Well, it's happened again. You've gone and gotten yourself stranded in the middle of enemy territory, surrounded by mines, turrets, and electrified Tesla gates. As usual, your only hope is to get to that little flag, even though all it ever seems to do is take you to another enemy-filled battlefield. Hmmm... Your steering mechanism also seems to be stuck, so you'll have to let the terrain dictate your path. Still, you have to keep trying, because otherwise this game has no background story!
Welcome to the world of Mindfields, a pair of puzzle games brought to us by the people over at GameSheep. The recently released Mindfields 2: The Russian Tundra is essentially a continuation of the original Mindfields 2204, although a few extra elements are added to enhance the gameplay. Both work in essentially the same way: you place arrows, weapons, and shields around the level and click "Start Engine." Then you sit back and let your tank run its course, which if done correctly will lead you to your goal. There are of course enemies, but they are stationary and can be defeated by your weapons—if you are granted any. The main difficulty for these games comes from the limited supply of arrows you receive. You must place them carefully to be sure that your tank is able to visit every spot that it needs to in order to reach the goal
Analysis: When I first played Mindfields, I immediately thought of two of my favorite puzzle games: Puzzled Sheep and Warp Forest. Mindfields is more closely related to Puzzled Sheep in terms of game mechanics, but Warp Forest fans will appreciate the puzzle design of many of the levels, especially in Mindfields 2, where teleports are added and greatly increase the complexity potential.
I use the word potential because I feel like there's a lot more puzzles out there just waiting to be implemented into Mindfields. Both the original and the sequel leave you wanting more after just 18 levels apiece. Especially in the anticlimactic fashion in which the game ends: it just does. I actually had to go back and check to see that it was the end, and not just a bug that prevented me from going to the next level.
Though they can sometimes be tricky, the puzzles are in general easier to solve than those of Warp Forest, due in no small part to the "let it run its course" nature of the game. However, they should still pose enough of a challenge to give even expert puzzle-gamers a pleasant experience.
The soundtrack is nice, but it loops so often (every 24 seconds) that I ended up turning it off after a while. The sound effects are also nice, with the exception of the "damaged Tesla gates," whose repeated buzzing was so irritating and overpowering that I turned off the sound effects for the levels that contained them. And while I'm venting my complaints, I might as well grouse about the levels with more than two teleport spaces: it's impossible to tell which teleport takes you where without using a trial-and-error approach.
Minor quibbles aside, Mindfields has to be one of the best puzzle games to be featured on Jayisgames in quite a while. You definitely don't want to miss this one.
Cheers to Teebor, Nabhan, and Gabriel for suggesting this one! =)
I cannot for the life of me figure out level 11. And the music is driving me insane.
Suho, press [M] to toggle the music and [S] to toggle the sound effects.
And which level 11 are you stuck on?
Saving my progress here!
Level 14 Password:
BYTE
terrible Lv 12...
i have no idea how can pass?
pw : pptr
For Level 11 in Mindfields 2204
You need to get rid of 2 mines... yet you only have one shot. What can you do?
For Level 11 in Mindfields 2:
Be very careful which direction you enter the first teleport from. Also keep in mind when moving diagonally that you only travel on diagonal squares in the grid, for example the X's in the following ASCII recreation.
Xoooo
oXooo
ooXoo
oooXo
ooooX
It doesn't matter what's in any of the o's -- land, water, mines, etc.
Hope that helps!
Naneun-
Unlike previous levels, timing is important
Oof. I'm stuck on level 18 of MindFields 2.
From what I can tell, it's impossible. But I know that's not the case. But there's only one spot where you can use the one four-shooter tile you have to get both enemies. However, you can't get at it from the NE direction because that requires you to go through the enemies sight; you can't get it from the SE direction because the enemy is blocking you; you should be able to get it from the NW direction but if you do that it immediately tells you your stuck after moving on to the four-shooter tile; and you can't get it from the SW direction because you have no arrow that directs your tank to go NW.
And you can't shimmy up between the enemies, because that would require an arrow that directs your tank to go pure E, and you don't have one of those.
I'm stumped. A little frustrating, too, since it's the last level. :p
Oops.
Nmind. Totally forgot that you can run over the four-shooters multiple times. That changes everything. *smacks forehead* And this was used in previous levels too!
simone,
remember that you can hit a shooting tile more than once...
Any Idea what the score is for? My first run through with lots of trial and error I got 631879 but my second run through with out any deaths and the same solutions was 628395.
Oh yeah, #27 on high score chart for Minefields 2204 with 507,560 points. That is a fun game. Time to move on to Minefields 2. If it's half as good as 2204, then I'll be sitting here a while longer trying to figure it out, even though 2204 wasn't too hard.
I found the mysterious Level 0! I wonder if this is a glitch, or intentional, or both.
