Ricochet Robot bragging

[dougo]

Woo hoo, I got second place (out of 325 players) yesterday on RicochetRobot.com! It was somewhat a matter of luck that I just happened to see the optimal solution quickly, but practice has definitely made me much better.

In related news, I played the new "Ricochet Robots" (with an "s") version of the board game tonight, and my conclusion is that the diagonal walls are kind of lame. Ah well.

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

It's a different sort of tension, yeah. Only one puzzle a day, but there are 300+ opponents that trickle in over the course of the day. (You can join smaller divisions too, which is good if you're still learning and can't compete in the "All" division.) The points are accumulated for the month, when a final ranking is posted and everything's reset. So there's some endurance/consistency issues as well.

I don't actually enjoy the boardgame all that much, partly because a difference in skill can make it pretty boring (Set has the same problem-- I know some machine-like Set players who will shutout most ordinary humans), but partly because I just don't enjoy realtime games. One realtime puzzle a day is okay, but 16 realtime puzzles in a row is exhausting.