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Game Level Editor - Fizziks Tilt
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
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A few weeks ago I posted that the Fizziks Tilt game was available to play. This is a game in which a marble is rolled around a maze, following the laws of Physics, including friction forces and gravitational forces.
At the time I mentioned that there would eventually be a "Level Editor" which members could use to create their own levels. Then I sent out emails to a few members, inviting them to try out the level editor.
What I discovered was very interesting; for most people, figuring out how to create an interesting and challenging level was not intuitive. It took several tries for most people to come up with a level that was good enough to post on the site.
It's a whole lot different than Tile Puzzler, in which creating a difficult puzzle is easy.
Since then I've been debating how to handle the editor. After all, I don't want to spend all my time telling people "No, this is not challenging/interesting enough."
Finally I've opened the level editor to the public. EXCEPT - in order to use it, you first have to demonstrate that you're familiar with how the game works and good enough at it that you can solve several of the hardest levels on the site. Once you've done that, you can begin creating levels.
GIVE THE LEVEL EDITOR A TRY!Labels: fizziks, theproblemsite, tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Tile Puzzler, Adders
Friday, February 8, 2008
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Good morning,
Updates on two other segments of the Puzzler family of sites...
Adders! got an overhaul this week, and the new version was posted last night. There were a few bugs which have plagued the game since its beginning. One of these bugs was the ability (under certain circumstances) to run your snake right through walls. There were a few other similar issues. I don't know that I've resolved all of them, but some should be taken care of now.
And, FYI, for all the "addermaniacs" out there...the new version of the game has a feature that has been requested several times. I hope you like it.
If you have any problems with the new version of the game, please use the site's contact form to let me know!
Tile Puzzler had some minor tweaks this morning. When you create puzzles, each puzzle piece must be made up of at least three blocks.
Once again, if this change causes any problems, please let me know!Labels: adders, tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Karill Puzzler - Seven By Seven Puzzle
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
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Over at Tile Puzzler, we have a new kind of "special" puzzle. It's called the Karill Puzzler.
A Karill Puzzler is made up of eight puzzle pieces. The areas of those puzzle pieces are 9, 9, 7, 7, 5, 5, 3, and 3 square units. They fit together into a seven by seven square.
And if you're paying attention to the mathematics, about now you should be thinking: Wait a minute, 9 + 9 + 7 + 7 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 3 does NOT equal 7 x 7!
And you are exactly right. You see, in a Karill Puzzler, the center square in the 7x7 box is EMPTY, leaving 48 squares.
Want to see a sample Karill Puzzler? Here you go:
Karill Puzzler #2
And once you've solved it, try logging in and creating your own Karill Puzzler!
Enjoy!Labels: tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Daily Puzzle - Featured Tile Puzzler Every Day!
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
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There have been a lot of modifications at Tile Puzzler in the last week. Some of the updates and transitions have gone smoothly, others not quite as smoothly. But there is an interesting new feature you'll want to check out on the site - it's the Daily Puzzler!
The Daily Puzzler is actually a return to a feature which was on the site several months ago...a feature which I axed, because I didn't like the way it worked.
But now it's back! Let me explain how this works...
Every night at midnight the database is randomly searched for a puzzle which meets certain criteria:
1. It has been solved at least 10 times.
2. It has not been used as a Daily Puzzler before.
3. Its average solve time in at least 60 seconds.
4. Its average solve time is no more than 150 seconds.
(these criteria may change as I experiment with the kinds of puzzles which work best)
The selected puzzle becomes the "Daily Puzzler" for that day. When you visit Tile Puzzler and click the "Daily Puzzler" link, you will be shown the Daily Puzzler. Note: for the Daily Puzzler, "easy mode" is disabled!
Your score on the Daily Puzzler is calculated as follows:
100 points just for solving the puzzle.
If you took less than 90 seconds to solve the puzzle, you receive a bonus point for each second under 90.
The scoring system is likely to change as I continue to play with this new feature, but that will give you a rough idea!
I hope you enjoy this new feature.
Also, in order to make this more accessible to students, you can play the Daily Puzzler without having a confirmed email address. So this will definitely make a nice classroom activity!Labels: tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Yoi Puzzlers At Tile Puzzler Site!
Monday, September 10, 2007
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yoi55 has been a member at Quote Puzzler and Tile Puzzler for quite some time now.
Whenever he visits the Tile Puzzler site, he always creates some very interesting puzzles. So I asked him if he would invent his own "special" brand of puzzle, that we could name after him.
He tried out a few different ideas, and finally settled on something which I think will be a nice difficulty level puzzle.
Here are the rules for creating a Yoi Puzzler:
- Your puzzle must be a FreeStyle puzzle
- Your puzzle will have NINE puzzle pieces
- Those nine puzzle pieces must fit into a 6x6 square.
- The number of squares in each piece is equal to the number of letters in the name of that number*
*I know, that probably sounds confusing. Here's what I mean. Since the number ONE has 3 letters in its name, the FIRST puzzle piece will be made of 3 squares. Similarly, since the number SEVEN has 5 letters in its name, the SEVENTH piece will be made of 5 squares.
