puzzles
Latest
Scientists develop algorithm to solve Rubik's cubes of any size
A computer solving a Rubik's cube? P'shaw. Doing it in 10.69 seconds? Been there, record set. But to crack one of any size? Color us impressed. Erik Demaine of MIT claims to have done just that -- he and his team developed an algorithm that applies to cubes no matter how ambitious their dimensions. Pretty early on, he realized he needed to take a different angle than he would with a standard 3 x 3 x 3 puzzle, which other scientists have tackled by borrowing computers from Google to consider all 43 quintillion possible moves -- a strategy known simply as "brute force." As you can imagine, that's not exactly a viable solution when you're wrestling with an 11 x 11 x 11 cube. So Demaine and his fellow researchers settled on an approach that's actually a riff on one commonly used by Rubik's enthusiasts, who might attempt to move a square into its desired position while leaving the rest of the cube as unchanged as possible. That's a tedious way to go, of course, so instead the team grouped several cubies that all needed to go in the same direction, a tactic that reduced the number of moves by a factor of log n, with n representing the length of any of the cube's sides. Since moving individual cubies into an ideal spot requires a number of moves equal to n², the final algorithm is n²/log n. If we just lost you non-math majors with that formula, rest assured that the scientists expect folks won't be able to apply it directly, per se, though they do say it could help cube-solvers sharpen their strategy. Other that, all you overachievers out there, you're still on your own with that 20 x 20 x 20.
TUAW's Daily iPhone App: Puzzle Agent 2
I've been looking forward to this one. I first enjoyed Graham Annable's Puzzle Agent last summer actually on the iPhone, even though it was also released for the Mac and PC previously. The sequel is now available on iOS, and I can't wait to play it. Annable's weird mix of homespun comedy and creepy gnomes is fascinating to me (and you'll love it too, especially if you have a taste for the weird and slightly frightening), and Puzzle Agent's puzzles were ingenious little bite-sized affairs, paced perfectly well with a story full of wacky characters and twists. There's no Game Center integration here, and the presentation might not be perfect -- the first iPhone title suffered a little from weird graphical glitches (though there were no game-breaking bugs that I found). But nevertheless, the Puzzle Agent series is much-loved by a certain crowd, myself definitely included. If you know you'll like it already, you can pick it up on the iPhone for US$4.99 or on the iPad in HD for $6.99. If you've never played the series before, you can check out the first title for the same prices, play through the free version, or just wait a bit for them to go on sale.
The Daily Grind: Would you like more exploration options?
Let's not mince words -- when you hear about a new location in any MMOs, you know it's being added so you can go in and kill its inhabitants. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, especially seeing as every new level brings MMO characters new ways to dice, filet, and otherwise demolish said inhabitants. But as many players have noted, it would be nice if there were occasionally other options, such as the puzzles and traps that Dungeons and Dragons Online places in some of its adventures. So would you like to see more exploration options in MMOs? Would you enjoy the chance to have a new location where you had to puzzle your way past traps and not draw your sword (or gun or electrical magic or whatever)? How about exploring a landscape without certain knowledge about what was on the other side? Or do you feel that's a thing of the past and so long as answers and guides are freely available online that exploration can't quite be replicated? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Engaging the brain: Funcom talks about the immersiveness of story in The Secret World
"No designer could ask for more to draw upon," The Secret World's Joel Bylos says. "This world, our world, is the greatest resource of them all." And so begins a fascinating trip down the dark alleys of storytelling in Funcom's upcoming MMO. In a dev diary posted at MMORPG.com, The Secret World team suggests it's more interesting to set the game in our world instead of in rehashed fantasy lands. By embracing the concept of "everything is true," the writers open the door to every conspiracy theory, every urban legend, and every branch of pseudoscience known to man. "The story is exploration. The story is discovery," Bylos promises. He says that the ultimate goal of the storytelling team is to get players to stop mindlessly clicking and to start engaging the story on a conscious level. This includes investigating events, hunting for clues and solving puzzles. No, this isn't Scooby-Doo Online (although that would be awesome). It's also interesting to note that every character in the game has full voice-over and motion capture as a way to pull you into the story instead of jolt you out of it. Bylos also outlines the different types of missions, which include stealth and infiltration, action, investigation, and story. [Thanks Even!]
