Link Dump Friday

My muffins are safe!! :-D

I kinda like the houses one. Simple, yet fun. And quite easy, regardless of the warning on the top.

However, I can't figure out what does that "number of the cubes:x" means under the template - it's deffinitely not the number of cubes you need, because I got green on almost all the levels without ever matching that number.

Also, the fifth "house" will not give me a green light, but rather the yellow one (which I guess means the solution is "suboptimal"). However, I really cannot see any other solution than the one I got.

Advices?

Arrgh. My bad. Yellos means "perfect", not suboptimal. "Green" means could be improved.

Talk about using unintuitive colours...

Slightly counterintuitively, yellow means optimal and green means sub-optimal. The "number of cubes" is your target - match the elevations with only that number of cubes to get yellow. Use more than this but still produce something that matches all the elevations and you get green. It is possible to get yellow on them all - I just finished :)

For Houses, green means that your figure is in the right shape, but has the wrong number of blocks. This can actually be more or less than the stated number of blocks: numbers 6 and 8 have solutions that have less than the number given.

This is my first time posting on JiG. I have been tempted to many times before, but this one is just too good to keep my hands off.

It's nice to see an old game such as Planetarium still be linked, after all it's from 1999. Definitely one of the greatest HTML games I have seen, and with some quite hard puzzles as well, many of them revolve around math or riddles.

It's also nice to see Ulandsspillet (only one e). It's not often you see Danish games linked here, in fact this is the first time I have seen one.

You play the little girl and basically the story is that your crops have been ruined at night by some beast so your mother has to go to town to work all day to feed your family, so you have to help out at home and figure out a way to grow new crops so that your mother can return back home.

The building houses game was fun, but way too easy

only the first level had me strung for a while.
But is was kinda obvious :p

Just finished houses, I found it remarkably easy - perhaps because of all the orthographic projections I had to draw at college... Interestingly, it's also possible to complete No.8 with less than the optimal 16 cubes

Assuming the final position of the blocks is marked by four grids A to D with A being at the bottom, and that the arrow points to the x axis of a conventional grid system, then the co-ordinates for all blocks would be A:(1,1)(4,4) B:(2,1)(3,1)(2,4)(3,4) C:(2,2,)(2,3)(3,2)(3,3) D:(1,4)(4,1). Yay! 12 blocks not 16.

I absolutely love the Houses puzzle.

You can do the eighth puzzle with 12 instead of 16 blocks, but it only seems to give you the yellow if you use the exact number of blocks.

woooh, houses is fun. :) Love it.

Planetarium looks interesting. I haven't started any of the puzzles yet, though, because they look like the kind of puzzles you have to (gasp!) think on!

Ulandsspilleet is good. I'd like to play it in English to know more about the story, but the graphics were clear enough to allow me to complete it with some trial and error.

Rocket Rescue reminds me a bit of Spaced Penguin (http://www.onemorelevel.com/games/spacedpenguin.html), but more difficult if possible. I don't get why, after you get all astronauts, it doesn't matter any more if the rocket crashes into a planet, but whatever. I'm stuck on level 20 right now.

Houses is the best of the bunch. I wish there were more levels, maybe bigger, or blocks with different colors. Love it.

Oh, Planerarium... That brings back memories. It's really one of the marvels of the early days of the web, when multimedia was not nearly as ubiquitous and interactive multimedia even less so. A true masterpiece, though perhaps a bit slow for today's age - the fact that you have to wait a week between puzzles may put some people off it.

But I strongly recommend it to everyone who loves solving puzzles and figuring out mysteries.

Funny, Houses was the first game I tried too, and I loved it, I want more and perhaps a 5x5x5 version!

Yes, houses is (are?) quite easy. Yellow lights are a bit harder to get then green, but once you get the hang of it it's not a huge task to achieve. Levels 6 and 8 should change the minimum number of cubes, though, the "optimal" solutions recognized by the game are actually sub-optimal.

I'd like to see more of this kind of puzzle. Perhaps some variations could be included like larger grid, coloured cubes.. there's definitely potential in here.

Oh, and btw, here's a totally mindless technique for getting all the green lights...

Fill up the "whole" cubes, and then just drill holes according to the template. There - instant green light!

If you want to reach yellow, then try to remove those cubes that are overlapped in every direction.

There. Easy, ain't it?

I simply love the monoface-thing.

It is not a game exactly (e.g. there is no goal to get), but rather like the good old flip-books transfered into computer (does anybody remember those? Mine had three parts, feet, body, head - then you could combine the feet of a princes with the body of a knight and the head of the dragon...).

Planetarium is awesome, but the puzzles are entirely frustrating. Back to mindless shooters!

