'd fixed it but didn't quite make it into the first release. It didn't seem to matter too much as you still use the same solution. Just found another way to do 3-4 as you said; good find! Haven't found a quicker way to do 4-2 yet Our aim was to have it that each level ends with zero moves left, but there are 1000s of possibilities, and when testing it is hard to think of other paths when you already know a solution. Let me know if you find more, makes it fun to play our own game.
tullonator, No problem. Glad to help. You have some very clever puzzle design. PM with your email address. I can send you some screenshots in private with my solution if you are unable to rediscover it. For your game, programming a scalable and generalizable algorithm to auto search for optimal solutions may not be possible with current knowledge. In many ways, your game can be regarded as a variant of transport puzzles like Sokoban. For Sokoban, when confined to a single plane with stationary obstacles (aside from other crates that could be moved to temporarily obstruct a path), the problem is already proven to be NP-hard (Non-Deterministic Polynomial-Time hard). Because your map is multiplaner (you can go up or down) and the crates being pushed can transverse between planes, computational demands will be at minimum NP-hard as well. This does not even taken in account that the obstacles' position and persistence change over turns (which is another brilliant element of your game). For very limited subsets of Sokoban puzzles, there are algorithms based on IDDFS (Iterative Deepening Depth-First Search) that will auto search for optimal solutions. But I am not sure those algorithms can even be adapted to your game. What algorithm are you using? Is it just iterative branching? How deep is your tree? Also, can you please explicitly confirm that all levels are TRULY solvable? There is a level which I indicated previously that does appear unsolvable. Not want to identify which one yet, unless there is indeed a bug with a level.
I'll give it a try first when I get a spare moment Yeah, I think you'd call it a breadth-first search. My solver does work; however there are a few things in the game state that are getting updated unnecessarily. I'll go through when I get a chance and strip them out, should run a lot faster then. Let me know what it is, I've done them all except for 9-4 and 10-5. 99.9% sure the other dev Tim has finished those, I'll double check with him. If you can figure them all out you may be the first, neither of us two has actually finished the game on our own!
Please DO check with Tim on 10-5. Obviously, it is not just whether or not it is solvable, it is whether not the ALLOTTED NUMBER of moves is sufficient to solve each level. This was the KEY criterion. There is another level with a better than par solution: 10-3. Try it out and let me know. This is a brave admission... as I don't ever recall speaking to an indie developer about a game whose each individual member of the team had yet beaten the game himself or herself.
Tim here, Mate, Well done on getting to Area 10 so quickly! I thought it would be a couple of weeks before we had anyone get that far. I've just played through 9-4 and 10-5 on my dev build and was able to successfully pass them. I'll be able to test a release version in an 1-2 hours to confirm! I haven't yet managed to pass 10-3 with better than par but I'm loving the fact that people are better at our game then we are! It's also makes theses levels fun for me again
Update #3: 1 level left! Solved 10-5. This was the second last one that stumped me temporarily. Another brilliant level. Many unusual moves needed to be pulled off. This one was tougher than even 10-6. What made this level so difficult is to know the steps when you need to sit and wait. Update #2: 2 (not 3) levels left unsolved. 10-6 is brilliant. Very tricky solution, requiring two critical moves very early on, otherwise you are basically trapped in a dead-end. Update #1: 3 (not 4) levels left unsolved. Great, Tim. Thanks for the compliment. It means a lot coming from the game's creator. There are 4 levels (don't want to name them yet) in the game that I was unable to complete from my first playthrough. All of them are solvable, but not in the alloted moves hinted by the game. Beyond these levels, I have completed all of the levels at or under par. So far, there are 4 levels for which under par solutions exist: 3-4, 4-1, 4-2, 10-3. As I recall, tullonator has verified and rediscovered 3-4 and 4-1. For 10-3, it can solved in 20 instead of 21 moves. There is a minor bug in 10-2. When World 10 was unlocked, somehow after I completed some of the level in World 9, 10-2 would suddenly be flagged as being completed even though I had yet to play the level. Up to that point, I had skipped 2 levels. I am not sure if the skipping had triggered the bug. As you said the release version (presumably, this is the version currently on the App Store that I am playing) is different from the pre-release build, it would be great if you can explicitly confirm that ALL of the levels are truly solvable at par. I will go back and retry those levels if I see your confirmation.
Sounds like you've just about completed every level now! I've got the ipad now and I can confirm that there are no issues with 9-4 and 10-5.
Solved game! 60 puzzles. 10 treasures. Overall impression: -Brilliant puzzle game -Transport puzzle mechanics and many new twists -New mechanics introduced in each world to keep puzzles fresh -Polished presentation -Clean interface, with a great scrubbing feature to rewind and fast forward turns to see changing behaviors of obstacles. -Clever time-based theme befitting turn-based puzzle play style -Game even touches on moral values (perhaps unintentional) of altruism, sacrificing one's own life to save another 4 puzzles that can be solved in fewer moves than hinted by game (under par solutions): 3-4 can be solved in 5 instead of 6 moves 4-1 can be solved in 7 instead of 10 moves 4-2 can be solved in 32 instead of 33 moves 10-3 can be solved in 20 instead of 21 moves Highly recommended! PS: Glewciefer & tullonator, PM me with your email addresses. Like to send you some more feedback in private.
