Good point. Hopefully one day I'll flesh out the lore to add more story and flavor text to Strategems (the sequel). Then I'll do a big update to the old almanac here.
Playcebo
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Good controls and fun graphics/theme for a rush-hour game. But some levels seemed too large and unconstrained, and others like level 6 were a bit tedious when moving a line of ships. I'd recommend either making there be fewer, larger ships in that level, or programming the game to allow ships to push other ships when moving.
Interestingly, Level 4 seems to have some ships offset by half a block, but it was very subtle and seemed like maybe even a glitch? Would've been interesting to see that mechanically explored more.
I love the highlight-based wand and reversible rules.
Good level of difficulty, though I used a fair bit of trial and error (14 steps, after lots of undos). I'm disappointed that the "ch" never changes, and that "alk" and "eese" have no letters in common, making the puzzle less interesting. The rules also feel a bit arbitrary.
FYI, you can use html to hide the solution to the puzzle in the game description:
https://itch.io/t/2151831/adding-spoiler-text-to-your-game-description
<p>Game description.</p>
<details open=""><summary> Click here for solution</summary>
Solution here.</details>
<p>Game description continued.</p>
I was impressed how smoothly this mechanic works out. Sometimes I worried a level would get tedious, but with the fast controls it was very satisfying to move the pair around.
I like the initial twist a lot, but the second variation on it seems pointless (due to symmetry), and also very weird story-wise. But I think there's a lot of potential here to tell a nice little story about 2 characters with these mechanics.
It was often hard to remember who is vertical and who is horizontal -- by the time I got it down, the game was nearly over.
I appreciate that the levels were fairly easy, in particular making it hard to get yourself stuck. The final puzzle was really great in this regard, and was super fun at the end. But initially the final level was overwhelming, especially since I had no idea how many more levels there were at the time -- I almost quit at that one.
Copy the code, then paste it into a site that decodes "rot13 code", such as https://rot13.no/ . Hint 3 tells you which cards to play, and in what order.
Oh wow, I forgot how difficult that one is. Hints in rot13 code (https://rot13.com/)
Hint 1: Make sure you know how 34-stone works. Try it in a different battle.
Hint 2: Lbh arrq gb cynl zber guna bar plpyvat pneq. Ohg lbh pna'g nssbeq 27.
Hint 3: Svsgrra, gura rvtugrra, gura guvegl-sbhe
Neat idea! I've been researching novelty word searches, and I love how the aesthetic, mechanics, and concept all align really well here.
I like that there's no diagonal words, since the puzzles seem quite tough already. (I only did a few.)
Possible typo: The bottom-right of Lillian's puzzle (above the Y) seems to have a W instead of an M, affecting the final message.
Lots of the puzzles, like B6 / B8 / B9, are much more fun with the new right-click. Feels more like a pencil puzzle, with less trial-and-error. And better than Taiji's sparkly middle-click.
But some puzzles, like B7, seem to still need trial-and-error, which is disappointing. Is there a way to solve that one logically? (In fairness, B7 is pretty small.)
I'm stopping at D9 for now, that one seems very tough.
Huh, I guess your browser auto-clears your cache or cookies. I can't prevent that, but I added a cheat code to restore "your" save file:
If you hold down the "E" and "Y" keys while you click New Game, the new file will have all levels completed up to 79.
Also, players can now press Esc to exit the white screen, instead of having to refresh the page.