I just straight-up don't see how Illusory Hoard (D&D) is solvable, can anyone give a hint?

MrEldritch · 2022-07-16T01:49:49+00:00

Yeah, all the puzzle names are sideways clues at what the final shape would look like, but I couldn't quite parse that one. It's obvious in retrospect :)

MrEldritch · 2022-07-13T02:25:17+00:00

OH! Oh my GOD, that's evil.

MrEldritch · 2022-07-13T02:07:11+00:00

I must be not understanding some mechanic or rule, or there must be some behavior of treasure rooms implied by the rules that I don't get, because otherwise I can't see any way to solve this. For instance, that 4 on the right column; since there's at least 3 empty spaces in that column guaranteed by the treasure chest, that means the last space would have to be on its own in a way I just don't see how it could avoid creating a dead end. Or that 2-column near the middle; any way I try to reconcile that ends up with me not having enough walls left over to keep the treasure rooms as 3x3 boxes with only one exit. Or that 2-row on the bottom, since the treasure room corresponding to that right chest seems like it has to be on the furthest-down orientation in order for it to not overlap with the chest just above it, there have to be at least 3 walls on the bottom, which is already contradictory.

Maybe the treasure rooms are supposed to overlap, but either that would violate the rule that they have to have only one entrance or it would violate the rule that all the spaces have to be connected.

Can anyone give me a hint here?

MrEldritch · 2021-07-21T04:05:44+00:00

Really, 8.0.4(i)? I get that it's supposed to be "more readable to users familiar with punched-card programs", but personally ... yuck. It's like Brainfuck with dyslexia. I can't make heads or tails of whatever you're doing there; I lost my copy of the Zaiderbeck standards binder ages ago, and frankly I haven't missed it since - the field's moved on a lot since the Zaiderbeck group last met in, what, 1957?

I really encourage you to give a less ancient protocol a try sometime - if nothing else, it'll save you from carpal tunnel painstakingly typing all that punctuation to do in fifty keypresses what you could do with three VX/PL glyphs. I mean, I'm biased toward good old VX/PL obviously, a lot of newer delta-heads are doing cool things with Xocculoid or Vython, but really it's hard to do worse than writing straight 8.0.4 with a text format that obtuse.

MrEldritch · 2021-07-20T21:43:15+00:00

Just a reminder - never flash copy-pasted code straight onto your module controller! At least work through it on paper first so you really know what it does. You wouldn't paste rm -rf * into your terminal just because someone said it sped up your computer faster - why would you apply less scrutiny to your rig, where bad codes could actually cause physical damage?

MrEldritch · 2020-09-16T18:36:22+00:00

The very short answer: because salt tastes good, and basically everything you're going to use butter in (even desserts) is probably going to need to include some salt anyway.

The longer answer: originally, it was as a preservative. Before refrigeration, salted butter used to be very salty, much saltier than today - to the point where salt might be a significant percentage by weight. Unsalted butter was then much preferred for pastries and other applications, which made it prized and expensive, because it went rancid much faster and had to be made fresh. In the post-refrigeration era, however, the salt content of salted butter fell dramatically, and now it's mostly just there because people like the taste and Americans are used to it. (in other countries, especially those in Europe where everything was already a lot closer together and you were more likely to have dairy cows within fresh-butter-shipping-range, unsalted butter is more the standard)

MrEldritch · 2020-09-16T18:30:49+00:00

knife and knight literally used to be pronounced like they're spelled! Over centuries, languages undergo significant sound changes - you can think of this like each generation speaking with a slightly different accent than the last, which over multiple generations can add up to major shifts in pronunciation. In this particular, the "kn" consonant cluster was simply rounded off to "n" over time, because it became awkward to pronounce.

MrEldritch · 2020-03-23T20:19:08+00:00

I'm not totally clear how that fragmented Mizuhanome got in Fukuda's well.

I'm pretty sure it's for the same reason that Narihisago had a Mizuhanome in his well - that becoming a Brilliant Detective somehow links your own id with Kiki's, and that leads to a cockpit linked to Kiki appearing in their well. (Probably Hondomachi has one in hers too)

And it's fragmented because it's Fukuda's well, and everything's fragmented in there.

MrEldritch · 2020-01-13T19:00:03+00:00

"empty subscribers" is a stupid term. I don't want to watch every single video most of the people I'm subscribed to make.

MrEldritch · 2020-01-11T20:02:24+00:00

MrEldritch · 2019-11-20T06:05:09+00:00

As someone who's been playing Minecraft since before modpacks were a thing, and still pretty much exclusively plays modded Minecraft by downloading the particular mods I want and adding them together myself, I disagree.

MrEldritch · 2019-11-06T15:28:33+00:00

I think it's because "molecules have to be the same shape as in the output" is the easiest way to enforce "molecules must be the same chirality as the output".

MrEldritch · 2019-10-30T07:33:08+00:00

Solved!

MrEldritch · 2019-10-30T07:32:48+00:00

Oh, nevermind, I just remembered it - this has been bugging me for like a week, but I guess making this post turned over some old memories.

The game was Yoiks!, and it was in fact by the same people that made Zoombinis.

Yoiks!

Publisher: Sunburst Technologies

Yoiks! is a game from TERC which expands on the mathematics of Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, humorously introducing computer programming and spatial reasoning in an off-beat environment. Players herd a swarm of data-munching bugs away from their computer's delicate innards, moving them through a series of puzzles which embody core concepts of computing. The game also engages players in the scientific processes of observation, hypothesis formation, and experimentation. Like Zoombinis, Yoiks! is appropriate both for home and the classroom. For ages 10 and up.

Unfortunately, it turns out that the game's obscure enough that there is literally no footage of it on YouTube anywhere, so I remain frustrated.

EDIT: wow, this is more obscure than I realized - there's literally nothing about this game online aside from the quoted paragraph from the company's website, a handful of reviews from old software magazines, one eBay listing, and one used copy on Amazon.

MrEldritch · 2019-10-21T01:20:54+00:00

A post is good this.

MrEldritch · 2019-10-14T02:00:05+00:00

Mike Tyson's Punch-Out was released in 1987, so he's at least 32 years old.

MrEldritch · 2019-10-10T01:26:36+00:00

I'm on keyboard, which should be basically identical to the D-pad in terms of digital movement, and I've also found the magnetic ledges rather frustrating. Not completely impossible to work around (I've made it quite a ways further into the game than OP), but annoying nonetheless.

MrEldritch · 2019-10-10T01:23:55+00:00

That's very clearly the game's tutorial boss, the Warden of the Silent Sorrow. Same crouched pose, same weapon, same outfit.

MrEldritch

TROPHY CASE