TUAW's Daily iOS App: Casey's Contraptions
I won't mince words here: I've seen and played a lot of iOS games, and when I first saw Casey's Contraptions back at GDC this year (which is out today for the first time on the iPad), I thought it was the most impressive iOS game I'd ever seen. The Incredible Machine is what jumps to mind to describe it, but really, this game is more than that -- it's a full engine of physics gameplay. The idea is that you're presented with over 70 included puzzles by young Casey, and then you have to solve them with various items, which span everything from punching gloves to darts and RC cars. After that, you can also create your own levels and even share both created levels and solutions around with an incredible social backdrop. The whole app is very impressive -- the design is just perfect, there's a huge number of items to interact and build with, and the social features are really amazing and incorporated seamlessly through email and Game Center. Seriously, if you own an iPad, Casey's Contraptions is pretty much a must-have title. There are content and feature updates on the way as well (and if you don't happen to own Apple's tablet, there's also an iPhone version coming soon). Casey's Contraptions is in the App Store right now for US$2.99.
Enter at Your Own Rift: Off the beaten path
Conventional MMO wisdom says that one should stick to the roads as much as possible when questing. Roads have become the "safe zone" of online games, a place where mobs are less likely to attack and adventurers are less likely to become lost. RIFT, however, turns this MMO convention on its head and does everything it can to break us of this predictable -- and boring -- habit. For one thing, the roads in RIFT are not safe. At any moment, a rampaging invasion or event boss may be wandering down them, looking for easy prey. I've seen more than one jaded MMO vet express a type of dawning pleasure when this has happened, especially considering the reputation modern games have for coddling their populations. For another thing, there are a lot of incentives to strike off the beaten path and explore the world instead of staring at a packed trail that's been walked a million times before. RIFT encourages players to do so in subtle ways, ways that I deeply appreciate as an explorer type. In today's Enter at Your Own Rift, we're going to look at three reasons that blazing your own way in the wilderness is more fun -- and even beneficial -- than sticking to the highway. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.
TUAW's Daily App: Look Again!
Many games on the App Store seem to emphasize gaming expertise more than anything else. Either you need to know the genre of the game you're playing, or your fingers just need to be fast enough to win. Look Again! is an interesting contrast to either of those scenarios because it challenges your brain's pattern recognition skills more than anything else. You're given a graphic consisting of two design elements, and it's up to you to figure out which two elements make up the graphic. Like all good puzzlers, things start simple but get increasingly more complicated, even as your brain trains itself to better recognize what's going on. The presentation's not incredible (the colors are a little weird), but it serves its purpose. There are over 250 levels, full Game Center integration, and the app was recently updated to work on both the iPhone and the iPad. Look Again! is currently available for US$1.99 on the App Store. If you want an iPhone game that runs at a different speed, check it out.
Rise and Shiny recap: Puzzle Pirates
Puzzles Pirates is pretty deceiving when you first look at it. The decade-old game looks closer to what you might have expected from LEGO Universe than it does a strategic, puzzle-based combat game. But as you get more into the basics of the game, you realize that many of the tricks up Puzzle Pirate's sleeve would be awesome if featured in other games. The puzzles are integrated into your experience flawlessly, and the grouping system is wonderful. In fact, I couldn't stop thinking about why other games don't feature systems like those in Puzzle Pirates. Name me a game that does group combat, ship combat or even crafting based on puzzles! I think that the perceived silliness of puzzles, or the perceived juvenile nature of puzzles, keeps them out of popular developer's minds. It's not as though raiding or other group activities in other games are high art or much more than a very basic puzzle. Stand here, push that. Repeat. Now move. Push that, followed by this. Repeat. So let's look at how Puzzle Pirates plays, how the community members fare, and what issues I did have with this brilliant puzzler. Click past the cut!
TUAW's Daily App: Scrambleface
Scrambleface is a simple app that does one thing pretty darn well. All it does is take live feed from an iPhone or latest-gen iPod touch's camera (and it does require iOS 4.0 or higher), then it turns that into a sliding puzzle for you to unscramble. It's not flashy or crazy, but it is kind of fun, and the fact that it uses the live camera feed gives it a nice twist that will appeal to kids or anyone you happen to be demonstrating the iPhone to. There are 21 randomly generated levels that can be done as time challenges if you so choose, and there's an update coming soon with Game Center integration and leaderboards. As part of the Appvent promotion going on right now, Scrambleface is completely free today, December 8th. At that price, it's definitely worth playing with. Think of it as an early holiday bonus!
