A little help? (Chipwizard)

[Ben!]

Are a few of these among the most difficult Zachtronics games ever?

i straight up have no idea why I can't get past the second level of Chipwizard. I've read the manual 20 times - I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. I could look up a solution but what's the point in that? Any help on this one would be appreciated.

Sawayama Solitaire is the single most frustrating solitaire game I've ever played. The other Solitaire game in this collection is terrific but this one feels completely dependent on the deal. I know this is more of a diversion than part of the main collection but coming to it for a breather after staring at the Chipwizard screen and getting killed in it

I like 20th Century Food Court but even that feels more complex than most, primarily due to the lack of clear direction. I got through the first one but am not entirely sure why. Don't fully get how inputs and outputs work or what triggers them or what they do.

I still like the collection a lot and would recommend it, but good lord it's frustrating.

[law-abiding citizen]

Yeah, it's only intuitive if you've taken classes in this stuff!
Did you find out how to layer N over P? You need 3 of one color in a line, then drag another color perpendicular towards the center cell.
Once you've got that, the straight edge is where the signal flows, and the perpendicular one is a gate (depending on NPN or PNP it'll turn the signal on or off)
The solution to 2 is one of the examples in the manual

[Ben!]

Originally posted by law-abiding citizen:

Yeah, it's only intuitive if you've taken classes in this stuff!
Did you find out how to layer N over P? You need 3 of one color in a line, then drag another color perpendicular towards the center cell.
Once you've got that, the straight edge is where the signal flows, and the perpendicular one is a gate (depending on NPN or PNP it'll turn the signal on or off)
The solution to 2 is one of the examples in the manual

This looks like the manual example to me and it fails. What am I doing wrong?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831610045

[Goblin]

The manual says that transistor you drew will let power through when the red part is powered. You attached the red one to the output, which will never be powered. And if it somehow were to get powered, all it'd do is connect A and B. Can you see why that's not useful?

There's only two meaningfully different ways to wire that thing up, and you tried one. The logical solution would be that it's the other method.

[Montzterr]

The signals do not flow out of the gate. The signals flow through the vertical section in your screen shot.

What you have there is a connection between In A and In B when Out x is high (which doesn't make sense because Out x should be an output.) In this case you don't want the output (OUT x) tied to the gate of a transistor.

[BtB]

Standing suggestion:

Zachlike is free, and contains KOHCTPYKTOP, a similar game that's much more forgiving and a little better explained. It's a good toe-hold to learning the game.

[Mont4g]

I also do recommend KOHCTPYKTOP, as this is a perfect ending to a great saga of videogames, being Engineer of the People one of the earliest.

Let's talk a little about transistors. For the purpose of playing this game, you can imagine a transistor as a pipe with a faucet. The three units line is the pipe, and the two units in the middle is the faucet (or on/off switch, whatever analogy floats your boat)

That being said, I think you should try two things in a level before trying to nail it. First, draw a NPN transistor. Blue line, three units long, one red line, two units long, chopping the blue staff in two halves. Whatever blue side you wish, connect it to V+. That would energize the system. Tie the other blue halve to an output (this serves you as the simulator will draw whatever you're doing with your circuit). If you start the simulation, nothing will happen. This is because you just created a NPN transistor (blue semiconductor = N, cause N doped, red = P). For this kind of transistor, if you want current to flow from N side to N side, you have to energize the P side (red unit).

PNP transistor work exactly the same, but the logic applied at the switch is the opposite. If you don't energize, current will flow from P side to P side. If you apply a current to the N pin, current from P to P will cease.

Hope this helps.

[m0l0s0]

yup, i'm at the or gate level too and it is SİGNİFİCANTLY harder than SHENZHEN I/O

[ಠ_ಠ]

Originally posted by m0l0s0:

yup, i'm at the or gate level too and it is SİGNİFİCANTLY harder than SHENZHEN I/O

I find it easier, actually! Shenzen is easier at first, but the difficulty ramps more. Chipwizard doesn't get much harder, you just have to figure out how to arrange the pieces efficiently. In fact, some of the later puzzles are rather easy, like the Switch Debouncer. The AND-OR combo gate was tough though.

[Melbac]

This looks like the manual example to me and it fails. What am I doing wrong?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2831610045

Your circut dosen't get powered. Take the +5 V power and draw a connection to the output. Now break that connection and replace it with a transistor. Your Imput controlls the gate of the tranistor.

Try to get this working with only one of the imputs! If you manage to archive this take the next step and find a way to make it work with 2 imputs!

[Ben!]

Thanks for all of the tips. As far as I recall, the manual makes literally zero mention of the +V stuff and I assumed it was something that might be introduced later. I know the lack of tutorialization is part of the charm here, but I think that at least addressing those and what they do is important. I've played every Zachtronics game to varying degrees and I don't recall any of them just straight up not mentioning something in this way.

[Nick]

Originally posted by Ben!:

Thanks for all of the tips. As far as I recall, the manual makes literally zero mention of the +V stuff and I assumed it was something that might be introduced later. I know the lack of tutorialization is part of the charm here, but I think that at least addressing those and what they do is important. I've played every Zachtronics game to varying degrees and I don't recall any of them just straight up not mentioning something in this way.

You can see all the inputs and outputs at the bottom, and the +Vs are just permanent activated inputs.
I was really glad they finally got around to "remaking" konstruktor. This one is easier and more accessible, but doesn't let you as much space to work with.

[ThorClock🧙]

Rather than make a new thread, I'll ask here since I'm also having a problem with Chip Wizard

How do you reduce your design size? I keep getting 30, is that just the default grid size? Is there some way to reduce the grid size? Or do I just need to use less elements?

edit: nevermind I figured it out, I just need to minimize the amount of non-metal

[Nick]

Originally posted by ThorClock🧙:

Rather than make a new thread, I'll ask here since I'm also having a problem with Chip Wizard

How do you reduce your design size? I keep getting 30, is that just the default grid size? Is there some way to reduce the grid size? Or do I just need to use less elements?

edit: nevermind I figured it out, I just need to minimize the amount of non-metal

Your score is the area of the smallest rectangle that can fit all the blue/red/green components you have placed.

[ThorClock🧙]

Originally posted by Nick:

Your score is the area of the smallest rectangle that can fit all the blue/red/green components you have placed.

Oh, thank you. That's not very intuitive but makes a lot of sense.

[techparadox]

Originally posted by Ben!:

Sawayama Solitaire is the single most frustrating solitaire game I've ever played. The other Solitaire game in this collection is terrific but this one feels completely dependent on the deal. I know this is more of a diversion than part of the main collection but coming to it for a breather after staring at the Chipwizard screen and getting killed in it.

It's definitely dependent on the deal, given that it won't let you go back through the deck and there's no undo button in case you decide you want to switch a different card instead of the one you picked up. What helped me was to remember that while it may look like Klondike, it's not - being able to shift any free card (or run of cards) into an empty column, in addition to being able to use the empty deck slot to hold a single card, will allow you to juggle your cards and get them into better position. Also, I found I had a tendency to put the kings into the open columns too soon, effectively blocking them off from being used to shuffle cards around. It can be done, it just takes a bit more patience (no pun intended, given the genre of the game).