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turns out the original convention for expressing levels poops out at 242. i never thought levels this high would be solvable when i first made the puzzle! oops.

anyway, now the board is expressed as a series of XXYY where XX is a two-character hex number representing the shape, and YY a two-char hex for the color, for each square. everything else is the same. this should get us to level, hmmn, 2000 or so. i'd say we'll never make it, but you never know...

adum

this game is too easy i will beat it

i welcome your attempt, but you have a few levels to go =)

adum

my solver managed to solve this one once, so it should be doable. i remember that some of the higher 200's took longer than others...

adum

ah, i see you got it =)

adum

yeah but i got stuck again at the current ... i thought i had all bugs eliminated time for bed ... 3:25AM here! take care

LEVEL #338 37x37

140a,1c1d,1701,0706,1c15,0309,0301,2317,2002,0c15,2321,0619,1f19,1f07,1901,1f02,0b1d,0621,0a06,0e0b,1415,0617,0719,0716,150c,1310,0c0c,0c1e,0402,0c0e,071d,090b,1816,1a14,0603,0f0b,1320
...

is that solveable? if it is then ill shut up and search for the bug

well then, i think this is almost certainly solvable, tho i can't prove it because my solver isn't quite as good as yours

in the past i've checked the generation algorithm carefully, and it's quite a simple one (compared to coil, for example, which was a beast). it has clearly generated 337 solvable levels, which is a good sign. i've also had it generate tens of thousands of small test levels that can be quickly solved to make sure it isn't messed up.

so probably this level is just harder on your algorithm =)

adum

im almost certain this level is broken ... would you mind remaking that one? you can save it for later reference anyway

(yes it generated 1000 levels - on the other hand my solver solved 337 levels straight within 0,5 secs each)

p.s.: whats the problem with generating mcoil levels? "drive" around with the snake on an empty level ... as long as you wish ... then place walls on remaining fields!? no?

okay, since i can't prove that 338 is solvable, i've remade it. i'm now also saving the solutions along with the problems, so it'll be easy to verify future cases like this.

looking back at the algo, i remember that it's not quite as straightforward as i remembered -- the simple approach of walking around until you fill up a board doesn't work because you end up with gaps, so there's a bit of filling in that goes on. but still, i think it's valid. we'll see if you get stuck again =)

the coil generator is hard because the basic driving around approach produces a board that has way too many blocked squares and too few choices. solutions would be trivial, even by humans. so my generator starts with a path and then uses simulated annealing techniques to expand it.

adum

level stayed the same for my little perl script until i clicked "goto lvl 338" by hand ... some weird caching going on? that level works like a charm ... thank you

458 is also broken tho it seems

LEVEL #458 49x49

2719,142a,2721,222f,0e17,2913,1026,1d2a,2118,2819,0d12,2f02,0d09,0719,0026,122a,1d17,2e02,1f13,2804,0813,2419,1327,1612,182a,0c0c,0119,1323,0f26,092d,291e,140e,2426,0506,240f,3017,1c0e,241d,2f15,2418,1927,2428,2214,1d2e,2416,1d09,2014,1c1e,0028

hmmn, it does indeed appear that 458 is broken. the solution for it that i saved seems to expect a 51x51 board for some reason... i have some obscure bug. i've made a new 458 -- let me know if you have any more broken levels...

thanks,
adum

no point in solving another 500 levels. my box is already starting to swap and making weird noises on lvl 490 hehe

Suggestions for adum:

1) Save the random seed along with the puzzle & solution. Then you might be able to replay what went wrong in case of trouble.

2) Run your solution into your solution verifier before spitting out each puzzle.

(Fantastic site and challenges BTW. Lots of fun. Thanks!)

both good suggestions, thanks. i do indeed run the solution thru a verifier on some of the other puzzle generators, but never thought i needed to for this one. oops!

adum