The Game Archaeologist's fear and loathing in the Kingdom: The highlights
It is, in so many ways, the antithesis of a modern MMORPG. It has crude stick figure drawings instead of lush 3-D graphics. It limits your daily activities to a handful of encounters. It often mocks, belittles and berates you for your stupidity. It uses meat for currency and has a character class that dabbles in pasta-based magic. It's been in open beta for the better part of a decade now. And its endgame is actually an end-of-the-game instead of an eternal raiding grind. I speak, of course, about The Kingdom of Loathing, one of the oddest online RPGs on the net -- and one of the most beloved. When I mulled over the game for this month's retrospective, I found myself really wanting to talk about KoL but a little unsure whether it truly belongs in the pantheon of accepted MMOs. At best, it's on the fringe; while you do play in a world populated by hundreds, if not thousands, of other players at any given time, it's mostly a solo exercise apart from the chat channel. However, it is a persistent world, it does hold many of the trappings of MMORPGs, and the creators have come up with clever ways for players to interact within a turn-based RPG. I'm also a huge fan, having dabbled in KoL off and on for over four years now, and I love recommending it to friends. So what the heck -- we're doing it. Kingdom of Loathing is a great success story in its own right and has a lot to teach the rest of the MMO industry about unconventional methods of structuring and presenting these games. Hit the jump and we'll run down eight highlights that separate KoL from the rest of the pack and make it a game well worth your spare time.
Telltale releases Puzzle Agent on the iPhone, iPad
Just an FYI before you start your Labor Day weekend (and any associated trips): Telltale Games has released its latest title, Puzzle Agent, for the iPhone and the iPad. The game got middling reviews on Metacritic, but I think that's mostly because of the genre -- if you're a fan of sharp writing and interesting puzzles to play on the drive or flight out to the country for your vacation, it's a worthwhile title to fill the time with. Even if all of the puzzles aren't perfect, the game's atmosphere is excellent, and the art style is exactly the kind of thing we need more of on the iPhone. Nelson Tethers' adventures as a Puzzle Agent exploring the Scoggins Eraser Company are a worthy addition to the App Store. You can get the small-screen version for US$4.99. The game's also available on the iPad as Puzzle Agent HD, for a premium price of $6.99, though it doesn't offer up any extra features besides of course the larger graphics (and easier to read text in some cases). But whichever one you choose is mostly just a matter of practicality -- both are excellent to play through. And this is an extra bit of news unrelated except for the "Puzzle" connection, but it's always nice to go into a holiday weekend with something to look forward to: Namco has announced that it will be bringing the great Puzzle Quest 2 to the iPhone sometime this fall, complete with Game Center integrated for full multiplayer. We'll look forward to that one for sure.
Toddler wooden puzzle roundup for the iPad
There's nothing like walking around in the middle of the night and stepping on the knob of a wooden puzzle piece. It kind of hurts. Believe me, it's happened to me on many an occasion, and it has resulted in firetruck and dinosaur-like imprints on my feet. If you're tired of stepping on puzzle pieces, having puzzle pieces go missing -- and if your toddler is tired of doing the same puzzles over and over -- you may want to consider some puzzle alternatives on the App Store. While I'm obviously too old to be doing wooden knob puzzles, my 18-month-old nephew isn't. So, these observations are based, in part, on his interactions with the apps and a sit-down we had over a bottle of milk to discuss them.
Win a copy of EverQuest II: Sentinel's Fate tonight in Massively's "Keys of Fate" event! [Closed!]
You have an EverQuest II subscription (or want to sign up for a trial?) You want to participate in a fun event, solve a few puzzles, and have a chance at winning a collector's edition key for Sentinel's Fate just in time for tomorrow's launch? Then do we have the offer for you! Tonight, starting at 8:30 PM ET (5:30 PM PT), boot up your EverQuest II to the Lucan d'Lere server and get your browsers pointed to Massively.com. We're hosting an across-the-internet scavenger hunt, finishing out with a race across Norrath to find our roving Dark Elven reporter, Seccia Ravenloft. Seccia has been equipped with not one, but two key codes that will unlock the Sentinel's Fate collector's edition in addition to 10 key codes that will unlock the standard retail version. All of these keys will let you access the Sentinel's Fate headstart, which begins tomorrow! Need all the details? We have them right after the break!
