Message #1218

From: Roice Nelson <roice3@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] MHT633 v0.1 uploaded
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:57:25 -0500

I can field a few of the questions :)

@Melinda

> It doesn’t look so large to imagine that someone wouldn’t solve it fairly
> soon after it is feature-complete and debugged. Or maybe I’m just just not
> seeing much of it? How many unique faces does it have?

It’s very much like MagicTile, in that the {6,3,3} tessellation has an
infinite number of cells. So Andrey used the same approach of identifying
certain cells with each other. Hence, the number of unique faces is simply
the number of colors selected from the puzzle menu. The 8 color version
does seem like it should be quite tractable from a number-of-pieces
perspective, though perhaps still terribly difficult.

I’ll be interested in ensuing discussion about Melinda’s thoughts on
movement controls. I have some thoughts floating around as well, but they
aren’t well formed yet.

@Matt

> One question I do have, how many hexagons per cell? I’m curious but I find
> it pretty hard to count them manually.

Not only are there an infinite number of cells in this tessellation, but
every one of these cells has an infinite number of hexagons! (The
identification of cells mentioned above also serves to turn this aspect of
the puzzle into a manageable finite situation.) The cells are a {6,3}
tiling, the same as you’d see on a bathroom floor, only going on forever.
This tiling is curved when living in hyperbolic space though, and the
result is that the view from within hyperbolic space is such that only a
small number of the hexagonal facets can be seen - the rest curve out of
view. With sticker shrink, I suppose it would be possible to display a much
larger number of the facets, since that allows one to see somewhat through
the cell.

Hope that’s helpful and not too much rambling…

aside: Andrey, I think some user control over the amount of culling could
be another nice feature of this puzzle. Also, I think there may be a
problem in that the culling doesn’t always recalculate after drags
(seemingly never after left-click ones), nor when a new puzzle is opened.
It seems to recalculate after the first tiny left-drag on a newly opened
puzzle, and I’m happy to send detailed repro steps offline if needed. I’m
questioning if the second image Melinda posted on the wiki is a culling
state you want to allow the user to get into - seems like the user should
always see a view more like the first image she posted.

Take Care,
Roice