
Show HN: Game demo – Build a computer with logic - Stuffe
http://www.adventuresinlogicland.com/web-demo
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cr0sh
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.

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Stuffe
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 :)

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

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Stuffe
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

~~~
Operyl
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.

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who-knows95
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.

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mwambua
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.

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Stuffe
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

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Stuffe
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](http://www.adventuresinlogicland.com)

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asgeir
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.

~~~
cr0sh
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?

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asgeir
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.

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jweather
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.

~~~
Stuffe
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?

~~~
jweather
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.

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cbanek
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.

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Stuffe
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

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dsjoerg
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.

~~~
Stuffe
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.

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dataanalyst1
Please change the font, hard to read

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

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Stuffe
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)

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cr0sh
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.

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

But I am glad you like it!

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

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

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

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

