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Show HN: Game demo – Build a computer with logic

adventuresinlogicland.com

39 pointsStuffe34 comments

At one point, on the last level it let me play (or-gate) before going to the KS pitch - I had components on the screen, and I was able to move them around without the wires following.

It was moving two of the components around (even though I only had one selected, iirc), and when I dropped them, the connections didn't follow, but the circuit was still working.

There was also some weird end-points of the "wires" created (extra nodes or whatnot). At one point I clicked on one of the nodes that was already wired, and the wire reappeared.

I'm not sure if I could replicate this issue, but there is definitely something not quite right that needs to be checked out.

All in all, though, I liked it! I wanted to keep playing...sigh.

Thank you for the bug report. That one sounds hard for me to fix but I am sure I will see it eventually and then fix it.

But I am very happy you liked it :)

Level 1 was obnoxious. I was unable to select the answers for the Nor Gate without iterating through all the variables manually.

Sometimes there is a trade off in designing these levels. When players can "brute force" the solution in certain levels, they can proceed without taking away the lesson they were supposed to. Since there is only 16 permutations for the answer of the first level, having to select the combination is "brute force protection". But its obviously also not good if it turns more experienced players off

It took me a second to realize what the heck it was trying to ask me to do. It was not immediately obvious that I had to trigger the inputs to get the various states, and then answer the query.

same, though tbf i am not well versed in logic boards, i was unsure of exactly what i was meant to be aiming for.

once i realised that i was meant to be setting the output results i figured it out quickly.

Seems like a cool idea... and I'm curious to see if it turns into something as interesting as the Zachtronics games.

However, I found it hard (in the first minute or so with the game) to figure out what the objective was. I'm also red-green colorblind... so it can get a little difficult to distinguish the colors you use for on-off states.

Oh, I did not consider that. Actually I think I will let people change the different colors in the settings since there are so many combinations of color blindness and I am having a hard time making it not look ugly in the first place.

But I have considered and may make the first level more clear in its objective. Although the whole game is challenging, there just is no way for you to discover how the whole computer works by yourself if I can't expect you to do certain things.

But yes, Zachtronics game closest to this is probably Shenzhen IO

This is the first few levels of a game I am working on. I want to make a game that is fun and at the same time teaches you something useful. The goal is that throughout the levels you will learn to build all the things that go into a computer, like: Adders, Flip flops, RAM, the bus, the ALU, Etc

This prototype is made in Javascript + Canvas for rapid level iteration, although I may translate to another language when I have got more of the concepts down.

I have more levels than are in this demo, but they need more polish, especially with difficulty jumps minor UI things.

All feedback is very appreciated and if you like it consider signing up for my kickstarter mailing list here: http://www.adventuresinlogicland.com

If I understand the instructions correctly and you need ctrl + click to connect pieces, that is going to be a problem on MacOS. Since on MacOS ctrl + click == right mouse button.

Using an MBP here - not having any problems with it...

EDIT: This might be my mistake - I am using a mouse, not the trackpad (hate the thing) - so that might be a different experience?

I, at least, can't get the trackpad to work. I can place the gate but have no way of connecting it to anything. I don't have a mouse to test if that works.

I'm on Mac and using a mouse, and that combination is definitely deleting pieces and not letting me make connections.

Hmm, I will remap that, thanks for the feedback

Some more guidance would be appreciated... first level is pretty inscrutable with no indication of what to click on or why.

Scrolling is badly broken in the Level Log page -- one click down of my mouse wheel sends me into another dimension where I can't get back by scrolling with the mouse wheel or clicking the arrows. The only thing that gets me back is clicking in the custom scrollbar.

Thank you for this feedback, I will try and fix both today

I'm not sure how the scroll broke, but since it is controlled by a float it probably goes to "Infinity" or "NaN" with scroll event properties that are different than what I am expecting now. I am now checking for this and resetting to 0. I wonder if I could ask you to try again and see if you can still break it?

Mousewheel scrolling now does nothing in Firefox on Windows, which I guess is an improvement. Seems to work as expected in Chrome on Windows. Thanks for looking at it.

I really like the idea, but I think the user experience of editing the circuits needs some more work. I'm on a macbook air for instance, so I have a trackpad. I have to hold down the ctrl key, and move the trackpad, which just doesn't feel good. I got lost in "factory mode" accidentally wondering how I got here and how do I get back?! Then at the end of level 1, I was wondering what the play button in the bottom right was (apparently it is what I needed to do). I think a lot of this is maybe just finding better key combinations, and colors that help direct people to what they need to do (like a red X in factory mode might have helped). I also think I hit a strange bug where the top left would zoom in a bit, although I couldn't use my browser to fix it, making it impossible to see the logic table at the bottom, a reload fixed that though.

Looks like I have to remap some of the controls anyway, since CTL + left mouse = right mouse with mac mouse. The fundamental problem is, I want to be able to click and drag to move circuit or click and drag to create circuit. You have to signal which one of those you want, you can only have one default so to speak (and right click is taken for delete).

I definitely have not implemented a way to zoom in the game, so if it wasn't browser zoom I am thoroughly confused. I will check if there is some way to turn that off. Making level 1 clearer and making the "exit component factory" more visible are good ideas!

EDIT: Regarding zoom, are you on a mobile device? I should have made it clear somewhere that this version is only tested for desktop + Chrome

Very cool idea, I like where you're going! If you haven't already, do some in-person playtesting with people, stay totally quiet and watch them work through it. Or use userbob (no affiliation to me).

I think you'll find lots of usability bumps that are getting in the way of the cool thing you have here.

Thank you :)

I am really exited that people want to play, but there are lots of rough edges to fix before you get a polished game. Also I changed the way I do UI the other day and things generally aren't that stable yet.

Please change the font, hard to read

Second this. There is too much readability lost, for the style gained.

Changed the font

Likewise the colors. The red and green circles are nigh indiscernible by me.

I think you may have some kind of color blindness? I am going to allow the player to adjust the colors in the settings (eventually)

Ok, I was considering doing this anyway

It took a bit to get going and understand what was wanted, etc - but once going, it feels pretty fun. Reminds me (to an extent) of the old games Rocky's Boots and/or Robot Odyssey.

Yeah I have already decided to make level 1 clearer so people know what to do

But I am glad you like it!

Cool, just tried it a bit, on firefox it was very slow.

Oh, I should have specified that somewhere, its meant for chrome on desktop (for now at least)

The text is a bit blurry on my Retina screen…perhaps the fonts could be improved a bit?

I am going to change the alien font. Thanks for the feedback

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