As someone said, it gets TOUGH. But the rules are so very simple, so it's the kind of difficulty where you load up a puzzle and just stare at it for a while, considering. The game always feels fair. The graphics, to my taste, are just stunning. The only thing I can compare them to is Pix n'Love Rush (phenomenal, soon-to-be-defunct game). The theme is so wildly random, and so very perfect. I'm a sucker for glowy pixels, and especially a sucker for city-themed games, and that pretty much swung me over right there. I bought the game for the style, I stayed for the gameplay. Major tip -- in the settings menu, enable count moves, which is "off" by default. Not only will it tell you how many moves you've made, but also how many is the minimum required to solve the puzzle. While this is useful for getting "blue" clears instead of "orange" clears, it's also a handy guide to getting a ballpark idea of how long this puzzle should take to solve, and perhaps whether your current solution is completely off the mark or needlessly complex.
Thank you! I'd already decided to pick it up today but your summary confirms the decision. Pix n' Love Rush is still on my iphone, and it's a shame we're going to lose it. I agree about the art style and look forward to seeing what this one looks like in person (so to speak). Thanks also for the tips. Appreciated!
Am I correct that the undo button only undo the "last" step? What about unlimited undo? Were the minimum move counts algorithmically checked? I am asking this because some of the solutions I used to match the minimum move counts are quite ingenious and not at all intuitive. So far, quite surprised (and impressed) to find the puzzles to be very sophisticated even in the first world. Can the developer explain a bit more about the rules which the game uses to dictate the directions of enemy movement when chasing the player? In a few levels, the solutions were made only possible because the enemy moved into one of the two possible positions (such as being to the north instead of east of the player). If the enemy had moved into the other position (that is otherwise equally valid), the solution would not have worked. Importantly, whatever preferences the game uses, are they consistent from level to level?
On the same page as y2kmp3. I've quite enjoyed playing through the first world, but I'd love to hear the algorithm for enemy movement where multiple options that seem equally 'good' exist.
@korossyl Wow what high praise! It's nice to hear that people appreciate the visual style as much as we do @y2kmp3 Undo only undoes the last turn you made (along with all the critters' movement). You can only undo one move because we wanted players to have a way to correct a mistake but not endlessly go back and forth in the timeline. We actually added undo late in development because of a couple levels that could become really punishing without it (looking at you Horfelgos). The 'minimum move counts' are only the best solutions we were able to find, in fact we know for certain that some puzzles have better solutions... Okay funny story: a friend of ours created an algorithm that brute-force checks every move to find the ultimate best solutions. This tool ran for days on some of the harder levels and was able to produce move counts dramatically lower than the ones we found. When we played the computer's solutions it was as if it was playing the whole board at once, using monsters to block each other, making dramatic moves toward monsters without any fear. It would be nearly impossible for a human to see these moves so we decided to stick with our best turn counts. So in the later levels, if you try really hard, you may be able to beat our best solutions @y2kmp3 @TheGreatEscaper OK let's get into it. First, I think you are talking about the creature we call 'the Spook', a ghostly mask that haunts many of the early levels. Other creatures like Sliders, Cats and Banshees have movement that is 100% predictable so I'll let you figure those ones out. The first thing to know about the spook is that it is always trying to get as close to you as possible. If it can move to two squares that are both the same number of turns away from you, it will choose whichever one is closer distance-wise. Okay but what if the spook has two potential moves that are equally close to you? Here is where we get to the dark magic that powers their fiendish behaviour. It will look through the 8 surrounding squares and take the first one that is nearest to the player. The loop order goes through top-left, top-center, top-right, left, right, bottom-left bottom-center, bottom-right. So if the top-left and top-right moves are both equally valid, it will take the top-left move. Is this the most obvious thing to players? Probably not, but that behaviour has existed since the jam version of the game (https://mindfungus.itch.io/cityglitch-jam) and levels grew up around it. When in doubt, try a move and see where it goes - you can always undo
mindfungus, Is there a glitch (pardon the pun) going on in this game? Sometimes, when I move across the runes in a single move, one of the runes may not light up. Likewise, an enemy may not disable a lighted rune when moving across it. This has happened in both Oblong and Superfx. The glitch occurs inconsistently but will eventually occur if I repeat the maneuver enough number of times. In this example, the center rune should not be lit, as the plane moving across it earlier would disable the rune. In this example, the bottom center rune should be lit, as the player character has just moved across it from left (row 4, col 2) to right (row 4, col 5). Am I misunderstanding the game's core mechanics?
mindfungus, I was able to solve Cernunnos (first boss fight) while hitting the par move goal. Upon reviewing my solution, however, I still do not fully understand the rules used by the game to determine how the boss moves. This is because even though the level possesses horizontal mirror symmetry, the horizontally mirrored steps do not work because the boss responds differently after the player takes the 6th steps. In one scenario, the boss takes a diagonal route. In the other scenario, the boss takes a horizontal route (which makes the solution impossible to complete). Neither appears to be obey the loop route you mentioned earlier. Can you explain?
