13th November 2018
I did a major rewrite of the layout code, today, and it broke EVERYTHING!!! All "Yesterday's Solutions" are no longer valid for today, and all puzzles have been re-generated.
The reason is so that the layouts can be expanded to MANY more puzzle types.
Previously the Layout format was 8-characters, meaning you have up to 62 different puzzle types (A-Z, a-z, 0-9)
Although I'm not 100% sure I'll ever reach that limit, I figured it was probably a good idea to bump that number a little, since...
Views 50, Upvotes 15
Foldapuz Blog
Wordoku
Blog
12th November 2018
Added Wordoku, which makes use of a pre-generated list of layouts. (From a self coded generator, created using BlitzMax)
2048 layouts are in the file, and on top of that you've got a random selection and then a random selection of missing tiles, so I think (!?) it should be plenty random for days/weeks/months to come.
But I'm also starting to get a little worried about whether the random number generator is doing a good enough job.
I might have to peek into that, to be sure, but it'll com...
Views 144, Upvotes 21
Foldapuz Blog
Another Maze
Blog
11th November 2018
Added Alternating Maze.
Make a path from the marked Start and End points, where each step is on an alternate coloured tile.
A nice and simple game that makes secondary use out of the normal Find A Path code, but tweaks it just enough to be different, and quite a bit harder, too.
Views 89, Upvotes 23
Foldapuz Blog
Chess Queens
Blog
31st October 2018
Added Eight Queens to the mix.
It's an age old puzzle that's existed in newspapers for as long as I can remember, and was alarmingly simple to add into the mix.
I'd like to do another Chess based puzzle, but it's proving a teensy bit more complex to generate, and I honestly don't think it's all that difficult to solve once it has done!
A puzzle for another day.
The Chess Pieces are drawn using the font "Chess Alpha", which I found on this page.
Views 111, Upvotes 17
Foldapuz Blog
Tic-Tac-Toe?
Blog
23rd October 2018
Added Don't Connect Four.
For the past few days, I've been trying to get a "Tic Tac Toe Tactics" game to work, (mostly because the name amused me!) but with only a 3x3 grid it seemed rather unfruitful and somewhat repetitive.
Instead, I bulked it up to a 6x6 grid, with a "Don't Connect Four" rule.
It seems to work ok, but I'm not sure how solvable the puzzles are. Be sure to let me know if you have too much of a hard time with them.
Views 80, Upvotes 19
Foldapuz Blog
Cross Fixing
Blog
14th October 2018
Yet another fix for Crossed. I'm really not sure why it occasionally outputs completely blank puzzles.
All very odd.
I think it's a memory/variable issue, as it seems to be happening most often when the puzzle takes too long to generate, and curiously empties itself as it does so!
Anyway, I've rewritten chunks of it, yet again, in the hopes that it'll finally fix the issue, but ... yet again, it's reset the "Yesterday's Solution" content, so apologies for that.
Views 82, Upvotes 19
Foldapuz Blog
New Games
Blog
9th October 2018
Added Critically Triangular.
Aaah, the joys of trigonometry!
Also added Word Snake, which doesn't currently have any solutions, because I'm not sure how I could do that!
It's an open-ended game, and should at least prove somewhat challenging.
In addition, I've also rejigged the puzzle selection menu to make it a little bit neater, sectioning off the games into their various categories, and I've also shuffled the How To instructions to be in the same order.
Views 79, Upvotes 16
Foldapuz Blog
Word Grid
Blog
7th October 2018
Added Word Grid.
It's not the best word selection, but at least it works.
I did try making it only use "The most common 3 letter words", but it tended to get stuck whilst trying to generate the puzzles due to there not being nearly enough "common" words in the list.
I might rejig this game at a later point.
Views 85, Upvotes 16
Foldapuz Blog
URL Formatting
Blog
4th October 2018
Spent an insane amount of time reformatting the URL so that I can add the new Words/Maths/Logic shortcut URLs into the mix.
Seems to function well enough, and should allow people to quickly pick their favourite types of puzzles from the site.
Additionally added a very brief set of instructions for the games in the "How To" page. Hopefully that's enough instructions to get the player going.
As always, let me know if it isn't!
Views 115, Upvotes 39
Foldapuz Blog
Nips and Tucks
Blog
3rd October 2018
The site has been moved to a new server, and I've rewritten a bit of the cache code, so it all works a little bit faster.
Added Logic Battleships, which Dabz suggested, right at the very start of this project.
Sorry it took so long!
Views 99, Upvotes 21
Foldapuz Blog
Tweaking
Blog
27th September 2018
A quick tweak to the Word Ladder generation. It was getting rather silly, and replacing letters with letters it'd previously used, leading to very repetitive ladders.
Views 51, Upvotes 17
Foldapuz Blog
Move One Digit
Blog
26th September 2018
After realising how bloomin' simple yesterday's version of Solve A,B,C was, I spent an hour or so trying to find the most convoluted of puzzles.
