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Comment by qasimir | Hacker News Reader

It isn't solvable, I am willing to put money on it. Not proven rigorously, but mentally one can set up the balls in the final positions and run the puzzle in reverse. the rules change as they can only move orthogonal to a wall or ball they can "push" off, then you can see they can't end up in any configuration which is reachable in the start state, running the normal rules. Keen to hear if if I am wrong OP, but with me andy friend both having 30 and 15 plus minutes respectively, I would imagine we have gone through every possible configuration by now

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The level 38 is my personal favorite.

I have seen so many of my friends otherwise good at puzzles struggle with it.

It's the first puzzle that requires two relatively non obvious tricks to solve. The first is bringing two pieces in the middle corridor, the second is to use back and forth movement to pass a piece. Both tricks need to be precise and deliberate. It's the first level that is very tough to solve by random walk.

=== Spoiler ===

I managed that one not too bad. The trick is putting the marker nearest the bottom against the bottom wall (playing it in high contrast mode that's the black one). Then shooting the other one around in a C-shape to get back into it's spot.

Now 36 I can't get in 13 moves and I'm stumped!

Stuck on 36 too! 14 moves no matter how much I think about it!

It frustrated me so much that in the end I gave up and wrote some python code to solve it.

That’s super cool! Would you mind sharing your solver?

It's actually rather simple, just a bit of thinking outside of the box. Always good to predict where your positions in the endgame must be in order to comply with blocking pathway to disable further movement:

Orange -> up, right

Green -> up

Orange -> left, down, right, up

Green -> left, up, right

Orange -> down, left, up

That doesn't seem like the solution. Are you sure you're talking about level 38? It's starting to seem impossible to me, too, even with your spoiler :(

Apart from that I really like this game- it's simple but challenging and looks good, too. I've played other similar ones but this one just nails it for me.

The only thing I would add would be a reset button - having to spam the undo button to get back to the start position is mildly annoying

Click on the top right button, then on bottom left.

Oh, of course - thanks. I never thought of that :/

We know it takes 17 moves, so the setup for the solution is complicated. I can't solve it either, and the spoiler doesn't tell me anything I hadn't already inferred...

---- explicit spoiler ------

Green: up

orange: left - up - right

green: down - left - up - right - up - right

orange: down

green: down - right

orange: up - left - down

green: left

How do you go green up first when it starts with the orange above it?

for whatever reason, it looks like the mobile and the desktop versions have their X and Y axis swapped, so one may need to swap the instructions

DOWN <-> RIGHT

UP <-> LEFT

so try this

Green: left

orange: up - left - down

green: right - up - left - down - left - down

orange: right

green: right - down

orange: left - up - right

green: up

That's amazing, thanks.

This is the setup you are looking for, to be honest I can't quite remember the optimal setup to get there but that's a more straightforward problem when you are convinced you can solve it.

https://pasteboard.co/E9w43hwrvRwU.jpg

From there:

White right White up White left Black up

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