
0h n0 – A new game from the makers of 0h h1 - m0rph3v5
http://0hn0.com/
======
driverdan
Staring at the circles had a very odd mental effect for me. After playing a
few rounds other websites I look at seems very square, straight, and ridged.

~~~
L_Rahman
Echoing this sentiment. Closing out of the game and returning to my browser
had me wondering if Chrome had updated to a new theme with harder edges

~~~
doorhammer
I immediately though "Man, has hacker news always been so angular? Wonder if
styling changed... my task bar seems harder too... wat"

Really interesting effect

------
falsedan
Recommended if you like this: Light Up from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle
Collection[1]. The UI is not as polished, but the collection includes a great
number of other puzzles, and has iOS[2] and Android[3] ports.

[1]
[http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/light...](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/lightup.html)

[2] [http://hewgill.com/puzzles/](http://hewgill.com/puzzles/)

[3] [https://chris.boyle.name/projects/android-
puzzles/](https://chris.boyle.name/projects/android-puzzles/)

~~~
apitheia
This actually reminds me more of Simon Tatham's Range[1].

[1]
[http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/range...](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/range.html)

~~~
falsedan
Oh, I haven't tried that puzzle yet.

------
oftenwrong
It would be useful to have some explanation such as a tooltip for the icons at
the bottom of the board. Their functions are not necessarily clear.

I appreciate a game like this: simple, but challenging and entertaining.

~~~
phkahler
The X in particular. It seemed like a bad idea to click, and it was.

------
c3RlcGhlbnI_
A big improvement over 0h h1. I never felt like I had to think when playing 0h
h1. Every puzzle was solvable by searching for a series of patterns that had
an obvious solution.

0h n0 seems to be just complex enough that sometimes you actually need to
think about the problem. At least that is the case so far.

~~~
rplnt
Is every level solvable without guessing? Or are there multiple solutions for
some levels? I feel like I had to guess sometimes, but maybe I haven't thought
about it enough.

~~~
c3RlcGhlbnI_
I have yet to come across a level that requires guessing. They definitely
exist in theory though(uncertain whether the level generation algorithm is
smart enough to eliminate them).

There are no multiple solutions due to an unstated constraint that resolves
ambiguities. I believe it is that a blue cannot be surrounded completely by
reds.

------
bumbledraven
Here's a solver for the puzzle (uses the clingo ASP solver):
[http://www.takingthefun.com/2015/02/0hn0com-
solver.html](http://www.takingthefun.com/2015/02/0hn0com-solver.html)

Using the solver, I calculated that an empty 2x2 puzzle can be solved in 10
different ways, an empty 3x3 puzzle can be solved in 250 different ways, and
an empty 4x4 puzzle can be solved in in 22946 different ways.

------
recursive
I can't seem to figure out how to play. I'm trying to make each blue circle
count the number of other blue circles it has vertical and horizontal line of
sight to. However, when I do this, there's no indication that I won. And some
levels are very clearly impossible to satisfy. The hints are rather opaque.
("Looking further in one direction would exceed this number." What?)

~~~
recursive
I was able to figure out the rules by installing the android version, which
explains that you need to fill all the dots to win. There can be no empty
white dots. They must all be red or blue, in case anyone else is wondering.

------
ledzep2
When playing this kind of game, you are not actually playing, but training
your brain to be like a cpu which is dumber in logic but stronger in following
a procedure.

And your fun is over when you figure out the procedure, coz all you have to
left is to get the input from whatever on the screen, feed it to the procedure
and output the result to the mouse until u win.

~~~
gpvos
Yes. You don't seem to need any backtracking to play these games correctly.
This is also why the computer seems to always be able to give clear hints.
(Can it really always?)

One question is whether this holds for any possible board (starting position),
or if they need to be constructed in a certain way for this to be true.

I think a game like 2048 will remain interesting longer, because you need to
look further ahead and take the random factor into account.

------
mrtnkl
The source is on github:
[https://github.com/Q42/0hn0](https://github.com/Q42/0hn0)

------
detaro
Very cool, just cost me a bunch of time I've really should have spent on more
productive things ;) And will cost me even more in the future.

Any reason why the Android App needs access to local storage? (0h h1 doesn't)

------
jvzr
Thanks a lot for this! I've been playing to Oh h1 like crazy (current score on
my laptop is 23,376, and 10k on my phone).

I've never quite liked Threes and 2048, or other games like it, as they either
feelt too high paced or too intellectual to me.

Your two games on the other hand hit right at home with me, and I actually
feel like I'm getting smarted. I'm sure it's placebo, but hey it feels like it
helps so it's helping.

Anyway, thank you so much for the games!

