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The story of Puzzle1 Fixed
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duaneski |TT|

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duaneski |TT|

Messages: 22,
Joined: Aug 09, 2018,
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Long post here. Not all Uniwar related. This is the story about how Puzzle1 Fixed was created. How it was changed on purpose, how it changed by accident, and how this all intersects with the rest of reality as its creator knows it.

The story of Puzzle1 Fixed




Ennuigoblin hooked me to Uniwar with his YouTube content in 2015. He published a feature video of a 1v1 match "Earth versus Talone", the two top players in the world. The match was awe inspiring - illustrating the depth of gameplay in Uniwar, with Ennui's truly fantastic play by play. He broke down the game in a way that was immediately understandable. For Better or worse Uniwar would be the soundtrack for much of the next years of my life.

A lot happened between November 2015 and November 2018. For me, personally, I went from being a married guy with a job to a father with two children. I went from not fully understanding my role in life to having these amazing children who make me look forward to waking up in the morning unlike anything else ever had. Having the best dad in the world growing up, who has always been my hero.. the only thing I was ever sure of in life was that I wanted children. That isn't hyperbole. And I wanted to be like my dad. He's honestly the best person I know. An amazing teacher, funny, and a good person. And now I've got these children and I feel like I am the person I'm meant to be, for them.

Between 1998 and 2018 I went from physically hiding myself from simple conversation (literally) to presenting customer service fundamentals to more than 500 people. And so much of my personal growth happened in these past 3 years. I am proud. And thankful. I feel lucky.

I became enamored with the UW community. UW is a great game, and I was impressed to see the creator in the chat room back in 2015. Seemingly daily. He started to push out new features. He made the game free to download and unleashed some IAPs, including the controversial "unlimited undo." This option seemed like a safeguard versus "fat fingering" a bad move. But for high level players provided a time intensive means with which to manipulate the random attack formula in the game. Players had been manipulating the attack formula for years through a more convoluted method - but now it seemed to be a supported game concept. It was controversial, at least.

Then, in 2017 (after about "two weeks" Tm) Xavi did something that the players had requested: he expanded the map editor and added in "objectives" for victory conditions. I was ecstatic at first, and immediately set out to build objective based maps. Who doesn't love a good CTF right? Well, the first time we playtested CTF we realized that it was buggy. You didn't win only if you captured the flag, you won if you captured any base. The other game modes were buggy too. Xavi did his best to patch these game modes. But they weren't a priority. They didn't touch most players since objective maps purposefully can't enter the "Ranked Pool" of maps.

Sometime later I was inspired to create a map called Infector Quest. It was a CTF map where a team of 4 human players need to progress across a massive map with only one Infector. It was based upon RPG style maps I had played in Age of empires 2 and Starcraft. Unfortunately, UW doesn't have the same triggers available as those games did... so instead of being a measure of player skill, the map was more a measure of my ability as a map maker to create an environment where the player always has "just enough" to progress. Once the player has "too much" the map is boring. If they have "too little" then they lose.

I've made more than 8 versions of Infector quest over the course of years, and it still isn't balanced. It's close, with the last version. But it's still not perfect. What I realized while making Infector quest was that I was effectively making a GIANT PUZZLE. And that giant puzzles are REALLY REALLY challenging to balance correctly.

So one day, in mid 2018 I decided to make a small puzzle. That was the entire premise behind Puzzle1. Was that I could give players "just enough" to complete a mission. I felt that players might enjoy that, and that it would be easy for me to balance. At the same time, Pashaka was getting to work updating UW....

The initial Puzzle1 didn't have any harbors in it. When I tested Puzzle1 in the map editor it worked as intended, with the AI acting how it does here in December 2018. I designed the map to seem as if an early EMP would be good, only for the player to realize they didn't have time for that. You had to move back towards the walker. In this playtest, I was exceptionally lucky. The walker moved forward - which is normal bot behavior. The next turn I captured the mecha and attacked the walker with the battery dealing *8* damage. The mecha2 took a 5 shot from the speeder. Then next turn, the walker healed to 3, the mecha2 walked over and bopped the walker for 3, battery shot speeder and moved forward.... it was a simple, easy solution.

