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Haha thanks a lot, that would be amazing! I think it can indeed be really enjoyable for a certain kind of people, but I also think it’s not for everyone…

Hey, I’m really sorry about that, here is a workaround you can try: When you make your meta-analysis, go in the settings menu and change the language (put french and then back to english) and there is a chance things will unlock from there…

Sorry, it’s a bug which can occur very rarely for specific users.. I’ve been made aware of it and it is fixed in the full game, but I cannot make a new demo version for now.

Yeah, I got that remark in early prototype as well but it’s proper pixel art, even for pawns I simply put a basic set of emotions on the pawns for instance (literally a few pixels for mouth and eyes…). Same for the knight, I was even tempted to entirely remove the expression after the feedback, but it would have been way too different from other pieces… (you can see all the emotion-less versions in the market placeholders) For pawns, you can see all the type of emotions I initially designed for their animation in the full version of the game.

Yes if you’re already advanced in the game, the dialogue won’t show up anymore, it’s really to obtain a quickstart so you would need to erase your whole progression for that and the dialogue will re-appear, but it only gives you the 5 first meta-insights points in the end, so if you’re already passed that stage in your game, there is no point in using the code now…

It’s actually my wife’s voice :D we had a lot of fun with this sound!

I cannot give you the solution, but since you have the letters, you can now try to rearrange them and find something that reminds you of a legendary code in the world of gaming…

Well done! Definitely got your place on the leaderboard!

Nice work, not sure If I should have made a separate TAS category ;)

Also some of the variables are in fact more complex than what is presented. For example technique is not just a single threshold on the minimum speed for ‘allowing’ a bounce, there are in fact 2 thresholds, one that says ‘if speed above X, then always bounce’ (proba_bounce:1) and a second one (lower) that says ‘if speed below Y, end the ricochet’(proba_bounce:0). In between these thresholds I interpolate the probability depending on current speed. The stones quality is even more complex: stones have values for each of the existing parameters (speed_bonus, control_bonus, spin_bonus…), and these value are between 1-2 (rank F) and >500 (rank S+). Each of these values increase slightly one of the parameter of the throw, for instance if I remember correctly a stone with >500 spin_bonus will have +10% to the current spin value… So… (And the type of stone found will also have a bonus in one of the characteristic by default).

Not from 0, but there is a slight 10% variation around your current cooldown value

Damn… Sub-5! I guess it was the last full minute barrier possible! Well done, impressive!

People are better than me at my own game, so take this with a grain of salt, but you can look at the screenshot for some hints about the most important upgrades (at least early game) in my opinion…

Thank you! It’s just (distance × number_of_skips) indeed. This is why distance is capped at 50 while max nb skips can go way beyond

Worth it indeed! Well done!

Your score per stone depends on the number of bounces, and at some point, you end up on the other side with a lot of speed remaining. It means you are missing some points, so control can help you make more bounces in the limited distance…

That was unexpected… It is a typical Japanese ranking, which is commonly used by plenty of games, but I see your point. I had up to SSS at some point when developing the game, so it was less of a problem. I patched it.

Indeed! that’s WR for now! Well done! How many tries?

*edit… Former WR now!

Sub-6 achieved.. impressive ! Nice WR!!

I knew the leaderboard would’ve been a good idea…

*edit… Former WR

Ok, now that’s a WR!! :D Congratz!!

*edit… Former WR

Nice one, only 2 seconds away from WR!

That was the vibe I was expecting, and the hair cusomization would be a good idea as well, it would make it feel more alive! Thank you for the feedback!

I actually don’t know ^^’ Precision will reduce the distance meter because of the deviation, so one of the multiplicative factor will be reduced, but that may not be a problem indeed, I don’t know…

Well… That’s WR for now!! Nice one!

*Edit.. Former WR now…

Thank you so much! That’s perfectly fine, constructive feedback is always welcome!! That’s how I will make the game better, and better games!

Thank you so much! I love to see people playing my games!!

Damn that’s good! I was expecting sub 10 was possible, but this is way beyond! Well done! I should set up a leaderboard…

Exactly! And the opposite is also true, you can also become too good at making small bounces, which means the distance will reduce too much, and it can reduce your points early game as well.. Balance is hard to find!

Yes I really wanted to have the upgrades anchored in the world, but it forces you to zoom in to see what you’re upgrading.. I considered a solution for that but it was too long to implement (and I had to come back to my long term project!!) Thanks a lot!

Ok… That’s already better than my best time ^^’, well done!

Congratz! I wasn’t expecting a sub-10 so soon…

Nice! Thank you!

That’s a good idea, I’ll add WASD/ZSQD and arrows as well.

Thanks a lot!

Thanks for the feedback! I hoped it was enough, but I will see if I can increase the contrast even more.

I started with brute force indeed, then I tried to define some heuristics, but in fact the rules change pretty much every time you buy a perk, an upgrade, a piece or a new square, so the best solution can be pretty much anything for any position. So I gave up the idea of defining heuristics and focused on optimizing the brute force instead..

Impressive!! That’s.. a lot! Thanks for not spoiling a solution!

That was implemented at some point, but I had to remove it. I see the solver as a guide, pushing the player to understand that he needs to (at least try to) optimize, even if he does not find the optimal configuration.

Also, having a “decent” configuration is often largely enough to unlock new upgrades / new cells to buy / new prestige perks pretty fast (less than a minute usually), which would make the “exact best” configuration obsolete already…

The hints could be efficient for very early stages, but at some point, there is no difference between providing the player nothing at all, and providing 1 or 2 exact piece positions, because the complexity is still enormous (the solver literally does billions of iterations for each solving round before it breaks). I would have to almost provide the solution itself. Also this solver breaking is a reminder that brute force is not the appropriate way to solve it, because after that, you’re on your own to solve it.. This should indicate that there should be enough information on the board to exploit the pieces capabilities in various ways to obtain a “good enough” configuration to continue progressing at a good pace in the game.

Thanks for the feedback! I can say the record is above 600K for the 5x5 board here.. I considered adding a leaderboard but it might only be in a dedicated mode in the final version instead. I have considered creating a discord, but imo the amount of people actually interested in my games is not high enough to make it worth it yet… maybe in a few months, but thank you for the proposition!

Sorry I missed this answer, thats a nice way to explain it indeed! I didn’t want to go as far as providing the formula behind, but if it ends up being clearer than a complex description, I might reconsider…

That was planned all along ;) I didn’t want people to have to wait more at the end of the demo and end up hesitating between buying this upgrade or buying the last square to finish, so I wanted to be sure they would buy all the successive cycle speed upgrades as a sort of final explosion of production…

That’s… Impressive! I literally never managed to beat the solver… Might be a rounding error somewhere.. Good job, though there is definitely room for improvement in your position! Plenty of square not unlocked yet that can only increase your production (as long as you control them by at least 1 piece)!