It says "Passwordundefined" and... actually, there's no solution to it. There are already player tiles on the ground, but they can't be moved. It's like the negative levels from Super Mario Bros. But not as cool. I'll figure out how to reproduce the trigger.
Complete MindFields 2 Walkthrough:
Passwords:
45FL (kind of useless)
GG6F
HR77
DRKE
BBL3
F34R
BLDD
CGXX
VVKR
VAK8
GYWL
PPTR
FLYR
BYTE
WWZP
D3AR
FLL9
WP67
Solutions:
Columns are designated A-M from left to right, rows are designated 1-13 from bottom to top. Cell B5, for example, would be in the second column from the left, and the fifth row from the bottom.
4-shooter at H7, teleporter at K7 and D7
up arrow at E10, teleporter at E11, down arrow at C4
down-right arrow at D6, 4-shooter at F4, teleporter at G3
4-shooter at H8, down arrow at I8, left arrow at I4
teleporter at G5, down-right arrow at G12, down-right arrow at E5
up-right arrow at K7, four-shooter at E7, right arrow at F8
shooter at G8, shield at G5, teleporter at G10, teleporter at G1
up-right arrow at C3, shield at D4, shooter at H10, down-right arrow at B10, shooter at C9, shooter at D8
down-left arrow at I11, 4-shooter at G9, right arrow at F8, down arrow at J8, left arrow at J3
up arrow at E4, down arrow at F12, down arrow at H4, four-shooter at H9, up arrow at H1, down-right arrow at H12, down-left arrow at K9
down arrow at I12, up-left arrow at I6, shield at F9, right arrow at E10, left arrow at C5
teleporter at C11, teleporter at C7, right arrow at C6, shield at F6
right arrow at D7, shooter at E7, down-right arrow at I7, teleporter at D8, left arrow at K1
up-left arrow at I7, 4-shooter at G9, down-left arrow at F10, teleporter at B7, keep clicking on the X so that your tank doesn't pause at all on that square
down-left at D12, 4-shooter at C11, right arrow at A13, up-right arrow at L1
up-left arrow at G3, down arrow at A9, teleporter at A5, teleporter at M3, up-left arrow at M1, right arrow at K3
down-left arrow at L6, four-shooter at K5, teleporter at H2, down-right arrow at K11, up-left arrow at M8
4-shooter at E8, down-right arrow at E12, up-left arrow at H1, down-right arrow at I6, down-left arrow at M2, up-left at L1; (note that you have 1 up-left piece extra!)
Special spoiler tag for Jay:
Oh Jaaay! Hint hint regarding e-mail correspondence. :)
Wow, after playing MindFields 2, the original was much, much easier. Still fun for a few minutes, though. Complete MindFields 2204 Walkthrough:
Passwords:
4XV5 (kind of useless)
3D5N
L8DR
VX5G
K7V3
N3AR
SM22
YBB5
KALU
VAKA
UA33
M3LK
SYS4
BTB7
DR66
GAL3
PS69
55BJ
Solutions:
Columns are designated A-M from left to right, rows are designated 1-13 from bottom to top. Cell B5, for example, would be in the second column from the left, and the fifth row from the bottom.
left arrow at G12, down arrow at E12, right arrow at E8, down arrow at G8
up arrow at F2, right arrow at F10, shield at K7
up arrow at E3, up-right arrow at E8, 4-shooter at H10
right arrow at B10, shooter at C10, up-right arrow at K10 (up arrow leftover)
shield at G9, 4-shooter at G8, left arrow at G5
shield at K7, up arrow at J7, 4-shooter at J9, down-left arrow at J10, up arrow at B7
down-left arrow at D12, down arrow at B10, 4-shooter at B7, 4-shooter at G2, up-right arrow at J2, 4-shooter at M6, left arrow at M12, shooter at G11
up-left at H6, 4-shooter at G7
up-right arrow at B3, 4-shooter at G5, down-right arrow at K5, left arrow at L7, 4-shooter at I7, up arrow at D7
shooter at G11, left arrow at H11, down-right arrow at A11, shooter at B10, right arrow at C9
up arrow at K2, up-right arrow at K7, down arrow at M9, shooter at L8
up-right arrow at C3, right arrow at E5, 4-shooter at E6, down-right arrow at E8, up-right arrow at K11
left arrow at K11, down arrow at C11, 4-shooter at C10, right arrow at C7, shooter at D7, shield at J7
shield at G3, down-left arrow at G10, 4-shooter at E8, down arrow at M6, left arrow at M4
left arrow at J4, shooter at I4, up arrow at G4, down-left arrow at G7
left arrow at F3, up arrow at D3, right arrow at D11, 4-shooter at J11, down-left arrow at L11 (down arrow leftover)
up arrow at I2, shooter at I3, 4-shooter at I8, down-left arrow at I13, 4-shooter at G11
down-right arrow at E8, 4-shooter at F7, up-right arrow at G6, 4-shooter at H7, right arrow at K10
Ah, I was referring to level 11 in Minefield 2.