This was the intended solution that I knew for Puzzle1. I published the map and posted it to English chat. That was about the end of it until someone showed me a replay where the walker didn't move. The speeder and mecha didn't move. Confused, I began to experiment with the bot behavior. I put out a pretty comprehensive guide, but one of the important things I realized is that, at the time, the map editor bot behavior was different than the server bot behavior. I needed to get the bots to just act normal. Why that wasn't happening, I didn't know. I believe it was due to the updated AI Pashaka had designed and released. This AI was a significant upgrade to the player experience, and was absolutely necessary. But man did it fork up some scenarios haha.

Through lengthy testing I was able to discover that for whatever reason, harbors drive bots in scenarios crazy. Owned harbors and neutral harbors actually have a different impact. And I hadn't yet spent the time to identify that one caused a "frenzy" and the other caused "normal behavior." Since in this scenario frenzy and normal would be the same thing, I added in both owned and neutral harbors. Puzzle1 was already published, so i named the Fixed Version Puzzle1 Fixed. Usually, I go and edit the names. I don't know why I didn't with Puzzle1, but I believe it's because I was fist deep into Puzzle2/3/4 at that point. Puzzle1 was essentially a distant memory. That's the story of why Puzzle1 is Puzzle1 Fixed, where it's name came from .

In late 2018, Pashaka unleashed some more awesome changes to Uniwar. Namely, the daily mission. Pashaka messaged me saying he was going to give me access to update the mission file, which seemed like a great honor.

In December the update came to iOS that let me actually put my created SPCs into the daily mission catalogue. I immediately chose some of my favorites, tested them out, and loaded them in. I think I took up about 6 spots right away. I started making new scenarios too, and adapting old concepts for new SPCs.

I came across one of my favorite concepts, Puzzle4, and began adapting it for a lengthier SPC.... it needed more work, so in the meantime I took a spot on the calendar for a different untouched work, Puzzle1 Fixed.

I had tested Puzzle4 extensively, and it worked as expected. I didn't test Puzzle1 Fixed however. Figuring it was Fixed, and not really remembering the specifics of how it had worked. I assumed it was fine anyway. So I scheduled it out and got back to work on a new Puzzle series, and continued work on my Puzzle4 project.

December 10 I turned 34. That day, early in the morning while I was at work I got a phone call from my dad. His doctor had called him about his chest X-ray from last week. It was abnormal and he needed a CT to evaluate further. His doctor wasn't available to write the prescription currently but would be in by Wednesday. My sister took that as a personal challenge and began the task of contacting all of my dad's doctors until one of them wrote and faxed us a script. Meanwhile, i went and checked in with the radiology director. He scheduled the CT for that afternoon.

Tuesday morning i read the results. I was the first member of my family to see them, and even working in the medical field I felt lost. I called my sister and read off the paper... 6cm neoplasm in the lower right lobe.. 3cm enlarged hilar lymph node.. while infectious disease can not be ruled out, primary evaluation must be for metastatic versus primary neoplasm. This fucking piece of paper is saying my dad has cancer, isn't it?

On Wednesday December 12 I went with my dad to his oncology appointment. We carried some vague hope that he had some sort of fungal or bacterial infection. I kept saying 'well there are some truly awful fungal things. That could be worse than cancer.' Well, the doctor was pretty quick and direct in saying that it seems like primary lung cancer, at least stage 3.

Honestly, there is cause for optimism. I'm not a wreck, distraught, anything like that. Realistically though, for his prognosis, we need to know two things. 1) is the malignancy anywhere else? 2) what type of malignancy.

His biopsy was this past Monday, and today my dad had his PET scan (a whole body CT which evaluates for any other areas of cancer.) tomorrow, 12/20 we go back to the oncologist and get the results. In the midst of this i find myself struggling with work. Feeling capable and competent, and uncertain and worried and frozen in fear. And trying to keep this perspective of what things in life actually matter, actually mean something important. Anyway, if the results of the PET/biopsy are good, then the sky's the limit. And if not... well. Then we deal with that.

But here on the 19th, Puzzle1 Fixed was released to UW. And when I checked in early this morning I had a message from The_Impaler asking how the map is beaten. CRUD. If he can't beat it, decent chance it's broken....

So I load the game up. I move back towards the walker.. battery shoots for 7... mecha swings for 3.... I lose. Restart. Same thing. Restart... same thing. Again and again. I start trying some different moves. None of it works. I've scheduled up a broken map.

