itch.io

Can anyone advise me on how to set up Embed options on itch.io so that a black background does not appear when launching the game in fullscreen mode on a mobile device? Where can this be changed? In the Edit game - Embed options section, there is only the "Click to launch in fullscreen" option, but why does it have to be with a black background?

Can the game be launched without these Embed options settings?

Thank you, George

Hi, I'll definitely add it there, but right now I'm having a big problem with the Embed options settings, where it automatically switches to full screen on my mobile phone. It only does this with the link to https://sentinel65.itch.io/collapsi-js,  the link https://sentinel65.github.io/Collapsi_AI_BASE64_en.html displays fine on my mobile phone. I have no idea what to do about it. This is my first time doing this.

Hi, I add link to itch.io too

https://sentinel65.itch.io/collapsi-js

I am glad that gpoquiz's simulation results essentially confirmed what I already wrote in  this thread based on my own experience of playing about 1,000 games with AI namely that the win ratio is approximately 50:50 and that, on average, one game lasts 5-6 rounds.

It would be interesting if he tried to simulate the same number of games to see what the starting situation is for a player who goes first and, after the board is generated, has only cards with a value of 1 or 2 around them. For me, this worked out to be about 30% of the board generation. Here, the imaginary advantage of the first move turns against the player. And it's true that in the case of playing with AI, I've noticed this many times, whether on the player's side or the AI's.

As for Shift mode, I am convinced that it will not be possible to combine it with Solo mode. Solo mode must have a generated solvable board, where the algorithm has clearly defined information about the game board, including coordinates, and assembles the game board in reverse (classic solo mode 3x3 or 4x4). In combination with Shift mode, the size of the board is known at the beginning of the game, but no one knows what the game board will look like at the end of the game. But maybe I'm wrong and someone will build a generator for Shift mode that will generate at least one path for solo mode with cards moving one space in a row or column after each move.

I just want to point out that puzzles—by their very nature—must always be solvable! And that will never be the case with Shift.

A very interesting concept for the rules. Could you specify which game variant this applies to: 4x4, 6x6, or both? My question is based on the fact that the game board is variable and can double in size during the game from the initial 4x4 or 6x6 matrix. As I have already written in my posts in other threads, with the 4x4 board, I have only managed to collect all 14 cards against the AI in very few cases, when only the last two remained, which is 7 rounds. Most of the time, the game ends on average in the 5th or 6th round, sometimes even earlier. It also depends on the quality of the player.

If the rule about moving a column or row after each turn is understood this way, then I am interested in how many rounds the game ends on average with two players on a 4x4 board. In general, each game is very short.

When I first noticed the variant of a moving board after each move in your rules, I could imagine it on a 4x4 board, where a row or column would move after each move, but the size of the 4x4 board would remain unchanged. A card that left the 4x4 matrix after being moved would be inserted into the same row or column on the other side, so the 4x4 matrix would remain intact.

I'll try playing your variant with my girlfriend, but we'll need a bigger table for that :-)

Very interesting, but it took me a while to get used to the graphics and figure out which card was which :-) But it can be beaten!

Added button to switch AI mode settings minimax:

0 - minimax

2 - first 2 moves heuristics → minimax

3 - first 3 moves heuristics → minimax

Gentlemen, this is a game for fun, not chess, which I also enjoy very much, by the way :-) So, while the numbers are interesting, they are just theory. I've played hundreds of games with AI on my phone, and the ratio is still around 50:50. In my opinion, this number is quite significant because it keeps human players aware that you can play with AI, you can win, and of course, you can lose. But it's not about coming up with a super AI algorithm that will crush humans and give them basically no chance of winning. Believe me, that would quickly discourage any player. It's written in JS, so the power of the AI is limited, but within the possibilities, it's at least a little bit good. I've already mentioned this somewhere here, I'm not a programmer, I was introduced to this game by my older son, who also likes board games and has two little boys with whom he plays a lot. I was very interested in Mark's idea and tried playing it with my girlfriend. We found that the games are very fast, so I tried programming a JS port of this game for myself with the help of AI. The fact that it has reached this stage is another matter. I think it's playable, and for me it was essential that I could run it on my phone without having to be connected to the internet. I tried to make the graphics at least somewhat realistic, corresponding to the joker cards.

For me personally, it's an incredible experience with AI (free chatGPT) from the perspective of someone who is not a programmer. It takes a lot of time and patience, and the AI was constantly suggesting things. Now it's at a stage where I don't even have any ideas for improvements. I tried to keep the graphics simple, which I think I succeeded in doing. In the last few days, I've been replacing text with graphic pictograms wherever possible. The important thing is to have fun :-)

You can try play the game here:    Collapsi JS

It's a matter of habit. I played about 1,000 games with the original rule, and the score was approximately 50:50. After the change, I initially felt that there was a greater element of chance in the game due to the generated board and limited first move, but I've gotten used to it now. In any case, before the rule change, I had a fairly high percentage of games with AI where we both picked almost the entire board, but now the game ends sooner. Where it has helped a lot is in solo mode, where I felt that with a 3x3 board I could solve almost every board, but now with the new rule, the difficulty is higher, especially in 4x4 mode.

