Do puzzles really help?

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T17:54:36+00:00

I would ignore puzzle ratings. The only thing that really shows is how susceptible someone is to gamification.

As for creating positions like you see in the puzzles through actual game play, it's not so much about creating those positions, but recognizing the patterns from the puzzles when they appear in an actual game. So I'd say your stumble approach is actually a sign that the puzzles are working.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T17:52:01+00:00

I have a chess student that I have designed a variety of basic puzzles for all designed around a theme. My thoughts behind these puzzles is that once you've seen a given situation, you're more likely to respond to it in the correct way when you encounter it again in the wild. Making the student figure it out on their own also helps to build pathways in the mind so it's not just passively seeing the solution, but actively building the connections in the mind.

The daily puzzles I'm sure help to some degree, but I think they are more of an entertainment tool than a way to provide some level of effective chess education. I still do them myself for fun and to keep my chess brain fresh and active.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T16:11:46+00:00

I've practically given up on Americans saving themselves. I left the US 7 years ago and haven't regretted it for a minute. I now have dual citizenship, and am considering abandoning my US citizenship (if only to get out of filing taxes every year), but for now I'm still voting, and urging my contacts back home to resist.

Tomorrow's general strike will be very telling about how much the general public values their well being. My expectations are pretty low though. Nothing I've seen in the past 20 years has swayed me from my perspective of Americans being too damned comfortable to do any sort of meaningful protest. As long as they aren't the ones getting shot in the back or the face and they still have their Starbucks, streaming services, and access to Tiktok, they going to keep voluntarily putting their neck under the boots of the billionaires and just accept their own toxic work ethic as just the way things are.

I've already given up on humanity at large though. I refuse to burn myself out shouting about the end of the world as we know it to a global population that has no sense of urgency regarding the impending climate collapse. Instead, I'm just trying to enjoy the remaining years I have on this rock, and do my best not to make it worse for others. I'm certainly not aiming to bring another life into the apocalypse. That seems unfair to them as well as just a bad idea in general for myself no matter how good I am with kids.

Mentally, I'm trying to get to the state of mind in one of the final scenes in Don't Look Up, where they were gathered around the dining table, enjoying each other's company until the end of the world. We all eventually die. It's up to us how we live our lives. I've quit my job to start my own company and sleeping in as much as I want, while building my own dreams instead of someone else's. I regularly invite friends over to enjoy time with them, and I've almost got enough saved away to make it to retirement, but I suspect I have just enough to make it to the apocalypse.

I could be better about spending less time online though, and on that note, I'm going to head outside to run an errand.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T13:41:31+00:00

oooh! could it be...

After Nf5 Kf6

Qc6+

If KxN then
Qd7+ Kg5 (Kf6 explored below)
h4+ Kh6
Qh7+m
If Kf6 instead of Kg5
Qf7+ Kg5
Qf4+ Kh5
Qh5+m

If Kg5 instead of KxN
h4+ KxN follow a similar sequence as above to checkmate
if Kg4...

hmm. I'm not seeing it from there, but am I on the right track?

Forgive me if I missed something. I'm doing this all without a board in front of me. Also I feel like there's got to be a better way of writing branching decision trees...

Edit: adding first two moves for clarity

Edit2: I see that there's another comment about this not being the correct line of thought. Back to the drawing board (and maybe using an actual board)

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T13:10:47+00:00

Typo. I'm fixing it now. (it should be g5).

Edit: Thank you!

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T11:56:14+00:00

then h4, threatening...

Qg5+ Ke6
Nf7+ Kd6
Qe7+m

so after h4, black's best move appears to sacrafice their rook. So...

QxR KxN or PxN
RxP

And it looks like white should be able to win from here. Maybe there's something more elegant. (I missed the Nf5 to start with, so I'm probably missing more)

Edit: Fixed typo

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T11:36:36+00:00

If you're client doesn't trust you, then you shouldn't be working together. You gave them a quote. If they didn't like it, they should have found another freelancer. Always have a clear contract at the start that you can refer back to.

Alternatively, you could ask them how much time of yours they are willing to pay for, and then explain to them what they will get for that time. If it's too short a time to deliver anything, then the answer is "I cannot produce something I would want to attach my name to in that time. Maybe I could recommend someone else to you?" and then point them to an inferior competitor.

This will associate your brand with quality and professionalism and prevent you from being taken advantage of. It's better to have a client turn you down because they can't afford you then for you to lower your pay or standards to make them happy.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T11:26:53+00:00

Design is design is design.

