One million signs I procrastinate too much

[dougo]

I finally got a score over 1,000,000 in Net, an addicting little logic-puzzle Flash game that's much more satisfying than Minesweeper, FreeCell, and Snood put together. But maybe now I can put it down for a while and get some work done.

Comments

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

This is fun! What determines your score? Is it purely time based (for a given difficulty level), or some combination of time and number of turns?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

It's the latter. I think the only way to get above 1M is 11x13, match the target number of turns (which is sometimes not the minimum!), under 4 minutes.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I mean that sometimes you can solve the puzzle in fewer turns that the listed minimum. (And you don't need to take extra turns, it stops as soon as every square is connected.) My theory is that first the solution is generated, then N squares are randomly rotated (actually they're all randomly rotated but only N end up different), and N is listed as the minimum, but the solution is sometimes not unique and other solutions need fewer turns. (I like the fact that it accepts any valid solution, rather than requiring you to guess like in Minesweeper.)

I think the only time I was stumped was before I realized that the center square could be turned. Also it's sometimes not obvious which edges of the center square are "live" until you turn it, which is annoying.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Oh, now that I see the comment you were replying to, I see your real question: no, I should have said "match or beat the listed minimum number of turns".

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Also, you might get a higher score with wraparound connections, but that just melts my brain so I haven't played that way much.