The win ratio is still somewhere around 50:50.

I added a new version, simplified the menu, added a solo mode for the 4x4 board, both 3x3 and 4x4 modes generate a solvable game board from several assembled sets of cards. After selecting the game mode, a colored marker appears, indicating the difficulty of the generated game board.

      // 3x3

      '1,1,1,2,2,2,3,B,R': '🟢',

      '1,1,2,2,3,3,4,B,R': '🟡',

      '1,2,3,3,3,3,4,B,R': '🟠',

      '1,2,3,3,4,4,4,B,R': '🔴',

      '2,2,3,3,4,4,4,B,R': '🟣',

      '2,3,3,3,4,4,4,B,R': '🟣',

      // 4x4

      '1,1,1,1,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,4,4,B,R': '🟢',

      '1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,B,R': '🟡',

      '1,1,2,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,B,R': '🟠',

      '1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,B,R': '🔴',

      '1,2,2,2,3,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,4,B,R': '🟣'

Hi, thanks for the feedback. I misunderstood when I saw you talking about 3- and 4-player games in the chat.

I modified the program according to the rules so that the first move of both players is only 1 step, and I fixed the situation so that a joker cannot move onto another joker. The second and subsequent moves are governed by the rule of the value of the card I land on, and I have the corresponding number of steps available in my move.

I'm leaving the solo game in the program because I really like it, and the generator I use creates solvable board variations. See the game logo image  (Generated solution path). Try click to replay solution.

Collapsi JS

You need to rewrite and update the rules. It's getting a little chaotic :-) From what I wrote above and quoted from you, what you wrote yourself, it logically followed that the new rule applies only and exclusively to multiplayer! So logically, I had no reason to change it for 2 players. I consider multiplayer to be 3 or more players, which I logically assumed would only be implemented in the card version, not the digital version.

Regarding the composition of this particular case, the program is set up so that the last move on the black joker can lead directly to it or through it, so the value of the card doesn't matter if I go for the black joker.

Here, I modified the program so that in solo mode, the first move from the red joker is set to 1 step. You can try it out and test it. It makes sense to me in multiplayer mode because there are more people in the game and the last one in line would be at a disadvantage. With two players, it doesn't make sense to me at all.

Try it out in your solving program to see if it solves this combination.

R 3 3

2 2 4

4 1 B

I am preparing a solo mod for the 4x4 board, and with the right card sets and a solvable game board, it will be very interesting even with the existing rules.

The restriction in solo mode to 1 move on the first turn, as intended in multiplayer, can have unexpected consequences for players because they will not be able to choose the card that seems most suitable to them on a freshly generated game board, but will be limited to the adjacent card (for the first move, this is a restriction to 3 moves - if adjacent to a black joker - or 4 moves instead of 7). It is really up to the AI to create a generator that evaluates this and determines whether the game board is solvable under these conditions or not. But to apply this rule in real life, when we shuffle 9 or, in the worst case, 16 cards and arrange them randomly, we have no idea whether it is playable under the given conditions.

I would rather summarize the rules precisely. Mainly, the game board for 2 or more players can be generated completely randomly, because the primary goal is to see who will be the first to have no legal move. Whereas solo mode is like a classic puzzle, it must always be solvable. And that's probably not possible with some combinations. I asked the AI and it gave me this example:

R 3 3

2 2 4

4 1 B

I can't judge this, it completely changes the conditions of the game and it's more up to the AI and the creation of some kind of generator that would test the set conditions of the rules against the generated game board. 

Under the current conditions, I have two simple sets of cards (easy and medium difficulty) and five sets for hard difficulty in the program. However, there is a certain limitation here as well, in that not just any set of cards can be used.

I don't quite understand the question. Are you considering a rule that in a solo game for one player, the red joker will also only be able to move one space, as in multiplayer?

Yes, the red joker leads the first move, and here the player can determine how many steps to use (1, 2, 3, 4), but then they must use as many steps as the value of the card they are standing on. That should correspond to your rules. But solo mode is something else. I originally played solo with a 4x4 board. After about 5 games, I managed to fold the board down to the black joker. But then I didn't manage it for a long time, and then I managed it again. But in my opinion, it was probably just a coincidence. So I modified the program to 3x3, and it's better here, but even so, there are combinations of 3x3 card layouts where the board is unplayable. That's why my son gave me the idea to generate game boards recursively. This means that the generation starts by placing the black joker, and then a card of any value is added to it, provided that it must be adjacent to it directly or via wrap-around. The next cards are added to the last card placed according to the same principle (they must be adjacent) and with a value that complies with the rules of the number of steps, wrap-around, and other rules. Finally, a red joker is placed on the last empty space on the game board, and the game board is recursively composed and, most importantly, always has a solution.

This is version 1.3.0 of your rules.