~~~
jws
Ojoo!

25638 phone. I'm slightly saddened that 0hh1 only includes some of the
possible deductions. I generally play 8x8 and I've not found a case where a
RBR----R type of row _requires_ a deduction about where the R can not be
because it would match an existing row. These come up where you have three
unknowns in a row, but I think never for four.

------
BillinghamJ
Enjoying messing around with this. I ended up getting to a score of 100,000 on
0h h1 and realized I should probably stop playing it :P

------
clarkmoody
Feature request: user-defined lock of selected circles, similar to how the
existing red circles are locked.

(This is like the Minesweeper flag option)

~~~
HardyLeung
Another feature request... if a tile is already illegal (too many committed
blue in line of sight, or no way to commit more blue to satisfy requirement),
flag it already. I think the biggest pain is the counting. Otherwise, a nice
game!

~~~
T-hawk
That's what the hint button is for.

If you start adding any automated processing like that, then you're only a
couple more processes away from the game just solving itself without you.

The elegance of this implementation is that _you_ are doing all the solving.
Unless you specifically ask for help from the hint button.

~~~
HardyLeung
It is a balance between playability and automation. Even minesweeper does that
(auto deduce that a large region can be opened up). What I described is only
the first-order "convenience" checking to avoid the pain of going way back
because of a miscounting.

Regarding the hint button. I don't want to use it precisely because I don't
want to "win" by repeatedly getting hints.

------
ddlatham
Is it fair to rely on the fact that there is only a single solution to make
deductions?

~~~
T-hawk
Yes. Any deduction that you could reach from that fact could also be reached
from other constraints on the board.

Here's an example illustration, from the top-left corner of a board:

    
    
      y B R
      x R _
      _ _ _
    

If x is red, then y is indeterminate, either red or blue is valid there, no
other constraint can "see" y to determine it. But if we know the puzzle has a
single solution, then we can correctly say x must be blue, so that some other
constraint south of x can see through to y. This could be worked out later
from that other constraint. But the rules yield this emergent property of a
shortcut, and any such emergent property is fair game for logical deduction.

If there's anything unfair about this approach, it's that the existence of a
single solution is merely implied by puzzle conventions and not explicitly
stated as a rule for 0h n0 here.

~~~
sirclueless
There's actually a constraint that no blue circle can be alone, which you can
find by reaching an end board with a solitary blue that the game will prompt
you about. So X red and Y blue would be well-determined.

However there does appear to be another constraint that is not mentioned
explicitly, which is that there are no blue circles that are not in line-of-
sight with a numbered circle.

~~~
T-hawk
That last isn't defined explicitly. It's an emergent property from the
constraint that the solution must be unique.

Any blue circle (or any linear group of them) that is not in line-of-sight
with a numbered circle would have no constraint preventing it/them from being
red instead. Therefore the solution wouldn't be unique, so such blue circles
can't exist.

------
TruthSHIFT
I don't understand what one of the hints means: "One specific dot is included
in all solutions imaginable."

~~~
mmanfrin
Took me a bit to understand it too, it means: Of all the possible permutations
that the surrounding dots (of that dot) could be, there is at least one dot
that is the same (so that while you can't 'solve' that dot, you can still
start to fill out the surrounding).

------
scscsc
Nice game, quite polished.

Is the solution unique to each puzzle?

The style is similar to my game NoThree for Android
([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ovaludi.no...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ovaludi.nothree.android)).

~~~
HardyLeung
It seems to be the case.

------
vorg
Playing this game requires using the mouse all the time, whereas playing 2048
only required the four arrow keys on the keyboard. I use the mouse only when I
have to. Unfortunately, requiring the mouse makes the web interface of this
game klunky.