That was why I made my earlier post asking the developer to explain the asymmetrical movement rules used by the boss enemy in this level beyond the loop order which the developer explained earlier about enemy movement. The solution (at least the one I used) leverages this unique property. I don't know if this is an intentional mechanic, and if so, why such is the case. The presence makes for troubleshooting a lot harder, as it means you have to test all mirror image moves to make sure that the enemy behaviors do not change.
mindfungus, Can you please consider adding an unlimited undo? The lack of such a feature is very player unfriendly. The puzzles are difficult (and clever) as they are already. There is no need to impede the player from the inherent trial and error process needed to attack these puzzles and enjoy the elegance of the puzzles by asking the player to redo over and over again the previous moves just to arrive at a position to retry the next possibility.
Actually, I'm going to respectfully disagree. I don't think the game is based on trial-and-error -- it's supposed to be solved by well-reasoned consideration of the puzzles. I was just thinking yesterday how a single undo is a counterintuitive but wise design decision. I think if I had it unlimited, I'd just brute-force solutions without as much thought.
You raised a fair point that is frequently cited as a counterargument. Trial and error does not mean exhaustive branch testing and is still frequently necessary despite adopting a strategic approach to attacking a puzzle. One reason is that the consequences of a move may not be immediate and may only be felt downstream a few moves later. While it may be possible to work out some scenarios mentally, it should not be a prerequisite. If the number of moves is very small, then it may merely amount to a slight inconvenience. But if the the number of moves is significant (as in this game), then it is an unnecessary tedium that detracts from the puzzle experience. The lack of an unlimited undo in these types of games is in part rooted in the old days when computer system memory is limited so that the game cannot buffer or store all of the player's previous moves in memory. This type of restriction is no longer relevant in modern game design unless the objective is use it to artificially pad the gaming experience.
Well, that all certainly sounds reasonable. For all my high-minded talk I HAVE been stuck on the Moonport for quite some time, and I'd kill to be able to beat Cernunnos in 8 moves. So I'll take you word over my own re: puzzle theory.
You are not alone in getting stuck in this game. In fact, I am a bit puzzled as to why this thread is not more active with other players offering their feedback and solutions. I have since been able to reach the endgame by beating all 7 bosses at or under par, thus I am at least confirm that the game can be completed partially. However, I too am stuck on a large number of puzzles for which I have yet been able to solve at par. Many of the levels are superbly clever and yet mind-numbing difficult, an aspect of this game that truly surprises me. Perhaps we can combine our effort and help each other out? PS: I have only been able to solve Cernunnos (in Realmont) in 9 moves, not 8 moves. From where did you see a possible solution for 8 moves?
Hey y2kmp3, it seems that you may have found an unintentional glitch. It could be that you are playing with a low frame-rate and the character can move across a rune before registering it (< 1 frame) and therefore failing to activate it. We were able to reproduce the issue on our side and have made a fix that will be in the next build on the app store. If you are playing with a low frame-rate you could switch to "graphics low" mode in the settings although that will turn off the shaders.
@y2kmp3 & korossyl I'm enjoying this discussion on puzzle design. I would say that these puzzles grew out of some constraints that we set early on and not all those constraints were perfect. It was more about exploring the design space that we had through making puzzles. Sometimes the puzzles we found required strategy, and sometimes they required trial-and-error. I'd like to think that cityglitch rewards a bit of both. Cernunnos and the other bosses have a certain way of moving that is difficult to fully predict. It is connected in some ways to the spook though If you are trying to master every level you should know that it will be hard. The mastery turn counts are the best solutions we have found ourselves and we've played the game a lot. In fact, we have recently found some better solutions and will be updating the turn counts with them (making it a bit harder ). If you do master a level then you know you've matched us, and if you beat it in less turns than the mastery count then you should let us know because we haven't even found that solution. We are also updating the game to fix a bug that exists with the undo. It was pointed out that in very few cases pressing undo could change the turn order of enemies. It will be fixed in the next build on the app store. (thanks ShyHermit)
Mindfungus, Can you verify that the following level is indeed solvable while meeting the move counts WITHOUT leveraging any glitched enemy behaviors? Some of the enemies' movements in this level are affected by the bug. Cloister in 8 moves I can complete it but not in the move counts hinted by the game. This is the ONLY level in the game remaining to beat for 100% completion (with move counts). PS: TheyWatch, Ghostdream, and Julfal levels are superbly clever but also devilishly tricky, as they also have elegant solutions that are one or two over par so player (as in my case) can be easily misled into trying to troubleshoot those solutions to make par but in fact the true solutions take a completely different approach.
