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2022-07-12 19:51 dustin  
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difficulty: 3/10  
  
bonus challenge: don't use any fireflies!  
difficulty: 5/10  
not a super-hard bonus challenge, but still fun imo! :d

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2022-07-13 13:57 nesdori  
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for those loving tougher challenges :D :  
  
get 45+ \. you can and should use flies. no luck required.  
difficulty 9/10.

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2022-07-13 22:17 dustin  
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my answer (at least for today) is 42! with my current strategy, it's hard to get even one more \, not to speak of three. also, it's interesting that you have so much time left which you obviously couldn't use for more \\\!

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2022-07-13 23:30 DarkStoorM  
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I wonder what  dustin 's solution is, because we have the same amount :D probably not as weird as mine!

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2022-07-14 00:22 nesdori  
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interesting :) my solution has two separate improvements to the basic 39\ solution, the first is +3\ and it's straightforward improvement. the other one is +4\ and it's a bit more tricky sacrificial improvement. i think that  dustin  did the same +3\ because it really isn't that weird. but because  darkstoorm  called his +3\ weird it sounds like it might be another variation of mine +4\ part :)

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2022-07-14 00:30 dustin  
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i can definitely tell that my 42\ solution is by no means more weird than "hitchhiker's guide" :d

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2022-07-14 01:04 DarkStoorM  
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In my solution ^ has to blast his way through back to where he came from and do a bunch of back-and-forths :D

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2022-07-14 01:12 dustin  
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yep, that sounds different to mine :d

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2022-07-14 10:19 nesdori  
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aah! now i figured out what  darkstoorm  did :) it's different to both of mine improvements. but you actually partly did something in a similar fashion than me (and presumably  dustin ); i just left the front door open so that i didn't have to create a back door :)

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2022-07-14 13:17 dustin  
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exactly! :d

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2022-07-14 18:35 DarkStoorM  
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 nesdori , hmm ;) I think you sacrificed one boulder to blast the second mwall from the bottom, not sure yet :D

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2022-07-14 18:42 DarkStoorM  
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Or maybe not, that also gave me 42 :D

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2022-07-14 20:26 nesdori  
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 darkstoorm , my sacrifice is bigger than that. in chess terms; if \ or | to be converted is worth a pawn, then my sacrifice is worth a knight or a bishop. but sometimes you must be willing to make even that big sacrifice to get a superior position, both in chess and boulder dash :)

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2022-07-14 20:38 dustin  
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but for the advanced chess player, a knight is worth 3.25 pawns and a bishop is 3.5 pawns. sacrificing fractions of \\\ is difficult, even for the advanced boulder dasher :d

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2022-07-14 21:06 nesdori  
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 dustin , well still easy for advanced players if you sacrifice a \ which otherwise needs luck to be gotten. if 1/4 luck you sacrifice 0.25\ and with 1/2 luck 0.5\ :)

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2022-07-14 21:25 DarkStoorM  
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Now I see what you were saying :D

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2022-07-14 21:59 nesdori  
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 darkstoorm , wow, 47\! now it's my turn to wonder where you got it. or did you speedrun 46\ 41 secs faster than me? :D

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2022-07-14 22:02 DarkStoorM  
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 nesdori : well, if the boulders were light, I could get 52 \ :)

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2022-07-14 22:15 nesdori  
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 darkstoorm , ahh ok! in that case i think i know what you did. i originally thought that magic wall milling time doesn't allow much more pushing than in my solution but at the end pushing was surprisingly fast. i'm not going to try get a better score so maybe it's time to reveal solutions. mine free! :)

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2022-07-14 22:17 DarkStoorM  
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oh! A different solution :D

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2022-07-14 22:36 nesdori  
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 darkstoorm , your solution can be improved by +3\ by doing the left side "\-door" :) it shouldn't take that much extra time so with optimized fly handling and with some pushing luck 50+\ should be possible :)

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2022-07-14 23:24 dustin  
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oh! my strategy was the same as  nesdori 's, i just overlooked that some of the ||| at the start can be converted :d  
  
the \ requirement is what i thought to be the max without using fflies, but now it isn't :d

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2022-07-15 00:27 dustin  
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i added a 34\ run without fireflies. should be the max now :d

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2022-07-15 00:28 nesdori  
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 dustin , oh! and i thought you did the left side trick only because you got +3\ but you lost one \ because you released the stack of |:s by entering the room from the bottom and that confused me :D

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2022-07-15 00:36 dustin  
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 nesdori , yes i had the strategy but missed some tactic. in chess it's often vice versa - i have no strategic plan but i see more tactic than my opponent :d

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2022-07-15 09:47 nesdori  
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 dustin , 34\ is the max if you must act that flies are removed altogether and you can't even release them. but if the rule is less strict and you can release a fly but not explode it, then the max is 35\ :)

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2022-07-15 13:37 dustin  
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yes, in this case ^ can push the top-right | over the firefly :) but the original rule for my challenge was "don't u s e any fireflies", so we should have 34\ :d