Message #1702

From: Roice Nelson <roice3@gmail.com>
Subject: yet more new puzzles and a prize
Date: Sat, 14 May 2011 16:37:48 -0500

Hi all,

MagicTile v2 has been coming along well lately, so I wanted to share a
preview (not that we need any more puzzles at the moment!). It is a big
user experience improvement over v1, mostly due to my favorite new
capability - *smooth hyperbolic panning*! Click and drag to your heart’s
content.

Not a huge number of puzzles in the menus yet, only the ones I’ve been
distracted towards or used in development, but they are unique. Also, they
are configured in xml and easy to set up, so if anyone would like to see
something in particular, just let me know. I’m finding the most difficult
(but perhaps most interesting) task is working out the coloring patterns -
that is, how to identify cells with each other. So if you request a puzzle,
I may turn around and ask for help like I did for the {8,3} tiling.

Here’s what is available so far:

• {3,7} face/edge/vertex turning
  
• {8,3} 24 Color, 10 Color and alternate 12 Color (The last two surprised
  me and the 10 Color is especially pretty.)
  
• {4,6} and {6,4} "Petals"
  
• {5,5} - These are seriously strange… non-orientable, 6-colors.
  Should be awesome, so check them out!
  - {4,4} Variants
  
• Klein Bottles - There’s a Nan/Brandon/Andrey difficulty-level
  puzzle that is both face+edge turning :)
  
• {6,3} - A 7-color and a vertex turning 16-color.
  
• Also nice is that you can no longer pan to the edge of the euclidean
  tilings - they will just go on forever.

I like that Melinda gave out a prize in the speed cubing competition, so I’d
like to offer to send a MC4D crystal
cube<https://picasaweb.google.com/112844794913554774416/MC4DCrystalCube#5348453195820638338>to
*the first person to solve all three of the {3,7} puzzles*. I know there
are 115 stickers that move through a twist in the face turning puzzle, some
of them tiny. I know there are a ton of colors. I know there are no macros
or piece finding yet. I only offered the prize, and didn’t say it would be
easy! I hope the challenge will hold the group at bay for a while, maybe
until new features are implemented, maybe forever. Yeah right! :D

Here are the files (I haven’t made an installer). It requires the .NET
Framework 4<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9cfb2d51-5ff4-4491-b0e5-b386f32c0992>,
but I’d only worry about that if it doesn’t work after simply unzipping and
attempting the run the exe.

www.gravitation3d.com/magictile/downloads/MagicTile_v2_5-14-11.zip

Cheers,
Roice