Settle small islands by picking the position of buildings in the Sudoku and Minesweeper inspired puzzler Isle of Puzzles by GibsS.
Hi! I'm Bart Bonte, a Belgian independent game designer and bontegames.com is where I blog about new interesting browser and mobile games. My own games are all in the left column (or at the bottom of this page on mobile). More info about me and my games on bartbonte.com.
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I really liked this game so far, it has 10 sections so I will be back.
ReplyDeleteIt's decent, but there are a couple issue. No option to put down a "flag" so to speak like other minesweepers, the rules don't always show all three types of buildings and did run into a few situations where guessing was the only way forward. That last point isn't uncommon in minesweepers, but not having a "flag" option made it harder to keep track of.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree! With games such as these, being able to mark squares is an absolute must!
ReplyDeleteRestart a level and the board changes??? Kind of defeats the point of numbering levels. Can't do a walk through, can't get help...
ReplyDeleteWhat was the soothing background music? Some of it I thought I recognized :)
ReplyDeleteDon't change the symbols halfway through the game! Just because there is a different landscape, you don't have to change the icons when you are just getting used to them.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone else get a weird error message while the game was loading? It sort of scared me off from continuing.
ReplyDeleteI haven't encountered any I would say I had to guess on, but some required some serious "what-if" until you run into a contradiction, which since we have no marking tools.... screen shot with the snipping tool and markup to your hearts content! :)
ReplyDeleteI lost my save data. was there an update?
ReplyDeleteI noticed they said "to right click to place or remove an X for empty spots."
(Paraphrased that)
Wow I have no save data again.
ReplyDeleteI really wanted to finish this game, but don't have that kind of time.
Yeah in a game like this if you're halfway through ,your save data is lost...it was fun, but not fun enough to do all those levels over again. :(
ReplyDeleteSo It took 3 hours I think to go through all the levels.
ReplyDeleteThere is no way that every level can be done without any guessing.
Also I found a lot of my X marks did not stay on (double clicking?)
So watch out for that.
Yes, I know how to logic to a zero in one direction & calculate odds.
Yes, I encountered several times where I had to guess. It happened less on the earlier levels, but I felt that was fair, since you have a few lives. It could be within the constraints of the game that you HAVE to risk one of your lives to break through a logic block. But in the higher levels, where you can make zero errors, I just resigned myself to the fact that I may have to start the level over.
DeleteI imagine a couple of times there may have been a pattern I could logically work out, but there were also times where the logic was so simple, there was definitely no way to solve without guessing. I wonder why, because the game seems pretty good at making sure there is some sort of logical path most of the time.
Hey, dev here. You'll have to take my word for it but you can solve every single level without ever guessing: I wrote an automated solver to check that you can always infer the position of another building until all buildings are revealed.
DeleteThat being said, one of the flaw of the game is that some of the logical proofs you need are trivial for a machine but punishingly hard for a human. Something for me to solve for a future version.
Hope you liked it!
I am really enjoying this game. Also glad I only lost a few levels with the marking update.
ReplyDeleteDev here, I'm very glad you all got a chance to try my game! Thank you so much to Bart Bonte for plugging Isle of Puzzles.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the save wipe, I'm still ironing out the bugs, hope that wasn't too annoying.
And thanks for the feedback on "marking", in hindsight it is a dumb oversight on my part. Imagine mine sweeper but you can't actually put a flag on mines. Awful user experience.
Thanks for the replies and the comments. This has been my favorite small game in a long time. I like the gameplay, and the relaxed vibe. I haven't even turned off the music yet. :-)
DeleteAre you sure that your solver ensures there is only a single solution? I was pretty sure I found myself with a simple 50/50 guess on one level, where there was a bifurcation.
I'm also glad the levels are random. I'm playing through for a second time.
Thanks again! Great game!
Okay, now that you've made it clear that the logic checks out on each randomized map, I'm playing a bit more obsessively. I've had two rounds that took me more than 15 minutes to sort through the logic, but I eventually broke through. It would probably go faster if I didn't try to do it just in my head. :-)
DeleteI'm sure I'll let you know if I find a real bifurcation, but now it's feeling unlikely.
Quick suggestion - if I lose my last (only) life, I'd like to be able to see the board to figure out what I did wrong before it resets. It would also be nice to have an option to replay the same board, though I can see why you might have chosen otherwise.
DeleteBismuth, I agree. An easy fix by making the failure notification semitransparent. I also would like to learn from my mistakes.
DeleteI just finished the game, and I loved it! I can confirm there is no need to guess, all levels are solvable with some thinking.
ReplyDeleteA very neat game! Has a somewhat similar problem to when you try to make a handcrafted puzzle out of regular minesweeper (like tametsi) as in you could just bruteforce the solution and memorise where the mines were. Also has this feature that surprisingly few minesweeper variants have -- it dynamically updates the clues based on the mines already placed
ReplyDelete