Marble Machinations

logic mostly like https://git.crispypin.cc/CrispyPin/marble

todo

meta

• itch page text
• engine tests

game

• comments
• highlight regions with background colours
• accessibility
  • ui scaling
  • background colour setting
  • configurable hotkeys
  • hotkeys for everything (no mouse needed to play)
  • font selection (probably a lot of work)
• more levels
• footprint and bounding box stats (instead of area)
• scroll output bytes
• cut selections, copy to system clipboard
• timestamps in solutions and blueprints
• lock tile types for early levels to make it less overwhelming
• display tool variant more clearly (it's not obvious there are more states)
• better text rendering

online stuff

• store scores in server
• validate solutions in server (with limits)
• show histograms
• author name in solutions and blueprints

undecided

• option to use 8-bit marbles?
• blueprint rotation?
• changable marble start direction?

playtesting observations

• 'loops' introduces too many things (powering, redirection, generating zeroes)
• players expect buttons to be triggered even when theres something blocking the marble on the other side
• math tile is not intuitive

file hierarchy

- assets/
- levels/
  - chapter_01.json
  - chapter_02.json
  - sandbox.json
- user/
  - solutions/
    - output/
      - solution_0.json
      - solution_1.json
    - copy_input/
      - solution_0.json
      - solution_3.json
  - blueprints
    - blueprint_0.json

levels

intro, basic mechanics

• output a zero (marble, output)
• output multiple numbers in sequence (digits)
• output zeroes forever (looping/arrows, button, silo output)
• copy the input (input)
• increment every number (math tiles)
• copy only odd input numbers (comparator, flipper)

0-terminated list processing

• copy the second list
• calculate list length (math, silo input)
• count instances of 5 in a list
• reverse a list (bouncing)

text

• convert text to lowercase
• convert a number to decimal ascii
• parse an ascii number

advanced list processing

• index a list
• reverse and return the first n elements of a list, with n given first
• add two lists element-wise
• sort a list