DDL on 17/6/2010 at 13:49
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
it's just your conveyors which are a bit frightening :)
I know. I really need to work on condensing things. Or better flow control.
Still hating that bloody "stick a yellow in the middle" one.
*refuses to look at yours or NVs until I've cracked it*
Also, annoyingly, I find some of my machines pass all the tests, but then on retesting will occasionally fail due to ludicrous exceptions I hadn't factored for (like twenty blues in a row, or something). Which is frustrating.
Nameless Voice on 17/6/2010 at 13:55
The ludicrous situation for the "put a yellow in the middle" problem is an empty string. Putting a yellow in the middle of that doesn't even make sense, yet it expects you to output a string with just a single yellow. I had to completely rearrange my entire machine to make room to handle that unique situation.
Shadowcat on 17/6/2010 at 14:13
Quote Posted by DDL
Also, annoyingly, I find some of my machines pass all the tests, but then on retesting will occasionally fail due to ludicrous exceptions I hadn't factored for (like twenty blues in a row, or something). Which is frustrating.
It's like the game says: make sure the solution is tailored to the requirement, not the tests. You want to design something which will be correct no matter what the input is. (About the only safe assumption is that there will be an even number of input bits for those puzzles which say that this will be the case.)
I certainly missed a few edge cases before testing, but if you try to consider them as you design the solution, you're less likely to find yourself complicating matters at the end by tacking on extra handling for cases you'd missed.
There were also puzzles where I thought I needed to handle multiple different cases separately, only to think about it some more and realise they were actually all instances of a single, slightly more general pattern. That kind of realisation can greatly simplify a solution.
Shadowcat on 17/6/2010 at 14:18
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
I had to completely rearrange my entire machine to make room to handle that unique situation.
Ouch :/ That's a bit of a bogus test, I agree.
I'm sure the logic is that the position of the yellow is the length of the original string divided by two, which, when your string is zero-length, gives you the result they're looking for.
Given that they're explaining requirements in short plain-English sentences, though, they possibly should have left that test out so that either solution would be accepted.
Nameless Voice on 17/6/2010 at 17:44
I finally went back and tried the "Reverse the input string" one, and was quite happy with my very simple new solution (my first attempt would probably have worked, but required more space than there was on the grid). Then I glanced at Shadowcat's and realised that by changing one section while working on it, I'd made another section redundant, so I removed that and ended up with an even simpler machine:
Inline Image:
http://i47.tinypic.com/24wcxfl.pngRobotic Engineers was simple by comparison, and yielded a lovely ending cutscene. :D
TheOutrider on 19/6/2010 at 14:18
I'm breaking this out into its own thread since this seems to be fairly popular ;)
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
(
http://pleasingfungus.com/) Manufactoria
A nice flash puzzle game that requires logic and analytical thinking to solve.
Basically, it's a game for nerds, programmers and engineers, because it needs that sort of a mindset to play.
smallfry on 20/6/2010 at 06:10
Ohhh!! When it says "accept X number of blue, then X number of red", I thought it meant X number of blue and X number of red where X is the same number. But it means any number of blue, then any number of red!
Damn fun puzzle game!
Al_B on 20/6/2010 at 09:07
Which one's that? The Androids! level says "ACCEPT: Some number of blue, then the same number of red!" and the Teachers! one says "ACCEPT: X blue, then X red, then X more blue, for any X!". Both levels will definitely fail if the number of blues are different from the number of reds.
smallfry on 21/6/2010 at 08:50
Nevermind. I'm retarded. This game makes me feel retarded.
Al_B on 21/6/2010 at 21:05
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Robotic Engineers was simple by comparison, and yielded a lovely ending cutscene. :D
Nice - just done that one myself. It's not quite the end, though.