 _Edit_ : 20 minutes later, and this is a big deal. I'm sure it's possible to
enable the four arrow keys and enter key so we can use the arrow keys to
navigate around the grid, and the enter key in lieu of the mouse left click.
Other keys on the numeric pad could also be utilized, such as + for the "eye"
hints.

~~~
primigenus
You should PR it in! The source is on Github:
[http://github.com/q42/0hn0](http://github.com/q42/0hn0)

------
ixtli
The game is weirdly dystopian for something made from circles and two colors.

~~~
vikramhaer
Could you elaborate on what you mean by weirdly dystopian? I don't feel like I
got the same vibe.

------
Zitrax
I would like to play without the hints when the board is full.

~~~
canvia
Yeah this makes the end game too easy.

------
pmontra
Even if this is a different game it somewhat reminds me of countless games of
minesweeper 20+ years ago. Luckily (or unluckily?) I'm no more as addicted to
these kind of games as I used to be or I would spend all the night playing
this one :-)

------
dracolytch
This is a fun little game. Starts out hard, until you start learning some of
the rules. 1's are your friend, as well as large numbers. It'll get easier as
you learn more patterns, but there are some that are a good challenge.

------
opmac
Interesting take on minesweeper

------
evilmoo
Oh cool - another version of Logic Dots:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/logic-
dots/id908720413?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/logic-
dots/id908720413?mt=8)

~~~
X-combinator
Here's the older one:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8601774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8601774)

------
jessaustin
EDIT: thanks! Now I don't have to wonder about the potential effects of undo.
I just have to wonder why I didn't figure out which icon triggers it...

Perhaps time is a distracting concept in that icon?

~~~
hollerith
among the five buttons at the bottom of the page, the one next to the leftmost
button is undo.

------
zellyn
I know this late comment is likely to be ignored, but: on Android, my battery
drains dramatically fast while playing this game. Curious what they're doing
that uses so much CPU...

------
echaozh
The game somehow reminds me of go. Sometimes you have to "grow" the blue dots,
and sometimes you have to stop its "growth". Like playing both sides at the
same time.

~~~
bencoder
I get this a lot, so many games seem to remind me of Go.

I think it's because Go is like the Lisp(or maybe just λ-calculus) of games -
as my co-worker put it: remove any of the rules of go and you would no longer
have a game.

------
Derpdiherp
Very addictive! Reminds me almost of a reversed minesweeper.

------
betaclass
Nikoli has a lot of interesting puzzles.

[0]
[https://member.nikoli.com/index.html?lang=en](https://member.nikoli.com/index.html?lang=en)

------
jockc
If you like this puzzle/game you will love nikoli.com

------
pavel_lishin
Reminds me a lot of nonograms - [http://www.puzzle-
nonograms.com/](http://www.puzzle-nonograms.com/)

~~~
tectec
It's more like
[http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/range...](http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/range.html)

------
m12k
Like Minesweeper crossed with Sudoku (and with perhaps a dash of
Reversi/Othello for good measure). Clever.

~~~
qnaal
and a helping of picross [http://picross.net/](http://picross.net/)

though this implementation is a little gimped- rotating to the correct of the
three possible states (on,off,nil) often requires two clicks, but a
doubleclick is no good..

------
Scea91
I don't enjoy playing these games but I might use it as practice and write a
CSP solver on the weekend :)

------
time4hn
Just a head's up to the creator if he reads this: When I tried to tweet my
score the tweet was too long.

------
FreeFull
I've found that the same sort of thinking that's useful for nonograms is
useful for this game.

------
rock8y
190 on size 8 and back to work :D

------
tomp
Can you make it bigger than 8x8?

------
jgable
So who will be first to make a 0h-n0/2048/flappy-bird mashup?

~~~
userbinator
Perhaps it should be called 5h n1 if it "goes viral"...

------
rileyjshaw
The hints are fantastic

------
matznerd
Everything on HN looks so square after playing that game...

------
facepalm
Brings back fond memories of playing minesweeper.

~~~
rplnt
Minesweeper was timed though, so the point was to go as fast as possible. But
similarly to this, there was not much thinking involved after a bit of
practice.

edit: just noticed you can enable timed game here, still liked minesweeper
better :P

------
r3bl
0h h1 seems more fun to me.

------
itsbits
Nice Game

------
robjekt
Isn't this just minesweeper?