I think the maths should be fairly complex, now, but am more convinced than ever, that figuring out the solution isn't as mathematically simple as it should be.
Added Move One Digit, which needed a brief explanation.
Currently considering adding a similarly short description to each of the panels.
Views 66, Upvotes 21
Foldapuz Blog
Solve A,B,C
Blog
25th September 2018
Further tweaking to the Find a Way maze generator. Things are hopefully a little more varied, now, and I've also upgraded the solution display.
Added Solve A, B, C. (Thanks to Liam Kelk for suggesting it.)
I'm not 100% convinced that it's do-able, and will have to sit and try to solve a few of the puzzles over the next day or two..
Quite honestly, my maths brain has melted from all the coding, tonight!!
Views 72, Upvotes 19
Foldapuz Blog
Wordlist Upgrade
Blog
23rd September 2018
A minor update to the way Word Ladder is generated, which has sped the whole thing up by a remarkable amount.
What took about 3 or 4 seconds, yesterday, now only takes around 0.2 seconds.
Optimisation is the key!
Technically, instead of checking each and every word in the list, I first ensured the wordlist was properly alphabetised..
Next I jump through the list in groups of 1500 words, until "over", then do a quick sift between the 1500 chunk of words.
This is the "Normal" way to do wordlists, but...
Views 57, Upvotes 15
Foldapuz Blog
Daily Blog
Blog
19th September 2018
Rewrote a significant portion of Sudoku thanks to feedback from @JulieMontoya20. The puzzles are a lot easier, now, but should at least be doable!
Added Word Ladder.
It's a little bit slow. Hopefully I can find a way to speed that up.
Note : Due to the way I've rewritten the Random Words code, (so the Word Ladder worked!) Yesterday's Solutions will not work properly for today or tomorrow.
Views 117, Upvotes 18
Foldapuz Blog
Sudoku
Blog
17th September 2018
Finally happy with the Find a Way maze generation. The mazes aren't the "best" mazes in the world, but are at least now a bit better than a straight vertical line!
Added Sudoku.
Since Sudoku is fairly complex to generate, rather than being wholly generated by the script, I've opted to pre-generate 2000 number grid layouts, which then get numbers plucked from them to give a final puzzle.
Views 56, Upvotes 13
Foldapuz Blog
Solutions
Blog
16th September 2018
Added a "Yesterday's Solutions" option to the bottom of the site. Click to switch between viewing today's puzzles or yesterday's solutions.
The solutions "should" be functioning properly, but may occasionally glitch if I tweak too much of the underlying ProcGen code for the puzzles.
Updated Number Target to remove instances where it would do "n x 1", which resulted in uninteresting maths!
Updated Crossed to remove some of the 8-letter word's letters.
Added Find a Way. I might rejig...
Views 79, Upvotes 16
Foldapuz Blog
A Website
Blog
15th September 2018
Finally got v1 of the main website up and running.
Simple drop down menu items and a puzzle page.
Nothing too fancy, just enough that you can select from the growing collection of puzzles.
Views 112, Upvotes 21
Foldapuz Blog
Font Change
Blog
14th September 2018
Switched to using a TTF font instead of PHP's default rubbish font.
Source Code Pro
..Which 1001fonts.com says is free to use, so if it isn't, blame them!
Views 88, Upvotes 14
Foldapuz Blog
Game Tweaks
Blog
13th September 2018
Tweaked Doodle to draw less "squiggly" and more "scrawl-like".
Tweaked Target to be less random, and instead do a bit of maths to set the target, so that all targets are at least possible.
Views 107, Upvotes 18
Foldapuz Blog
Three New Games
Blog
12th September 2018
Added Doodle, Target and Anagram.
Tweaked Crossed to give more common words instead of the bizarre, cryptic 4-letter oddities that it was previously coming up with!
Views 63, Upvotes 17
Foldapuz Blog
First code session
Blog
11th September 2018
Managed to get Lattice and Crossed to work simply enough.
Decided on the name and logo, with a little help from SoCoder user Dabz.
Views 95, Upvotes 12
Foldapuz Blog
The Very Beginning
Blog
3rd September 2018
Initial conception, and first test of printed foldable layout.
The layout seems workable, and if I continue to make the puzzles in that aspect ratio it should be fairly functional as a pocketsized booklet.
Left the idea to ferment for a week!!
Views 117, Upvotes 22
Foldapuz Blog
Foldapuz - The Start
Blog
3rd September 2018
Over on my site Socoder.net, we have a daily poll, and each day it gives you something to vote on, then the next day you get points based on whether you voted for the winning item on the poll.
It's been there for many many years, now, and I'm starting to get a little sick of the sight of the bloomin' thing, but what could I possibly replace it with?
The current leading idea is a doodle box, where the players are given a start point and a few colours, and the best art wins. But that then requi...
Views 92, Upvotes 28
Foldapuz Blog
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