[jvmboi]

The presentation is nice but the content of the puzzle put me off. I think if you suggest a physical puzzle by presenting it as a rolling ball then you should honor correct physical intuition such that a ball isn't going to turn left by itself as it does in puzzle three. I'm interested in testing my wit, and I am fine with losing, but I am not interested in just finding the correct way to clap like a seal for the puzzle designer.

[pdpi]

> such that a ball isn't going to turn left by itself as it does in puzzle three.

I'm willing to deal with some trial and error with stuff like that, as long as it's predictable and cause-and-effect is consistent. What I'm not willing to deal with is what I'm seeing in puzzle seven. I have a crossroads with a U-turn to the north and a curve to the south. The ball enters the crossroads from the east and goes south. If I remove the northern U-turn (which the ball hadn't visited and was therefore useless), the ball now goes north (and into the void) instead of south to safety.

Then you have the obnoxiously loud music that can't be turned off separately from the sound effects (so you either have annoying music or no audio feedback at all), a condescending "keep trying" popup that treats every test as a failed attempt, slow animations that make for an annoyingly slow feedback loop on trying new things...

It's a really cool concept, fun presentation, but execution is all sorts of terrible. You could easily run a game design masterclass centered on fixing this thing.

[thaumasiotes]

The secret rules appear to be:

- You have to use all the tiles.

- The ball must visit every part of every tile.

- The finished layout must look elegant.

Just assume that there is no goal other than closing all the paths. A tile that connects to empty space means you're wrong. A tile that connects to another tile means you're right. Any and all other "rules" will be changed as necessary to ensure that, if a solution is pretty, it's also correct.

[infthi]

Counterexample (working solution): https://imgur.com/a/VxDJc6M, level 9

* all the tiles are used: yes

* every part of every tile visited: no. bottom right tile is not visited at all; the dangling path of the three-way tile is not visited

* elegant: no. Dangling paths.

[pdpi]

That's not a puzzle, though. It's just testing whether we agree on what "elegant" means.

[achow]

+1 for 3rd level.. the simple solution (as per me) using two tiles does not work, even though the ball reaches the finish podium.

[reportgunner]

Also the ball starts on a flat surface and then goes uphill(??) in the finish tile.

[matthewfelgate]

That confused me too. Isn't that literally the wrong way around to how it should be?!

[reportgunner]

I guess we were expected to be astonished that a simple 2D game about connecting lines became 3D in a browser or something.

[daemonologist]

I scratched my head for a while trying to find a configuration where the ball traversed that Y piece intuitively (entered the curve from the west, was reversed, and then exited the straight to the north) before giving up and trying the same "impossible" solution.

Maybe it's a tie-in to their presentation - perhaps they have a new model like Sora which has a poor understanding of physics. (This would explain why the ball starts flat and ends going uphill as well.)

[sapiogram]

Can someone just provide me the solution to #3? I literally cannot figure it out.

[daemonologist]

Start, curve west to south, "Y" piece, curve north to east, curve west to north, reverse, back through the last two curves and the "Y" piece (unintuitively the ball will take the left to the finish).

[ofrzeta]

> unintuitively the ball will take the left to the finish

really that makes no sense, physically or in the universe of the game :)

[jvmboi]

you have to connect the fork with the goal and then use the curves to connect the rest. https://io.google/2024/puzzle/share/0b110/

[paulcole]

Seems like you want your wit to be rewarded more than tested?

[jvmboi]

No, I don't think it wouldn't seem like that to any reasonable person. What makes you say otherwise?

[paulcole]

There’s nothing wrong with it. That’s part of the fun of games – feeling smart and accomplished.

But it’s pretty clear and obvious (to a reasonable person) how the game works and you seem to want to just brag about how you’re clearly a better thinker and smarter than the game designer.

[jvmboi]

It's not clear at all and you can read comments here to find that out.

I don't know the game designer especially but what I actually think is that the system (ie org+people) that produced this puzzle is much smarter than I am. I just don't think the puzzle design is appealing and I gave an impersonal argument to that effect. You have a duty on this side to take comments in good faith. If I give you a factual argument about why I dislike a puzzle you don't just get to accuse me that it's really about intellectual girth.

[paulcole]

I think most people who commented here did so to dunk on the puzzle maker because they felt smarter than them and wanted to show it.

[jvmboi]

What do they (we?) have to say that you'll believe that we just don't like the puzzle for the non-intelligence related reason we stated?