I love shooters.

I love shooters that don't start you over every time you die.

Houses was fun, but very easy once you've got the right approach - baba just gave the entire challenge of it away in his/her post, so that MIGHT actually warrant spoiler tags.

All I'm saying was that once I worked out how to play the game (level one) I wasn't actually challenged again until level 9: Many of the puzzles are self-solving, and level 10 can be defeated quite easily if you use a system.

I am stuck on Ulandsspillet --

I am having problems getting past the 2 boys.
Also not sure what to do ,if anything, about the snake

Stick of death 2: took me about 30 seconds to work out the controls :P

Am I right in thinking the gravity increases each level? or is it only each time the colour/world changes?

Yeah, that's my issue about Stick of Death. I didn't mention it because it's more fun when you think one little touch can cause you to start over.

Houses is great fun... And agreed, number 6 can be done with 10, not 11, if you delete the right blocks after "drilling". Number 8, same thing, you can optimize a bit and get 12, not 16.

http://www.mathsnet.net/geometry/solid/houses1.html

Found the first one, it's not so much a game as a sandbox... Although, if you wanted to construct a puzzle and post a screenshot of the top, front and right views, we could try to solve it ;)

playing houses:
i have the format needed by the blueprint. however, i can't even get a green light. How open is it to other solutions?
jared

Ullandspillet is a great game. I worked in Ethiopia for a number of years and I learned to live with the language barrier (they're not speaking Amharic though, but I could read the poster in the hut)

To get past the two boys, you need to get some colorful ribbon and rubber bands. Keep going back home. Your little brother has the rubber bands, but you have to feed him first.

Enigmatica: I was a bit baffled at first, but I decided to persist. After a little while, I discovered the series of moves required to "build" a second line while not permanently disturbing a previous one. After that, every level is equally easy - they just take a little longer.

Stick of death: after playing all of the Ball Revamped episodes, I'm just a bit tired of this kind of game. It's not too shabby, though...

Jared - I can only guess that you don't actually have the layout that the blueprint requires. You need to satisfy all three pictures given - the view from the front (facing in the same direction as the arrow), the view from the top (arrow at the bottom of the screen pointing up), and the view from the right (arrow at the left side of the screen, pointing right).

Another great collection of games to start weekend.Oh and my wife is pissed at you. She's sick of hearing The Mango song 4 to 5 times a week. The Giraffe one not as catchy.

Yeah, once you figure out a formula for Houses it's pitifully easy. :/

Maybe if you create a delicious mango dessert for her, she'll be less irritated at the song, Slug800.

(hmm...that gives me an idea...) ;)

Well, I have a little house puzzle of my own for you to solve. It may not be very difficult, and you may find a way to use less blocks, but I am sure you will enjoy it.

puzzle

Be sure to use http://www.mathsnet.net/geometry/solid/houses1.html to solve it.

oh yeah, and the link to the template:

http://re.jexx.googlepages.com/jig.GIF

Houses:
I think the idea behind number _ is manage to build it in 16 cubes, that is how to put the 4 extra cubes once you have finished with only 12

in rocket rescue, in number 20:

try going theother way around, first getting the far away astronaut and then it will catapult around the planet and get the other 2.

try power around 26 and angle around 165

Ah! Need help in the ulandsspillet. I had the mother make the giant pancake thing, and I made the girls eat eat. How do I feed the boy+how do I get past the dog?

Aloloo:
Feeding the boy:

You're going to need another complete set of ingredients. Collecting everything you need will take a little while.

If I remember correctly, the dog is placated by the boy in the house next to yours. Take a good look at that house (just the outside, you can't go in) and see if you notice anything.

Oh, and Re_Jex:
Good puzzle! I managed to complete it, but not with any less than 22 blocks.

JonMW: I'm still stumped on the dog. I have a

sprout?, gas container with water, clothes, and bucket.

Man, I need help in Ulandsspillet.

What do I do with the lady? Or rather

how do I get the bag?

Re_Jex:
Excellent puzzle! Managed to complete it with 21 blocks :)

version 3 of the houses applet has 20 puzzles instead of 10.
http://www.fi.uu.nl/toepassingen/02015/toepassing_wisweb.en.html
though once you figure out a system, it doesn't really get harder.