All hail the Kingsmouth Horror: The Secret World pays homage to Lovecraft
For a while now, the community over at The Secret World has noticed things in the game that are distinctly influenced by the writings of horror master H.P. Lovecraft. From the original poster that revealed a beast that reminded many of Cthulhu to the whole idea of secret societies and monsters that exist beyond time and space. So when The Secret World community members stumbled upon a website for the fictional town of Kingsmouth, many weren't surprised. Kingsmouth, a mash-up of Lovecraft's Kingsport and Innsmouth (and, to an unnamed extent, Arkham), is the typical New England town that Lovecraft so loved to talk about. It's sleepy, it's quiet, it's community is entrenched, and there are probably more monsters than people. Lovecraftian references are abound from the aptly named Miskatonic River (see Miskatonic University) to the town's presence as a port on the coastline. Of course, with the addition of a brand new website, new puzzles are bound to pop up. The Secret World community is already pouring over the website, so jump into the discussion if you think you found something. Of course, for those of you who aren't into the whole conspiracy angle, we got the screenshots of Kingsmouth for you below. Beware though, the originals are small, as apparently the Kingsmouth locals don't know how to upload quality pictures. %Gallery-72395%
The Daily Grind: Are you a puzzler?
Puzzles. People seem to have a love/hate relationship when it comes to putting a puzzle in their favorite game. Sometimes they're hailed as a great element of game design, while other times people would like to take your puzzle, punt it over the Great Wall of China, and then pray it lands on something sharp and pointy. But we don't care what those other, non-reader people think. We here at Massively care about what you, our readers, think. Those non-reader people aren't as cool as you guys, obviously. So hey, because you're so cool, do us a favor and tell us what you think of puzzles in your favorite games today. Would you like to see more puzzles in MMOs? Or would you rather we just leave that whole game mechanic out and look towards other design elements? If you write your opinion into comment box and push the button, you'll feel good about today. Really. Go ahead, try it!
iAssociate: Mind mapping fun
Last year, I was introduced to Funny Farm while working on a team project with my inlaws. I absolutely loved the idea of a puzzle that grew as you solved parts of it. The game works by associating words with their natural connections, e.g. "On the Farm" could inspire you to think of cow, chicken, and farmer (among other words). You then spin out those ideas to further connections. The chicken might be associated with rooster, hen, and egg, and so forth. So I was really excited to encounter iAssociate (iTunes link). Developed by Fredrik Wahrman, iAssociate brings Funny Farm-style interaction to the iPhone. It's a really fun (and quite challenging) implementation with over a half dozen separate puzzles to work on, promising hours and hours of game play. Each puzzle starts you out with a core idea. It's up to you to brainstorm ideas that fit around that idea, expanding each node into a wider set of associations. The word map is easy to scroll, and even though the iPhone display is quiter small, you can interact with a virtually large puzzle. The game play is slightly different from Funny Farm in that instead of entering text into a central guessing area, you type text directly into nodes. If there are five nodes with six letters each, enter your guess into the central node, matching against all connected nodes. (You do get partial credit for guessing the right starting letters but the wrong word.) I have only one real beef with iAssociate, which Wahrman promises me is being addressed in the next release. And that is the text size, particularly for the instructions. As you can see in the following image, helper overlay text is tiny. Speaking as a member of the graying community with weak eyes and a growing obsession with high fiber foods, iAssociate proved to me that I really need to look into bifocals or reading glasses. The text was headache-inducing small. Beyond that, iAssociate was a blast to play. I enjoyed stretching my neurons a little and it makes a very good game for collaborating with friends. I do wish that Wahrman had built in some kind of multi-player feature, so groups could work on the puzzle together rather than be limited to pass-and-play. Hopefully that will be added in the future. iAssociate costs $1.99 on the App Store. You can download a few versions (under the name "Associate This" (iTunes Link) as well, allowing you to try the game play before committing to buying the full product. TUAW received a review promo code for this write-up.
The Daily Grind: What are your expectations of The Secret World?
Massively was on the ground at the Penny Arcade Expo over the weekend, and one of the games we saw that really has some promise is The Secret World. It's quite a departure from the fantasy genre in MMOs, with elements of horror, mysteries and conspiracies, hidden knowledge sought by secret societies... ok, we can say no more. But it's killing us that we can't talk about it quite yet. We've seen the gameplay but Funcom will unleash unspeakable occult forces upon us, like lawyers, if we spill what we know. Of course we'll have a feature story on The Secret World up on Massively soon -- but in the meantime, we want to ask what you think about the impending arrival of horror to the MMO scene. Funcom is clearly trying to set the tone for the game with their latest trailer, which might have given us clues about the kinds of things we'll see in TSW. But as we all know, a cinematic isn't always the best representation of a game title. So do you think The Secret World will be a dark, mature title? Or will it be Cthulhu-lite? Sound off and let us know about your expectations of The Secret World!