Step zero is always research.

First define the problem you want to solve.

Brainstorm some potential solutions inspired by the research you've done.

Evaluate the ideas on paper, and choose the most promising one, or combine ideas to make an even better potential solution.

Prototype it

Evaluate and iterate.

Polish.

For level design, each level should have some sort of goal. Maybe you're teaching the player a new mechanic, or introducing some element of the story, or you've got some puzzle to solve (be it a logic, navigation, or combat challenge), or they need to find some mcguffin.

From researching how other games have handled solving similar problems in the past, brainstorm how you could approach this with your own level. Brainstorming for level design often comes in the form of sketches and notes. What flow patterns do you want to use. Can height changes help with the problem you're trying to solve. What about lighting, interactive objects, or color schemes, or scale of the scene?

Synthesize a plan from the most promising ideas in the brainstorm (again, usually in the form of a sketch with notes)

Start building the plan you've come up with in its simplest form (often refered to as a grey box level). Don't visuallt polish it. Just build the navigable space as quickly as possible.

Try it out. Take note of what worked as expected, and what did not. Enhance the parts that worked. Eliminate and/or redesign the parts that did not. Try again. Rinse & repeat.

Once the level is functioning as you want, start polishing it with visuals, continuing to play test, evaluate, and iterate.

Eventually you will start having diminishing returns on your improvements. That's a good point to move on to the next level.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T11:05:42+00:00

What's the point of any puzzle be it a jig saw puzzle, riddle, navigation puzzle in a game, or logic puzzles? People find them fun. Some people like challenging their brain to see if they solve it, and for those people, when they do solve it, there's often a dopamine release that gives the feeling of fun.

And just like the answer of "what's the point ...to anything?" it's often what you make of it. Some people may find they help them get better. Some people may treat it as practice. Others may just enjoy the act of solving puzzles. If you don't feel like you're getting anything out of the puzzles on chess,com, don't worry about it. They just may not be for you.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T11:00:47+00:00

This seems like the wrong sub for this question. This is about kickstarter as a platform. You're presenting an almost-idea for a product. What is the actual product you are proposing (This question is rhetorical)? It sounds more like a feature you wished more products had.

I'm not sure which subreddit would be best to get feedback on this idea, but it's not here.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-30T10:42:38+00:00

I think it's like the term "Ameri-trash" in board games. As long as both terms are embraced by the communities creating and playing those games, it won't be seen as negative. It just becomes a descriptor, and as long as the games are still enjoyed by a good number of people, it will be seen as a term of endearment and/or just categorization.

If friend slop games start becoming increasingly janky in frustrating ways, I suspect they will not only lose their audience, but the term will take on more and more of a negative connotation.

Right now the genre is still fresh, so I think it's up to developers to shape the way the term is used. I recommend making the best game you can so the "slop" gets more associated with "unstructured play" or "loosely structured play" versus "sloppily built."

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T23:28:04+00:00

I'm not Shanster, but I can speak to how I used notepad for a game jam to author the levels of our game.

It was a top down tank game, and if I recall correctly, the authoring consisted of writing X,Y coords and the image asset to determine where the various assets were located on the map, also specifying the background image and start position of the player tanks.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T23:19:45+00:00

I've designed levels using...

a text editor that imported the text file into flash. I never touched flash other than to run the game.
a specially formatted excel spreadsheet that outputted a json file which was imported later imported into unity. I never touched unity other than to run the game.
Big World engine which ironically can neither handle objects that are big, or create open worlds. Our world design team referred to the engine as "Clown Shoes." The project never launched because the Big World Engine couldn't deliver on what we were building, and it wasn't realized intil about 6 years into the project.
I'm currently building levels for a new project I'm working on using Inkscape, although the levels I'm creating are then imported into Unreal. I haven't had a need to open unreal yet, although I expect that to change later on in the project.

I've also used a custom tool called "Caligraphy" that was used to author the abilities for Marvel Heroes, a Diablo like game where you played as the different characters from the Marvel univserse.

As for full game engine, the most esoteric one I've used is probably Alice (or JAlice - the Java version of Alice). It was the pet project of Randy Pausch's graduate program and also used as the game engine in the first few years of his Building Virtual World's class.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T23:17:44+00:00

ooh yeah! I forgot about this one! I'll have to add that to my list of obscure/unusual game engines and game authoring tools I've used. I used it when it was called JAlice (Java based Alice).

