How do the wire puzzles work?

[RavenousArchive]

I don't want to look up the solutions, I just want to understand the rules and logic these puzzles follow so I can actually solve it with my brain instead of just connecting random ends. I'm playing with every difficulty on 1 for my first time, so the wires aren't coloured, and I just... don't get what determines whether a certain wire setup makes the bar higher or lower.

Moving the same wire up and down doesn't seem to produce any kind of pattern. Is there some element in the ui i'm just not noticing to indicate which end points are better or worse, or do I really just have to brute force cycle through all (if I did my math right) 216 possible combinations every time I encounter one of these puzzles?

[LiuEllens]

It's pretty much luck and best guessing. In all these years I myself have never figured out any pattern - up to the point that I half-remembered the combinations, so I no longer think about them.
Though, there's the source code available. That might be an idea to follow up on - Perhaps I'll stumble over it.

[RavenousArchive]

Originally posted by LiuEllens:

It's pretty much luck and best guessing. In all these years I myself have never figured out any pattern - up to the point that I half-remembered the combinations, so I no longer think about them.
Though, there's the source code available. That might be an idea to follow up on - Perhaps I'll stumble over it.

XD alright lol good to know I guess, at least I know i'm not being stupid.

[WhispersOfTheWind]

You connect the one end to the other, and watch the graph grow.