Master-Rocks, a MasterMind clone

[Francesco]

Hi all!

After a sunday of hard work, I've evolved the Combos level and I've made a MasterMind clone.

The rules are so simple that fit in a envelope, and you'll find them in the first level. If you still aren't sure about the mechanics, take a look to the tapes.

There are five levels: the first two use only 4 keys, the others use 8 keys.
Levels 1 and 3 use enemies' graphics for the keys, the others use digits.

The last level is slightly easier than the third and the fourth, as seeing the CEs lets you guess the positions of the keys.

The result of each try will show up into five or six seconds, you should never lose a result check (I've spent hours just to let it work every time without waiting too much seconds), but if you wait longer and the result doesn't show up, well, you'll have to restart the level (and by the way it would mean that my efforts were not enough )

Enjoy!

http://www.zomis.net/rnd/download.php?id=423

[asiekierka]

I have for you small idea:
change that player to cursor graphic, then that will be better

[Jannik]

I'm again surprised how powerful custom elements are. Great job!

Maybe you could add a little note to the mail envelope, to wait some seconds for the result check.

[Francesco]

Thank you Jannik, glad that you liked it!

Thank you also for recalling me to add that note.
I had the same thought when posting on the forum and I forgot to make a new version to upload (I was a bit tired when posting yesterday... )

[Francesco]

I've fixed the envelope and changed the way levels are ended when the player fails to guess the combination.

It was done by changing the backspace's arrows into boulders, but in this way there was a chance to fail without getting killed... I've replaced the boulders with spaceships

Do you think I should lower the number of tries from 10 to 8 as it was in the original?

I could make it selectable, or I could lower it from level to level... any suggestion/preference?

I was even doubting about the animated enemies keys, after a while it becomes a little hassling to the eyes...

Surely I'll make a version with pseudo-original graphics (the colored balls and the result pins in 2x2 position instead of 1x4).

[Zomis]

Do you think I should lower the number of tries from 10 to 8 as it was in the original?

I could make it selectable, or I could lower it from level to level... any suggestion/preference?

Maybe lower it from level to level. I gotta say that I haven't completed any of your levels. I never get any green emeralds at all! So I guess that either I don't understand the concept of the game (which would surprise me since I know how the old MasterMind works), or there's something else I missed...? Maybe it's possible to solve the level just by getting 4 yellow emeralds?

[Francesco]

It's a bit strange, Zomis, it should work correctly. The rules are exactly the same, you should try to play the included tape, just to see if it works. Maybe you haven't achieved to match the correct positions: at the end of the game, if failed, the hidden combo is shown, you could check if the results are correct. Just see if one of your tries contains a key in the right position: if the relative result doesn't show any green gem, so it's definitely a bug. I think it should not happen, because the only possible buggy result should be a red gem instead of a yellow one, I'm pretty sure about this. Let me know.

[Zomis]

Oh well... I tried some more and now I actually solved it (even level 4!)
It's very great. I rated the file at the archive. And I wonder if you could allow this level to be used in the next Puzzle-levelset? I think it's time to update that set soon...

[Francesco]

I thankfully give my permission!

And... I've seen your post about Silver/Golden Rockfords...
I cannot find words to express my feelings... too much emotion in these last days, believe me...

[Holger]

Zomis:
> I gotta say that I haven't completed any of your levels. I never get any
> green emeralds at all!
[...]
> Oh well... I tried some more and now I actually solved it

Zomis, which game version did you use? The levels should work just fine with 3.1.1 or 3.1.2, but should fail miserably with any version including and above 3.2.0-3! :-o :-o :-O

After some hours of debugging, I found the reason to be a small change in 3.2.0-3, which totally breaks some special situations where a CE is checked if it touches another CE! :-O

Francesco: Thanks a lot for these levels! Not only because it's a really great demonstration of CE possibilities, not only because it's a great game (even my girl-friend likes it, and normally she does not like to play R'n'D at all!), but because it triggered a serious bug in the code of the nearly ready version 3.2.0! It would have been really bad if this bug would have made it into the next stable release, effectively breaking levels and tapes that work fine with 3.1.2! :-O

I'm just about testing a possible bugfix and see how it works with the existing levels and tapes from older versions...

Besides that, I have a little suggestion on how to improve the game play of your Mastermind clone: Currently the elements to guess are places by touching them, and are deleted by touching the backspace element. Why not using "when switched by player" instead of "when touched by player"? That way you could not only place the same element more than one time without moving back and forth, but it would also prevent accidently placing a guessed element by moving up or down (and you would need less steps to add the next element, because you don't have to walk around those which you do not want). I hope you understand what I mean. :-)

All in all, a great level, both for the players and for the game programmer hunting bugs for the next version. ;-)

[Zomis]

Zomis, which game version did you use? The levels should work just fine with 3.1.1 or 3.1.2, but should fail miserably with any version including and above 3.2.0-3! :-O

Ah. that explains it. When using 3.2.0-6 it fails. When using rndtest09 (which is based on 3.1.1) it works.

[Francesco]

Thanks a lot for these levels [...] because it triggered a serious bug in the code of the nearly ready version 3.2.0!

What can I say? Maybe "One is glad to be useful!" (not sure if it's the correct english phrase, I took it from a really great movie based on a even greater book - guess what movie I'm speaking about! - the actor is one of the best ever, in my opinion)

[EDIT]
If you know what's the sentence I've quoted above, you should know that it has been pronounced with different tones in different situations. I meant the positive, serene one, as I feel for myself that helping is something pretty mandatory - when I think I can - but being useful without intention is dripping fat!
[/EDIT]

About your hint, I must admit that the "switch of" and "switched" options are a bit cloudy to my eyes. I don't know how do they work, you can see that I never use them, I use the "change by page" event as workaround.

Please explain it further, I had the same thoughts but I just added a second changepage triggered by "player presses", so that you can insert a key either touching or pressing it. Really ugly, in fact I did not release it.

[Zomis]

About your hint, I must admit that the "switch of" and "switched" options are a bit cloudy to my eyes. I don't know how do they work, you can see that I never use them, I use the "change by page" event as workaround.

Please explain it further, I had the same thoughts but I just added a second changepage triggered by "player presses", so that you can insert a key either touching or pressing it. Really ugly, in fact I did not release it.

Change when 'Switched by player' means that it changes when you press the element, but in order to change again you must release the button and press it again - useful to prevent accidental double-presses.

'Switched' in general also include the condition if a rock falls down on the element.

[Francesco]

Perfectly clear! Thank you Zomis

The idea I got was that "switch of" was something like "CE1 is the switch of CE2Lamp" - a plain property in a list of events - and that CE2Lamp was turned on when "switched".
You can bet that I did actually try that, and obviously it didn't work. Funny, isn't it? Neither I thought to press the lamp while playing!

By the way, I tried to use RnDTool, but it doesn't recognize the levelsetup.conf that I gave to it...

Right now - writing this post - I was checking if the file was exactly that, and launching it gave: "Access violation at address 004330AC in module 'RnDTool.exe'. Read of address 00000004."
I'm going to answer "ok" to that window.
...
Ok, the program is open. For the rest it's all fine, it works good now...
Strange, this time it didn't ask for that file... maybe it searches for only at the very first start (just when it's initializing itself on the system, I suppose)
What's up?

[Tomi]

> 'Switched' in general also include the condition if a rock falls down on the element.
Not just a rock, but anything that "can smash everything". Used in my text teleporter.