FAQ page for Yoi Puzzlers
Yoi Puzzler #1
Yoi Puzzler #2
I hope you enjoy these new puzzles!Labels: tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Tough Puzzle, More Geometry
Monday, June 18, 2007
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A Tough Puzzle
Last week some of the people at Tile Puzzler started playing around with some more complex "Free Style" puzzles. Puzzles involving shapes with six square units, seven square units, etc. Some of these have been really interesting. karill created a puzzle titled NineNineNine, which consisted of a square (nine by nine, of course) which was created with nine pieces, and each of those pieces had an area of nine square units.
That puzzle stayed in the unsolved list for ALMOST an entire week (which is practically unheard of!)
Give it a try, if you want a bit of a challenge!
NineNineNine
Some More Entrapment Geometry
Entrapment continues to be a popular game at The Problem Site.
I've added in a feature to track how much time you took, and the average time for each puzzle. This way you can compare how you did with how everyone else did.
I wanted to show you another Entrapment puzzle. Take a look at this screen shot:
This might look a bit intimidating, but remember, we start by looking for triangles. In this case, we can find three similar triangles. Did you find them?
The next thing you might notice is that one of the triangles is in reverse orientation. You see that? Guess what! This is the triangle that you should start with. Can you entrap that triangle?
ANd with only two dots left, can you entrap the rest of the computer's dots? You bet you can!
What was the point of that little exercise? Not much - just to point out, again, that the Entrapment puzzles are most easily solved by focusing on triangles!
By the way, when I solve the Challenge puzzles, generally it takes me somewhere between twenty seconds and a minute, although once in awhile I get one that takes me five or six minutes to solve! What about you? How long does it take you to solve an Entrapment puzzle?Labels: entrapment, tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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Getting Ready For Summer
Monday, May 28, 2007
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Those who have been around the Puzzler Sites for awhile know that when summer hits, I "disappear" for a few weeks. This summer I'm going to be "camp pastor" at several different camps over the course of a month and a half.
What does that mean for the sites? It means that, although I will be checking in on the sites regularly, you shouldn't expect to see any new puzzles appear on the site for the next few months. Here is a little bit of information about the sites to get you through the summer...
BrainFood
The BrainFood Page is about to shut down for the summer; this week's puzzle is the very last one before summer vacation. The next puzzle will appear in September. If you would like to be reminded when the BrainFood page has new puzzles again, you can either use the "subscribe" link to put the BrainFood puzzles into your favorite feed reader, or you can email me(dtwitchell@virtu-software.com). Be sure to specify that you're emailing me because you want to be reminded when BrainFood is back online.
 | Click the email icon to send me an email asking to be put on the BrainFood reminder list. |
On that subject, I haven't decided what sorts of puzzles I'm going to do next fall, so if you have any ideas, drop me an email!
Entrapment Puzzle
If you missed the previous post in this blog, there is a new game on The Problem Site. The game is called ENTRAPMENT, and the goal of the game is to "trap" each of the computer's red dots between your gray dots. Sounds simple, right? Especially when I tell you that you can move your dots, but the computer doesn't move its dots, right?
Turns out it's a little more complex than that, and I won't say any more, except to tell you to go check it out, and also to show you a screenshot of a completed puzzle:
Tile Puzzler
I'm very excited to see the sheer number of puzzles which have been created/solved at Tile Puzzler, since the site went online a few months ago. I think we now have enough puzzles that I can select the cream of the crop and start a "Daily Puzzle" competition complete with high score list (but, unlike Quote Puzzler, without prizes). If you would like to be notified when the daily Tile Puzzler competition starts up, send me an email.
| Click the email icon to send me an email asking to be put on the Tile Puzzler notification list. |
Also, feel free to continue adding puzzles througout the summer. Who knows - some of your puzzles may make it into the competition!
Note: During the summer months you can expect that creation of Tri Puzzles, FreeStyle Puzzles, and Overlap Puzzles will be restricted to members only. This is to keep the site from being flooded with pathetically easy or painfully impossible puzzles. If you want to create these style puzzles, just create a member account and login!
The Puzzler Store
This site will be getting a major overhaul towards the end of the summer; I am putting together a team of product reviewers who are going to be writing reviews of puzzle/educational products. Some of these reviewers are already receiving products directly from publishers to review for this site. Coming in the fall you can expect to see reviews of several math and science tutorial DVDs, and probably a variety of other products.
The Problem Site
As you may have noticed, all the puzzler sites (Tile Puzzler, Quote Puzzler and The Puzzler Store) have very similar page layouts - same color scheme, same background image, same border styles, etc. The Problem Site is, strictly speaking, the very first of the puzzler sites, yet it has a very different layout.
I've been toying with the idea of rebuilding the site layout so it matches the other sites. Any opinions?Labels: brainfood, entrapment, puzzler-store, theproblemsite, tile-puzzler
posted by Douglas Twitchell at
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