I ended up having to use Simone's solution for that level. Now it seems obvious, of course.
Ok, I figured out the scoring. I used level 3 because it contains both vertical and diagonal directions.
Here are the rules, and you can check this against any level and it should add up:
You get no extra points for destroying the enemies, so that won't affect your score.
You get a "point" for every "move" you make.
A "move" is the distance between two squares.
The value of the "point" varies, depending on whether you're moving vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, as follows:
- A vertical or horizontal move counts as 1 "point"
- A diagonal move counts as 15/7, or 2.142857... "points"
Your total "points" are added up, then multiplied by 91.
THAT score is in turn then multiplied again by the number of the level.
For instance, in the first level, to set up the board for maximum points, you'll want to put your "Transport" squares at the extreme right and left ends of the island. Doing this should net you 14 "moves", all of them horizontal.
Since the number of moves is 14, and each move is worth 1 point (all horizontal), you would multiply that by 91, giving you 1274. Usually, you would then multiply that total by the level number, though in this case, since it's the first level, the score would stay the same. Since you started with 1 point (for some unknown reason) you now have a total of 1275 points.
Here are the point breakdowns for the next 4 levels, for anyone who's interested. I'll put them in "spoiler" tags, because though they don't explicitly spell out the solutions, you can figure the solutions out based on the move descriptions. Also, I didn't include the offense squares:
Level 2:
3 moves S,
4 moves W,
2 moves N,
0 transport,
3 moves N,
3 moves S,
0 transport,
1 move S.
16 points (no diagonals):
16 x 91 = 1456
Level 2 multiplier:
1456 x 2 = 2912 (total score should be 4187)
Level 3:
1 move S,
4 moves SE,
0 transport,
2 moves SE.
7 points (1 normal, 6 diagonals):
((1 x 1) + (6 x 15/7)) x 91 = 1261
Level 3 multiplier:
1261 x 3 = 3783 (total score should be 7970)
Level 4:
There are two possible solutions here, but they both yield the same score, so I'm just going to use one of them:
2 moves E,
4 moves S,
4 moves W.
10 points (no diagonal):
10 x 91 = 910
Level 4 multiplier:
910 x 4 = 3640 (total score should be 11610)
Level 5:
1 move N,
0 transport,
4 moves N,
4 moves SE,
4 moves W,
0 transport
2 moves W,
2 moves SE.
17 points (11 normal, 6 diagnoals):
((11 x 1) + (6 x 15/7)) x 91 = 2171
Level 5 multiplier:
2171 x 5 = 10855 (Total should now be 22465)
Now, for the nerds out there wondering how I came to this conclusion, it's what I remember from algebra, (about 15 years ago). I used level 3 to figure it out, because it was the first to include normal and diagonal moves. I had already figured out most of it from the first and second levels based on the number of moves, and found that 91 was the base score multiplier.
So for level 3, I tried a couple of things.
We'll say normal moves are p and diagonal moves are q.
I used two solutions for level 3, which had the following equations:
(91(1p + 6q)) x 3 = 3783
-and-
(91(3p + 5q)) x 3 = 3744
I noted that the difference between them was 39, and added and created the following equation and solved for q:
((91(1p + 6q)) x 3) - ((91(3p + 5q)) x 3) = 39
(273(1p + 6q)) - (273(3p + 5q)) = 39
273p + 1638y - 819p - 1365q = 39
-546p + 273q = 39
273q = 39 + 546p
q = (39 + 546p) / 273
I then plugged my new value for q back into the first equation:
(91(1p + 6((39 + 546p) / 273))) x 3 = 3783
273(1p + 6((39 + 546p) / 273)) = 3783
273(1p + ((234 + 3276p) / 273)) = 3783
273((273p / 273) + ((234 + 3276p) / 273)) = 3783
273((273p + 234 + 3276p) / 273) = 3783
273p + 234 + 3276p = 3783
3549p + 234 = 3783
3549p = 3549
p = 1
Now that I had an integer for p, I just plugged it into the first equation to get q:
(91(1(1) + 6q)) x 3 = 3783
273(1 + 6q) = 3783
273 + 1638q = 3783
1638q = 3510
q = 3510 / 1638 = 15/7
help, I'm stuck on level 15 of 2204....
I agree with Zxo: interesting game concept, not quite fully exploited, which is frustrating. A level editor could be plenty of fun. Anyway, very pleasant.
By the way, about teleporters : if I'm not mistaken, they are ordered from top to bottom and left to right. I'm not sure how player-set teleporters fit in that (I don't remember if there's a level where preset teleporters plus player-set teleporters is over 2).