Well balls.

I mean. It isn't the end of the world. That sorta thing happens. Heck this is a new feature anyway.

So I head over to map society to see what's what, and there rRaptorR has found a solution..! I watch the replay twice. WOW that is an elegant solution! Raptor moves towards the walker and coaxes the walker out of the swamps, being sure to keep from hitting it all the while so it keeps moving instead of repairing! I hadn't thought of that. It's beautiful, and absolutely saves the map.

Even more, that solution actually MAKES the map good.

I designed a simple map with a boring solution. Pashaka Fixed the AI, and then about 25% of the players of this game found a beautiful solution to a map that maybe shouldn't even have one. Even more, you took your time to say thank you to me, and to talk about the map I made in such a positive way. I take pride in the things I create, and to have been able to spend some time today, on the eve of such an important day for my family, just admiring my work in the hands of some
Committed gamers... it really was special to me.

A few other players figured out you could actually EMP the assimilator too. Which just made me basically giddy ;p. I never realized that, or found that solution.



So here I am on December 19th and I really just wanted to tell this silly story about how and why Puzzle1 Fixed was made, and to say thank you. Thank you UW for being a group of good people and friends. For being a great community. Thank you Pashaka and SH games for keeping this project alive and for growing it.

I appreciate what you do, and while entertainment and games can be such a stupid, meaningless thing... they can also provide comfort and even hope against anxiety and fear.

Thank you thank you. Goodnight


This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Dec 20, 2018 06:04

duaneski |TT|

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Joined: Aug 09, 2018,
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duaneski |TT|

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^journaling entry at midnight. Hah. If you read that you deserve a fkin medal of some sort :p
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wookieontheweb

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wookieontheweb

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So I came here to write a feature request directly from playing Puzzle1 Fixed.

It took me a while but I did finally beat it in 13 moves. Then I thought was there one point I could have moved the battery somewhere else that could have allowed me to see the teleport point one move sooner. The problem I had was the RNG is a ******.

Assuming the Uniwar Damage Calculator App is still accurate (it hasn't been updated for a while e.g. no submersibles).
Though I actually stumbled upon the solution fairly quickly I failed to succeed many many times.

T1- First you move the engineer towards the walker or die
The mecha comes and gets you. The walker walks forward and the speeder moves.
T2- Move the engineer and convert (I was hoping the speeder would hit it, but it doesn't). Battery fires at the walker and moves up. You must get an 8+ (57.7% chance)
The speeder always attacks the mecha2. Here it MUST not do more than 5 damage (44.5% chance). The walker heals to 3.
T3- The mecha2 kills the walker (35.9% chance assuming mecha2 is on 5 and walker is on 3). If your mecha2 is on 4 or the walker is on 4 then your odds are less than 4%. Battery hits speeder and moves forward.
The speeder usually finishes off the engineer. RNG means you can get lucky.
T4- The battery kills the speeder and finally makes it to the hard ground.
The assimilator tries to cap
T5- The battery has a 100% chance of killing the assimilator that is trying to cap. There are many cases where the battery is on the swamp and in range of the capping unit but usually does 9 damage (4.6% chance of killing)
... There are no enemy units left
T... It takes a while to teleport and walk to the base and make the cap

I liked the map and the challenge, I just felt that it was too close on the RNG rolls. I think there is less than a 20% chance of that all working out ... unless there was a better way with higher odds.

That was going to be my feature request using this map as the example. Please can we have an option to turn off the RNG? That would make testing this and bigger maps much much more reliable.

p.s. I hope your dad got good news. See I read it.





This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Dec 21, 2018 19:28


Android 9. Samsung Galaxy A50
duaneski |TT|

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Joined: Aug 09, 2018,
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duaneski |TT|

Messages: 22,
Joined: Aug 09, 2018,
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That was going to be my feature request using this map as the example. Please can we have an option to turn off the RNG? That would make testing this and bigger maps much much more reliable.

Pashaka actually said this exact thing in map making chat. Initially I was like "no because some puzzles will hinge on it" then realized those aren't fun puzzles so I now agree with the idea.

p.s. I hope your dad got good news. See I read it.

Hah you're cray thanks man. He's doing well. Treatment starts next week. He got the best news possible (stage 3, doc says he's "curable"). Dad says he will take any prayers he can get
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