Lineage II mystery event has players hunting down puzzle pieces
Lineage II has a mystery event on the way, but NCsoft is remaining silent about the details. Instead, they've turned the announcement itself into a game for the players. Lineage II Community Manager Lyzira has hidden clues in the form of puzzle pieces for players to find, presumably tucked away in the Lineage II website. Once all of the pieces are found, the next in-game event will be revealed, literally spelled out with the completed jigsaw puzzle. A player named Ghast kicked this off earlier in the week by finding the first piece and since then five more players have found and added pieces to the puzzle. Plenty remain to be found however, and the event info is still fragmented at best. Have a look at the Lineage II mystery event site and see if you can make sense of the message.
What you missed in The Matrix Online pt. 2
Hiding in plain sight After the vampires and lupines were quelled, a new issue of the Sentinel and a concurrent game update brought new images into the Matrix. Colorful billboards advertising bug spray began appearing all over the city, confusing some and intriguing others. The first visual puzzle of The Matrix had been covertly unleashed on players. The solution wasn't hard, but far from obvious. The second page of the new in-game newspaper, The Sentinel, showed a colorful "terrorist alert level chart." While it was an obvious mockery of everyone's favorite homeland security poster, astute players saw that the same colors were being used on the in-game billboards. Each billboard contained a number somewhere in it's slogan, such as "Blue brand pesticide kills bugs four times faster than the competition!" These numbers, along with their corresponding colors and the terrorist alert level chart were the keys. Players took the numbers and re-arranged the terrorist alert level in that order. If the blue billboard had the number four on it, then it went fourth in the order. If red had one, then it went first in the order and so forth. As the chart was re-arranged, the first letters of the "alert" status began to spell out a word. Definite, Elevated, Likely, Possible, Huge, Imminent -- DELPHI. The final part of the puzzle was a small poster that had appeared in certain clubs, advertising an extermination service that could be contacted by e-mailing an address at Monolith Entertainment, the game's current developer. Players e-mailed the address, asking to consult The Oracle of Delphi. Wishes were soon granted as Seraph appeared in-game to not only fight players who solved the puzzle, but also wisk them away to meet with the Oracle herself. Other players got to consult the Oracle via their real life e-mail, creating an alternate reality game of sorts with The Matrix. Either way, the event made one thing clear: The Assassin was made entirely of blowflies and could be destroyed with specially designed killcodes -- bug spray. And that was just the beginning... This entire article has simply focused on two of the first events in The Matrix Online's storyline. Every bit of it was unrepeatable and lead to some amazingly memorable moments in the game. The type of moments that stay with you forever. Very few, if any, games are able to accomplish this phenomenon. Who cares if you kill Yogg-Saron? Who cares if you defeat the Witch King of Angmar? Other players are going to eventually do that in droves because the content is repeatable. But the Matrix was able to wrap everybody up into an evolving storyline, philosophy, and sense of community. Players worked together and fought one another on more levels than just PvP and PvE. They formed bonds with characters who didn't even exist while forming bonds with others around them that were willing to believe in the same things they did. They roleplayed willingly in order to keep the story going beyond what the developers had planned. All of this was amazing, and I can only hope to see another game take the same ideas and drive them to a level beyond what that Matrix could offer. These were amazing ideas, but just too far ahead of their time.
What you missed in The Matrix Online
Yes, The Matrix Online sucked. Its gameplay was an abhorrent pile of repetitive garbage that offered no real direction other than doing storyline-less missions until you hit 50, in which there was no endgame. The combat was interesting, as it offered scripted camera shots for insane kung-fu flips and hits, but it wasn't enough to "save" the game. I hear you.But if you think the above paragraph is all The Matrix Online had to offer, then you are sadly mistaken. You missed out on storyline events, PvPvE, amazing roleplayers, writers, and graphic artists. You missed out on philosophy, politics, memorable characters, and puzzles. You actually missed out on the bulk of what The Matrix Online had to offer, all of which makes the game's passing more painful.MxO wasn't World of Warcraft, and it certainly had enough dark spots in the game design. But the game and its developers brought a very different style of play to the MMO scene -- one that should be commemorated with a few looks back on some of the best events the game had to offer.