This reminds me of Bill the Robot game, which is not nearly as polished, but has a somewhat similiar idea.
www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/200730
Mindfields 2 isn't working for me... just sits there saying "Please Wait". Is this normal or is anyone else encountering this problem?
I just checked and Mindfields 2 seems to be loading fine. Try reloading your browser.
@sparks:
Notice that you don't really need a bridge to cross narrow water.
What I can't figure out is how to reach that second goal in level 15 in 2204.
Hey guys! =)
I'm Remus from gamesheep.com
The public level editor could be a great idea. You could create your own levels, test them, send them, we select the best 50-100 levels and release the Expansion Pack :) Every level will be named after it's creator.
What do you think?
I can't seem to enter the password for Level 7.
I wrote it down as SM22, but I can't type the S or the M into the password field.
Any ideas what's going on?
Michael: I'm getting that too. I'm guessing it's because the "s" key turns off sound effects, and "m" turns off music, and the keystrokes are getting intercepted before being put in the password field.
Try copying and pasting, that should work. :)
Remus, that would be great! I'd be glad to write a follow-up if you were to implement the level editor.
Keep up the good work!
the walk through for level 15 of Mindfields 2204 is
left arrow at J4, shooter at I4, the up arrow at H4, and the left/down arrow at H8
Solutions for levels 15-18
Level 15: downleft 4,2; fire at 3,3; right at 1,1; upright at 12,13
Level 16: transport @ 1,9; transport @ 12,11; up-left @ 7,11; down @ 1,5; upleft @ 12,13; right @ 10,11.
Level 17: downleft @ 12,8; fire @ 11,9; transport at 9,2; downright @ 11,3; upleft @ 13,7
Level 18: fire @ 5,6; downright @ 5,2; upleft @ 8,13; downright @ 9,8; downleft @ 13,12; upleft @ 12,13
Remus - I'm onboard to create a level or two if you get the level editor up and running. =)
Looking forward to it. Keep us posted!
level 11 on minefields 2... i used simons solution but on the island on the left i still am getting shot on the way back from the arrow? is the shield supposed to last longer?
Minefields 2:
From #128 to #1 !!! (yeah, Bragging Rights... probably won't last long!)
Note - Drive til you Drop (distance is Everything!)
Kewl Game! Took alot of thought to get through it, but do wish it had more levels...
Abatar
More more more more, more. Please. I love Mindfields 1, and 2 is great as well, albeit easier in my opinion.
They need to make many many more levels. I'd pay for 'em.
I'm having trouble with 11 on 2204 also. I've used the solution posted (before I even read it), and I'm also getting shot on my way back through the left island teleporter.
Oops. I meant Mindfields 2.
I'm having the same problem with level 11 on Mind Field 2 as psagk and Neelyak. The shield runs out before I can turn around and get back onto the teleporter so I end up getting shot before I can leave again.
call me an idiot, but I can't figure out level 10 on 2204
yeti,
still stuck there? Let me know and i'll post a screenshot, OK?
And you're no idiot, it took me like an hour to figure it out... Because it requires a certain feature of the yellow bomb shooter tile that it hadn't been needed for the previous levels...
h, shoot, spent half a day with level 11 (MF2204) and got convinced it has no solution - then realized the tank will start to the right not to the left I thought... :)
From then on it was more than easy... :)
Wow, just realized if you place two arrows that point towards each other and get the tank to one of them, it§s gonna get stuck in an endless cycle the game never stopping, even the "reset field" button wont work... Relaoding the page is the only help.
Same problem on level 11 on MF2. Also moved up-left arrow to right beneath switch, then left & shield right before the teleport to maximize shield time. I don't know if I would have gotten it solved or not but there isn't enough time to port in, turn around & port out again.
what type of grid do you mean, simone, and what row are the letters and numbers? can you show what the grid would look like?
I'm on level 7 and can't figure out how to use the shields. According to the main menu, they protect you from the tesla rays, but when I put a shield between me and a ray, it shoots through my shield and kills me. What good are the shields if they don't protect me from anything? What am I missing?
Dumb questions are only dumb in retrospect. I figured it out. Duh!
I've got a problem with 2204, I can't figure out level 14. it seems simple, but the last laser gets me everytime. From the comments I've seen, level 15 will be more difficult. Thanks in advance for any help.
Hello! Look (Simone) I've tried your solution for level 11 MF2 but it doesnt fit. I get stuck in the water. Could somebody help me?
Greetings from Argentina :P
Alternate Solution to Level 13 in MindFields 2 with one extra piece!
Based on Simone Manganelli mapping system (see above):
Right at D7
Shot at E7
Down-Right at I7
You'll make less points using this solution, but you'll have an extra piece which you can use in a variety of projects around your home.
Update