My experience with the demo so far

[Perseus]

After seeing the first two new variants : One of the new variants is slightly more complex to understand than i would've expected for one of the first new ones, but not that much.

After unlocking the next variant, 2P : what do you mean square roots


Currently, hovering over 2P's clues doesn't highlight all affected tiles, but only the closest ones. I wonder if this is a design choice, a bug, or the feature not being completely implemented yet.

[eJ121]

Originally posted by Perseus:

After seeing the first two new variants : One of the new variants is slightly more complex to understand than i would've expected for one of the first new ones, but not that much.

I wouldn't personally call either [2H] or [2X] complex. I like [2X] a lot though, as it feels quite mechanically rich for how simple the rule is (it bounces a lot between various types of logic dealing with the dark/light totals in isolation, and regular minesweeper logic using the sum of the two totals)

Originally posted by Perseus:

After unlocking the next variant, 2P : what do you mean square roots

Currently, hovering over 2P's clues doesn't highlight all affected tiles, but only the closest ones. I wonder if this is a design choice, a bug, or the feature not being completely implemented yet.

That was my reaction to [2P] too lol.

I didn't understand what the highlighting in that variant was doing when I first saw it either. I assume it's a design choice, but it definitely felt non-obvious to me that it would work that way (as opposed to, for example, highlighting all cells and helpfully telling you how far away they are )

[Perseus]

Originally posted by eJ121:

I wouldn't personally call either [2H] or [2X] complex.

Me neither, i meant that [2X] felt slightly less simple to understand than i expected for one of the first variants, at least compared to the previous game.

Originally posted by eJ121:

I didn't understand what the highlighting in that variant was doing when I first saw it either. I assume it's a design choice, but it definitely felt non-obvious to me that it would work that way (as opposed to, for example, highlighting all cells and helpfully telling you how far away they are )

[2P] confused me quite a bit, i edited my post multiple times just because of it.

[darB]

The [2P] highlighting is very non-intuitive as it stands now. Especially for hints that have multiple solutions. Perhaps highlighting cycling over the possibilities every second or a list to the side would help. Ex: Hint of 4 can be done with mines at distance 1x4, √2 x 2√2, 2x2. Highlighting squares at distance 1&4, then √2 & 2√2, finally 2, then starting over would be more helpful. Highlighting them all at once would just be a mess.

[jdelible]

Yeah I put a good hour plus into the demo (did not play the first one) and had a pretty good time but I can't even begin to parse what the [2P] variant wants from me. Like I legit can't even get past the tutorial, I'm looking at the examples and I can't even figure out what the distances are that'd be multiplied together to get the numbers it is suggesting.

[Perseus]

Originally posted by jdelible:

Yeah I put a good hour plus into the demo (did not play the first one) and had a pretty good time but I can't even begin to parse what the [2P] variant wants from me. Like I legit can't even get past the tutorial, I'm looking at the examples and I can't even figure out what the distances are that'd be multiplied together to get the numbers it is suggesting.

The most useful tool you can use here for mines that are placed diagonally from clues is this one : The world famous A² + B² = C².
Here's an example grid :

◻ ◻ ◻ 🚩◻
🚩◻ ◻ ◻ ◻
◻ ◻ ◻ X ◻

In this example, the 🚩 are mines and the X is a clue with the number 2√10.

-The top mine is simple to figure out, it is 2 tiles away from the clue.

-The mine to the left, however, is a bit more complex. It is 1 tile above and 3 tiles to the left.
A² + B² = C², meaning we can add together the squares of both numbers : 1² + 3² = 1 + 9 = 10.
Now, if 10 is C², then we just need to figure out what C is to get the distance between the mine and the clue. And, well, since C is the square root of C², we want the square root of 10, which is √10.
So the distance between the mine to the left and the clue is √10.

Now we multiply the two distances : 2 * √10 = 2√10


Here's another example for some other cases : imagine that the two mines are at square root distances from the clue, √2 and √5. How do you multiply two square roots together?
You just do. √2 * √5 = √10


There were a few times where i used a calculator to verify that i was actually doing and understanding the mathematics correctly when playing. If you think it would help you as well, don't hesitate to use one.