Message #1703

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] yet more new puzzles and a prize
Date: Sat, 14 May 2011 15:36:13 -0700

WOW! I absolutely *love* your presentation improvements, Roice! It’s
surprising what a difference the panning makes. It makes the puzzles
seem somehow more "real" as opposed to abstract, if that makes any
sense. The highlighting is wonderful because it highlights all copies of
the currently hovered-over face. Even your small touches to your
circular waiting animation, neat wait cursor are very nice touches. Who
says geeks can’t also be artists?

Feedback:
* Some faces of the {5,5} twist in the opposite direction than others.
I would expect that for non-orientable surfaces, but this one is not, right?
* Let the panning continue even after dragging outside the puzzle
boundary? I know that in some ways that doesn’t make sense, but as a
user, it appears like it should be possible.
* Consider adding an "auto pan" option analogous to autorotate in MC4D.
* Consider replacing highlighting of circle edges to brightening the
interiors like we do in MC4D.
* Add option for interaction sounds like in MC4D.

Regarding sounds, I feel that it goes a long way towards giving the
puzzles a physical feeling, but maybe that’s only me. Quick poll: Who
here turns off sounds, shadows, and ground plane in MC4D? I’m wondering
how valuable these sorts of things are.

This is all really great stuff, Roice. I love your coloring and edge
thickness designs too. All of the puzzles are really beautiful to look
at, and I bet that all of these touches really encourage people to spend
more time with MagicTile. Then to top it off, you have posed a great
challenge. The prize that Roice is offering is truly beautiful. It is
much more beautiful when you see it in person. Have a look here
<http://www.superliminal.com/stereo/crystal/> and click on the image for
a stereo view with a menu that lets you select your favorite stereo
viewing mode.

We certainly have an embarrassing surplus of rich puzzles, but I don’t
think that we have too many. I’m completely thrilled to see all of these
lovely puzzles, even though I have no current intention to solve them. I
hope this trend continues indefinitely.

What fun!
-Melinda

On 5/14/2011 2:37 PM, Roice Nelson wrote:
>
>
> 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
> <http://www.gravitation3d.com/magictile/downloads/MagicTile_v2_5-14-11.zip>
>
> Cheers,
> Roice
>
>
>