SOLO GAME

Start with a 3x3 grid using the following cards: two jacks, three 1’s and 2’s, and one 3. Shuffle and deal out the 3x3 grid. The first jack revealed is your first starting card. That card is the beginning of the puzzle.

Your objective is to collapse the entire grid before exiting. The second jack is the exit card. To successfully exit the puzzle, you must be able to land on or pass through the exit card. If you successfully collapse allthe cards before exiting, you win. All of the rules from the regular game apply. There are two ways to increase the difficulty of the solo game: 1) replace low numbers with higher numbers or 2) make the grid bigger by adding more cards to the deck.

The rules document has been updated to include the solo version of Collapsi (video below).

I noticed this in the post about solo mode, but in the first sentence you write that it applies to the solo version for multiplayer.

I have also revised how the multiplayer game begins. Rather than moving up to four spaces from your joker to begin the game, jokers are now 1's. You can only move one space. I have also included an alternative starting method in the variations section of the rules doc: all jokers/face cards begin the game collapsed. Players choose their starting card for the game.  

So I assume that the rules for the solo mod for 1 player remain unchanged. The red joker has 1, 2, 3, or 4 moves at its discretion, and then the number of moves depends on the value of the card I land on.

I think that the version I programmed, which includes solo mode, does not violate your rules.

I think I understand it correctly. The last active card (not the black joker) can basically have any value, because when you play the last active card on the black joker, the value of the card does not matter; either it matches the joker directly (which would have to be an ace) or it passes (any higher value). The important thing, however, is that the last active card must be adjacent to the black joker either directly or across the edge of the board. Is that correct?

Hi, 

I'm still working step by step on improving the digital version. 

Digital version in JavaScript - option to play against AI (heuristic and minimax), PvP game, solo mode with several difficulty levels.

My older son pointed out the solo mode to me, complaining that he often fails to complete the game board. We discussed the rules of solo mode and agreed that the game board cannot be randomly generated. Especially for solo mode, I redesigned the board generation using a solvable game board generator. The game log now includes a generated list of solutions, including a link to play back an animation of the generated solution for a given board. Playback can be canceled by pressing the Reset button or selecting another option from the list. The corrected list of moves, including intermediate steps, is now included in the game log.

Click on the game banner to display help.

Collapsi JS

Beautiful graphics and an original idea. Can it be controlled on a mobile phone, or is it only designed for PCs?

Thank you very much. The truth is, I am not a programmer or a web developer. I am 60 years old, I really enjoy board games, and my older son (40), who programs in Java, introduced me to this game. I am always excited when I see someone come up with a simple game that does not require a lot of materials or money. I have to give credit to Mark S. Ball here. I've already done one project for myself with the help of free chatGPT, so it helped me a lot here too. But it's not easy to express in text what I actually want and how it should look and work. So from that point of view, it was three weeks of quite demanding work and arguing with AI. The initial versions were graphically simple with a 4 x 4 square grid and numbers inside. My son pointed me to images in BASE64, so I moved a little further. AI is a great thing in this regard, but you still have to learn how to use it. JavaScript has its limitations, but my goal was to create something for myself that I could play on my phone alone or with my girlfriend anywhere, regardless of whether I was connected to the internet or not.

So, after asking AI whether and how to solve a solo mode task in Collapsi with 16 cards and classic settings, I was told that it is theoretically possible, but that it doesn't happen very often. So my successful attempt with 16 cards was probably just a coincidence, because I haven't been able to do it since. So I switched to the original solo game variant with 9 cards, but to make it a little more difficult, I changed their values to 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, and red and black jokers. The solo game has been updated and statistics on successfully solved puzzles in solo mode have been added.

Solo mode (difficulty)

The program offers three levels of difficulty to choose from easy, medium and hard. In difficult mode, it is randomly generated from three sets of cards.

['1', '1', '1', '2', '2', '2', '3', 'R', 'B'] - easy

['1', '1', '2', '2', '3', '3', '4', 'R', 'B'] - medium

['1', '2', '3', '3', '3', '3', '4', 'R', 'B'] - hard 1

['1', '2', '3', '3', '4', '4', '4', 'R', 'B'] - hard 2

['2', '2', '3', '3', '4', '4', '4', 'R', 'B'] - hard 3

https://sentinel65.github.io/Collapsi_AI_BASE64_en.html

Hi, thanks for the original game. Here is a link to an updated version in JavaScript, with a solo mode added. I looked at the rules and the video, and the 3x3 version seemed simple to me, so I made it with the classic 4x4 layout.

With 26 cards, it is more complicated, but it can be solved, see the image with the game logo.

 https://sentinel65.github.io/Collapsi_AI_BASE64_en.html

Very funny and original version of this game :-)

Hi, I really like this game too, I created a JavaScript version, you can try it here:

https://sentinel65.github.io/Collapsi_AI_BASE64_en.html

Hi, I also found this game and liked it very much, so I tried to create a JavaScript version, you can try it at this address:

https://sentinel65.github.io/Collapsi_AI_BASE64_en.html