Building circuits is neat, but I think this has some problems as a game:
1. It seems to only let you save one solution for each level, even though there are two optimization goals. It should let you save one for fewest components and one for fewest NAND gates.
2. It's not really clear how NAND gate counts work in later levels where you're using potentially non-optimal components you've built? Like does it count each one as the number of gates that you used, or the number of gates that is optimal, or what? Someone else told me it was the latter, but it seems like XOR counts as 6 even though there's apparently a way to do it with fewer?
3. Why do some levels give me the message "This is optimal!" while others say "This is the simplest solution!"? What's going on here? What do these messages mean specifically? It's not clear.
All this adds up making attempts at optimization a bit frustrating and as such I just don't really want to play it very far. If you're not worried about optimization it seems fine, but if you are the interface really kind of works against you.
1. The blue on purple color scheme is a little hard on the eyes. Changing the blue lines and circles to #0f0 green helped a lot. (Green also has strong "on" semantics)
2. My SO and I both had trouble finding the trash can. We both tried to drag components back to the workbench or off of the mat to delete them. A larger trash can icon or just making it red might help.
3. I ran into some z-layering issues (at least on Firefox). Opening a component info bubble from the workbench displays under the mat. Also the "results" popup displays underneath any components that might be on the far side.
Overall great game though! I had a lot of fun with it. Thank you!
Yeah if you see my comment below I think really it should always be explicit both about whether you used the fewest components and (separately) about whether you used the fewest NAND gates. Currently it seems like you sometimes only get told about one or the other...
Love the game. One suggestion I had is that it would be helpful to indicate the number of nand gates in each component. When I'm trying to optimize I'm also trying to remember which is a "cheaper" component - having a number of nand gates associated with each component would help.
Hi author, cool game, you got me hooked! One thing I could suggest for now (I'm still in the Latch level) is that you could go a bit below and start from the transistor itself, like build the nand gate from the transistors..
> it seems like XOR counts as 6 even though there's apparently a way to do it with fewer?
This is a great game and tbh I think you're just butthurt because you couldn't figure out any of the optimal solutions. Xor is the first one and it sounds like you didn't solve it. (fwiw I haven't figured it out yet either)
1. It does only save one solution for each level but if you can do it in fewer nands, why do you need to keep the fewest components? Most puzzle games like this work this way
2. In later levels it uses your best solution from previous levels. The basic (non-optimal) xor solution has 3 compents with 6 nand. The first time I did half-adder, it told me my solution was 2 components/8 nand (a 2-nand AND plus a 6-nand XOR). After trying for optimal xor again (and failing), solving half-adder shows "2 components used. Mission XOR is not completed, so the total number of gates could not be counted." So it uses YOUR best solutions.
3. I mean it's pretty obvious. optimal == fewest nand, simplest == fewest components. If you optimize for nands, your solution is going to be less simple/more complicated.
I think it's a really great game. You should give it another try
I've completed all but the very last level (input/output, it just seemed too disconnected from the rest and more tedious than informative, so I gave up) and managed optimal solutions for all of the basic logic gates (but not for some of the more complex later components -- would have loved to try, but the canvas gets unwieldy fast as it has too little vertical space, plus its too much effort to break down components into their nand gates for optimisation).
With that said (so you know that I'm not "butthurt" nor do I need to give it another try): I completely agree with all of the feedback Sniffnoy gave and I don't know why you're getting butthurt over someone having feedback like that. Why would you insult someone just because they had comments on it? Are you having a bad day?
It is a great game, nonetheless, though, otherwise I wouldn't have played it as far as I did. I think with some small tweaks and fixes, it could be greater still, however.
I think Sniffoy made some valid points but I don't think they support his premise that "Building circuits is neat, but [...] this has some problems as a game". Sure there are things that could be improved but I don't think they take away from the game. I mean you said you did all of the levels with optimizations and enjoyed it. You didn't let the subpar language stop you from enjoying it. But Sniffoy did. And I guess that rubbed me wrong - he's blaming the game because he got hung up on a couple words.
> This is a great game and tbh I think you're just butthurt because you couldn't figure out any of the optimal solutions.
There's no need to be rude. Insults like this don't add to your argument.
> 1. It does only save one solution for each level but if you can do it in fewer nands, why do you need to keep the fewest components? Most puzzle games like this work this way
Because they're separate optimization goals. I want to hit all of them and have each of them saved. Compare Zachtronics games, as magnostherobot mentions. Also, the ones with fewest components will typically be conceptually clearer.
> 2. In later levels it uses your best solution from previous levels. The basic (non-optimal) xor solution has 3 compents with 6 nand. The first time I did half-adder, it told me my solution was 2 components/8 nand (a 2-nand AND plus a 6-nand XOR). After trying for optimal xor again (and failing), solving half-adder shows "2 components used. Mission XOR is not completed, so the total number of gates could not be counted." So it uses YOUR best solutions.
Thanks for determining this. But it would be better if, you know, the game said this anywhere. None of this is explained.
> 3. I mean it's pretty obvious. optimal == fewest nand, simplest == fewest components. If you optimize for nands, your solution is going to be less simple/more complicated.
I have to disagree that this is "obvious". I'm sure one could figure it out after playing enough, but one shouldn't have to; the messages could easily be made more explicit. And like note that even this isn't exactly a correct description, because if you come up with a solution that minimizes both, it only says "This is optimal!" rather than saying "This is simplest and optimal!". You see the problem?
And honestly I'm just not sure you're correct. Like doing NOR the obvious way, I got a "this is simplest!" message, but did not get a message saying to do it in fewer NAND gates. So what does that mean? Is it optimal or not? If yes it ought to have told me; if no it ought to have given me the message saying it can be done in fewer.
So yes I do think the game is really being badly unclear about this.
Yeah I mean I guess you're right - the verbiage could be improved. I just don't think it's worth getting hung up on. It's still a fun little game. I've heard that everything in a processor can be built up out of nand gates and always wondered how that worked so it's been neat to work through it.
It's kind of a learning-first game though so I guess if your goal is to beat the game and get every achievement, yeah you'll be disappointed.
You can create equivalents of AND, OR and NOT with only NAND, which is why it's possible for everything in a processor to be NAND gates only.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAND_logic
As far as Zachtronics games go, you've been able to save multiple solutions since IIRC Infinifactory, and those games all have two or three optimisation goals.
I think Silicon Zeroes only remembers one solution per puzzle, however in most of its levels its goals are quite closely related.
OCTOPTICOM also only saves one solution per level, but only has one optimisation goal, I believe.
I don't believe your assertion is true; at the least, it is not true in my experience.
Okay Zachtronics games look awesome. I'll definitely have to try them out.
On the other hand, my experience with games "like this" are mostly free mobile games or other little browser games. For a paid game I would totally expect to be able to save multiple solutions.
1. It seems to only let you save one solution for each level, even though there are two optimization goals. It should let you save one for fewest components and one for fewest NAND gates.
2. It's not really clear how NAND gate counts work in later levels where you're using potentially non-optimal components you've built? Like does it count each one as the number of gates that you used, or the number of gates that is optimal, or what? Someone else told me it was the latter, but it seems like XOR counts as 6 even though there's apparently a way to do it with fewer?
3. Why do some levels give me the message "This is optimal!" while others say "This is the simplest solution!"? What's going on here? What do these messages mean specifically? It's not clear.
All this adds up making attempts at optimization a bit frustrating and as such I just don't really want to play it very far. If you're not worried about optimization it seems fine, but if you are the interface really kind of works against you.