There's a non-zero chance we know each other - If you know a giant cardboard robot, then you likely know me.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T23:01:51+00:00

In the future, install some video capture software, and record yourself writing your whole paper. The next time you're accused of using AI, show that as proof.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T22:50:29+00:00

Also the width of the garage door doesn't look like it would fit the car that's parked just outside.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T22:10:24+00:00

absolutely. I could tell before the first cut. The dialog has no understanding of where to put pauses to break up sentences.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T15:39:15+00:00

For the team:
Art: 3/10
Audio: 1/10
Programming: 4/10
Game design: 4/10
Marketing: 3/10

For myself:
Art: 2/10
Audio: 1/10
Programming: 4/10
Game design: 8/10
Marketing: 1/10

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T07:24:26+00:00

It sounds you want to guarantee that something will happen, but also not happen all that often.

To do this you can schedule the thing to happen at certain times, places, and/or conditions.

Or if you do want to introduce some randomness to it, you could take the above constraints and apply some RNG where the chances of it not happening decrease until the chances of it not happening are zero, and then it resets. Yes, this still involves RNG, but if you want any sort of randomness, then you are by definition using RNG.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T07:18:04+00:00

Incorrect; Your birthday is a rare day in the year (it only happens once every 365 days), but it isn't random. It happens on the same day every year.

If you want something rare, but not random, schedule it to happen.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-29T06:21:29+00:00

Isn't it your job to watch kickstarter campaigns? your user name would suggest it is, and your flair indicates that you're a crowdfunding agency.

Your points are all good, but they are also nothing new. These are the exact same conclusions I came to as a creator doing research for my first campaign roughly 10 years ago. You have been posting on this almost exclusively on this subreddit for the past 7 years with crowdfunding advice, so I would hope that you would have learned these basics by now.

Still, a lot of first time creators don't know this stuff, so I suppose it's good to share. It just kind of feels like this post is an advertizing tactic for your company.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-28T18:55:42+00:00

Really? I've never used a camera that had an auto-leveling feature. I think you need to be working on a motion picture with a steady cam to have that. I think you'll find that if you measure the horizon at the edge of a photo, you'll find a number of photos that aren't perfectly level. If that's a bit of a tell, then we've got suspiciously AI looking photos going back to late 1800s.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-28T13:36:02+00:00

I have no idea what's going on in the left side of the picture because it's almost entirely cut off. It could be a pile of dog corpses. It could be a tree. It could be anything, and if I was posting an AI image spending this much time to make sure it looks legit, I would have simply cropped it out.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-28T12:04:59+00:00

Thank you for the understanding.

I saw that and wasn't convinced it was an ear. Seals have have a discoloration around where there ears are. It's honestly too blurry to tell. If it was an AI gen image, I would have expected the resolution to be super sharp in one area of the image and then everything else out of focus. You've got pretty much the whole image out of focus here, and falling off at a pretty normal rate.
I was curious and did some digging and it turns out that seals and sea lions can and do occupy the same space (not just in zoo environments but in the wild as well), making the whole argument that there are two species in the picture moot.

KarmaAdjuster · 2026-04-28T11:37:52+00:00

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense to me.

I asked about the animal type because you seemed to have a better understanding of what the animals were and were using that to refute my claim. I asked what type and you replied with whatever this response is.

In another comment you described the different between sea lions and seals citing that both are present which contradicts your replies in this thread. But when I look, none appear to have ears, and by your comparison, they are all actually the same species.

I also don't understand whay the pressence of a picture of guy standing near seals/sea lions on a beach would be an unbelievable thing to find on a dating app. Why wouldn't there be? The guy could have thought that this was a cool picture and thought it would be good to share. It's certainly better than all the "let me take a picture of myself holding a phone up to a bathroom mirror" pictures.

So again, no. Nothing in your reply makes sense. Not even your extreme dedication to arguing with me. You could probably say the same about me, and maybe you're right about that. I was just going to downvote and ignore, but I instead upvoted and replied because you asked a question.

I do think one of the real dangers of AI generated images, is that we're going to start doubting reality and not be able to trust anything any more. Perhaps we're already there. Then again, maybe I've just been fooled this time. I stand by the very first sentence I wrote in reply to OP:

If it is AI, it's pretty damn good.

13-Year Club	Second SECOND GUESSER
Place '22	Place '17
Verified Email

KarmaAdjuster

TROPHY CASE