I copied and pasted the entire Ulandsspillet walkthrough from another website:

1. Get the plant on the ground on right. Put the plant in the red bucket next to the house.
2. Get the pickaxe.
3. Go inside the house.
4. Get the can in the flour bag, get the water jerry can; get the dress hanged on the wall; look at the calendar.
5. Put the flour in the bowl in the mother's arms.
6. Add water from the jerry can.
7. Go outside, Go right. Get the bucket, and the pile of branches.
8. Plough the ground with the pickaxe.
9. Go back left, go inside the house.
10. Put the wood in the dead fire.
11. Get the bread and eat it.
12. Go back outside.
13. Use the jerry can on the young boy.
14. You can now go left. First go right twice.
15. Get the rope on the ground.
16. Go right. After the old lady talked to you, give her the mug located on the bench.
17. Use the rope on the donkey.
18. Go up (use the path). A woman will talk to you.
19. Get the shoe on the ground.
20. Go right twice. There are two young men there.
21. Get the metal panel on the ground and then get a second shoe.
22. Go left. Go down using the stone path (bottom left of the screen - You can't there without both shoes).
23. Get the hose, the cane, and the fabric scraps on the ground.
24. Open the faucet and drag the jerry can under the running water to refill it.
25. Go back up.
26. Give the cane to the old man on the left. He will give you a noise maker.
27. Go down using the second path to the bottom right of the game window.
28. You don't have to talk nor do anything in that scene with the sleeping man.
29. Go right twice, you'll see a woman up a tree and a hyena barking at her.
30. Use the noise maker to scare away the hyena.
31. The woman will be grateful and give you seeds.
32. Gather 5 sticks on the ground and take them (you can't take them unless you have all 5).
33. Go back left twice to where the two old men are. Go back left once more. Give the pile of sticks to the woman. She will give you her sack of flour.
34. Go left to the old lady's house. Use the metal panel to fix the roof.
35. Go right. Go inside the house. Put the sack of flour in the mother's bowl, add water.
36. Your mother will bake bread; get the bread and give it to Tirsit's brother.
37. Get the rubber bands on the floor.
38. Go outside. Go right. Sow the seeds and water them with the jerry can.
39. Go left and the go back right: plants aren't looking good!
40. Go left twice (to the old lady's house), go up (use the path) where a woman was: you will meat a young girl with a donkey and watermelons. Go right. Go down using the stone path, refill your jerry can.
41. Go back up to the where the old men are. Go right (where the young men are.)
42. Give the boys the fabric scraps. Give them the rubber bands.
43. They will start playing soccer with their new "ball", clearing the path to the right.
44. Go right. A boy will come and talk to you. Listen or skip.
45. You are now at a scene with a path with people on it and another path to the right.
46. Get the green leaves on the ground to your left. Get the grass to your right.
47. Go back home. A young boy is sleeping in the bed, he's sick. Give the leaves to Tirsit's mother. She will cut them up and make a tea for the boy.
48. Then she will give you the knife. The young boy feels much better now!!
49. Go outside and go back where you found the leaves and the grass. Go up on the path where people are. Go right in the forest and you will arrive to Kobets Bahar School. Get the sticks tied together on the left.
50. Go inside the School. Listen to the teacher. Look at the blackboard. You need a fertilizer. Click on lowering screen to the left of the board. Note the contraption. You already have all you need. Get the beads on your desk.
51. Go outside. Go back down and then go right.
52. There is a man with an ox. Feed the ox with the grass. They will leave. Get the manure.
53. Go right. Give the beads to the man with the blue suit. He will talk to you and give you money. Go right to the market. Give the money to the man in blue on your left. He will give you a sack of seeds.
54. Go back home. Go right. Remember the diagram on the drop down screen? Put the sticks there. Put the bucket on the sticks; put the hose on the bucket.
55. Poke holes in the hose using the knife.
56. Sow seeds again.
57. Use the manure to fertilize the ground.
58. Fill the bucket with water from the jerry can.

Ok, in ulandsspillet I'm stuck again...so I have the

sprinkler set up, with some grass, a clump of dirt?, water, grass, shoes, clothes, a knife, and the drawing

Also, typekey isn't working...I keep getting "An error occurred: The sign-in validation failed."

houses: I could get all yellow but for 1, 8, and 9.

For 8, I could not help but use less than the required number of blocks.

Re_Jex, thanks for the puzzle, it's nice. It's doable in 21 bricks, though. Things do get harder with more squares on the grid, but I'm kinda sad that the "drilling" technique works a bit too well.. :(

The new 20-level version of Houses is much better. It required me to think about how to reduce my block count even after doing the classic "drilling" strategy. Check it out if you need a challenge (and I managed to get green on every level).

I got 6 of them to turn into the yellow, and 4 of them into the green. Not bad :P

Re_Jex, I finished your puzzle. The solution is here!
Uh, no, the HTML editor on my google thing wont edit it, it just goes back to the layout editor thing... Errgh

The 20-level houses are much better. And I like how the green now means "solved", I hated the first one counter-intuitive colour scheme.

Also, level 2-6 was MUCH harder then any other. Perhaps it's because of the larger grid, but I had to restar quite a few times until I hit upon the correct solution. This deffinitely shows that the potential of this kind of puzzle is not exhausted. So, when will we have the new, improved, multicoloured and a bit larger version :) ?

Btw, just checked out planetarium.

I love math riddles, and have absolutely nothing against pure-HTML presentation. It has a nice retro feel. The first two riddles (of the three which I'm aware of in the first part) are really easy, but the snakes one is confusing to say the least. Anyway, I don't care too much yet about the story, but the riddles seem clever and interesting.

However, the weekly openings seem a bit too restricting. I guess it will give me more time to think about those darn snakes, but then again one week intermezzos seem just a bit too long, or at least they seem so when you start. I must make myself a reminder to check this game out again in a week or so because with todays influx of information you easily lose grasp of things which may turn out to be really enjoyable.

There. And, btw, if anyone can provide some spoiler-free insight in the snakes puzzle, much obliged.

Cheers!

Bah, disregard my last "cry for help". Here's a not-really-spoilerish explanation:

I was reluctant to google for "ouroburos" even though it was clearly suggested in the FAQ because I was scared of open spoilers ruining my game experience. However, I was wrong, searching the web is really the key to a spoiler-free solution but you have to be careful to google only for general info. Ah, good old 1999...

Solution to Re_Jex's puzzle with 21 blocks:

showimage/jigsol.jpg

New puzzle.

showimage/tree.jpg

I can't do with less than 39 pieces.

Re_Jex, i just discovered: 20 block solution!

Bah, just realized that my final week of Planetarium falls exactly when I'm on a 12-day hiking trip.

Now this weekly openings and obligatory logins don't seem just restricting - I am boldly going to call it stupid and unnecessary. Why isn't there at least "put the game on hold" option?

for houses on level 6, for some reason I can get 10 blocks, but it turns up green, as if I have overdone it, but when I add one more (to a spot that allows, of course) it goes yellow... odd...

and for Agent Wing defenders final, it won't load on my computer. the bar goes like 1/8 of the way, then just sits there.

I have flash Version 9,0,28,0, and am using IE version 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254 (whatever that means, i just went to Help, then About on my menu)

Gah!!!

nevermind. I just cleared my cache and i'm fine.

I love the houses one, just wish it was a little harder, the last 6 took about 20 seconds each. :)

mongle, you sure you go for the yellow solution, and are not satisfied with green already?

Is anybody else playing planetarium or am I the only one?

baba44713,

I'm playing planetarium, though I'm just at week 2 and still have some puzzles to solve from both weeks.

To baba44713 -- I just want to point out a couple of things your comments raise:

Planetarium offers two ways of letting you know automatically when a new instalment is available. If you provide an address when you register, it sends you a reminder email. This was fine in 1999 but these days such mail is vulnerable to being shot down as spam (note: if you didn't give an email address when you registered, you can't add one later -- that is a flaw). The better solution is to use the RSS feed -- RSS pretty much exists precisely to solve the "tell me when I'm missing something" problem on the web, which is why Planetarium has such a feed. You can subscribe to the feed at any time just by logging in and clicking the RSS icon.

The second thing is more scratchy though. Delivering a story in weekly instalments is not a new invention, so I won't apologise for that, especially as (unlike traditional broadcast/print) you don't have to catch an instalment the moment it is released; you've got the whole week. The story is about the passage of time and this format is deliberately exploiting that. However, if it looks like you have skipped an instalment by having been away, Planetarium does wait for you -- it suspends your reader-name for you almost exactly as you suggest. The only catch is, missing the last one won't work like that, because, of course, by the time it notices you've missed it, you're in part xiii which means you see the answers. Pah.

But there is a third option -- readers sometimes email me with their problem and I move their registration date forward a couple of weeks so they don't get blocked like this. Yes, a human rigs it for you, if you ask nicely. That is even more old-fashioned than the internet of 1999, but it still works!

So, in Planetarium's defence, it doesn't deserve to be called stupid and unneccessary for the implementation of its format. There are plenty of other things to dislike about it, which may well be cause to dismiss it or dislike it, but the simple yet unusual format really isn't one of them.

according to my calculations, some of you already finished planetarium, so I'll appreciate some hints if you may help me.

the only minor riddle I have left (unless I have some wrong) is the one about the mathemagician's dream (the one about the meta-dream and the dilemma).
I would also appreciate if you'll give me a little hint about the major solution, I currently no closer to figure it out then in the beginning (beside the fact I have a full table)

never mind, I already got help on the minor puzzle.

Here's the solution for level 20.

Power:25.8Angle:164.9