It's only for Android, but I think it's more than worth the price (free). You're given electrons, several tools for manipulating them, and later lasers and resonators to power them up. You design a machine to produce the most power, preferably using the least parts.
I managed to solve all the puzzles, and I've been putting together a spoilery guide to the game, but I thought you all might want to try it out before I post any such thing. Also, I dare you to beat my high power score on 3-4! :twisted:
Yeah, the only permission request it seems to make is to compare your score to global best scores. Which seem to contact a server that was down for awhile, but it appears to be up now.
Give it time, it's still early. Unless it was coded by Snowden they will soon have an update asking for permissions to everything under the sun like every other app eventually does.
Well, here's my spoiler-filled guide. I solved all the puzzles, but I certainly didn't get optimal power and efficiency on all of them.
1-1:
Take the input, send it to the output.
Big deal.
Power: Optimal:
6 Mj
Efficiency: Optimal:
3.00 (6 Mj / 2 Tiles)
1-2: Send all the inputs to the output. You may need to pause
one
with the "decelerator tile".
Power: Optimal:
6 Mj
Efficiency: Optimal:
1.50 (6 Mj / 4 Tiles)
1-3:
Use one input to fire the laser at the other input.
Power: Optimal:
6 Mj
Efficiency: Optimal:
2.00 (6 Mj / 3 Tiles)
It would be helpful at this point to write down the power levels for each color. They'll be important later.
Red: 1
Yellow: 3
Green: 9
Blue: 27
Purple: 81
1-4: I don't get how LaurV did this. But there seem to be several methods. I could
turn three particles yellow,
or
one particle green, by sending them down the laser's path partway. (Blue once, but not reliably.)
Power: Suboptimal. Efficiency: Suboptimal.
2-1:
Fire the first laser with the red particle to turn red particles yellow. Fire the second laser with the yellow particle to turn yellow particles green.
Power: Optimal:
54 Mj
Efficiency: Optimal:
5.40 (54 Mj / 10 Tiles)
2-2:
Loop the particles through the lasers three times to turn them all blue. I needed to pause sometimes to get the timing right.
Power: Optimal:
108 Mj
Efficiency: Optimal:
15.43 (108 Mj / 7 Tiles)
2-3:
Loop each beam through the laser three times. This produces three blue particles and several destroyed particles, but it gets you to target. Since the beams are continuous, pauses are impractical.
Power: Optimal:
162 Mj
Efficiency: Optimal:
13.50 (162 Mj / 12 Tiles)
2-4: You have four particles coming in.
Use one to power the first laser. Send another down the beam of the first laser to power it again.
(This is a common pattern.)
Pause the other two particles in the beam so they get hit both times. Send all remaining particles to the output.
Optional:
Loop a third particle back to power the second laser and hit the fourth particle. Pause the fourth particle so you don't accidentally hit the third particle with the wrong color!
Power: Optimal:
54 Mj
Efficiency: Suboptimal.
3-1: I might be able to do this better.
Split the beam with an alternator. Use half the beam to power the laser to shoot the other half.
Optional:
Split the resulting beam again. Send half of it back to power the laser, and have the other half bounce in and out of the beam. (Use an alternator and a directional arrow pointed at each other.)
This is another somewhat useful pattern.
Power: Suboptimal. Efficiency: Optimal:
3.00 (9 Mj / 3 Tiles)
3-2:
Split the beam with an alternator. Use half of it to power a laser. Split the other half in the beam path with an alternator, so that red particles get hit with the red beam and all particles get hit with the yellow beam before leaving the beam.
Optional:
Direct the straight-through green particles to the other laser, let it hit the redirected particles, and output only the blue particles.
Power: Optimal:
54 Mj
Efficiency: Optimal:
6.00 (36 Mj / 6 Tiles)
3-3:
You can ignore the third particle from the top at first. (Just send it back on itself for now.) Send the bottom particle down the laser's path so it gets hit by both normal laser beams, and then powers the laser between its normal inputs. Let the other particles go straight through the beam, loop them down and back, and send them through again with three pauses in a row. Then send the blue particles to the output.
Optional:
Stop ignoring the third particle. It can go on a similar path, but you have to time merging it with the other two blue particles more carefully so it doesn't hit them or hit the fourth particle on its way in.
Power: Suboptimal. Efficiency: Suboptimal.
3-4:
Split the beam such that three particles power the laser, at least two of them in the beam, while one particle goes up to the top and exits as a blue particle.
Efficiency hint:
Note that timing isn't critical! As long as at least three particles are somewhere in the beam when the laser fires the first time, you're golden - I mean blue.
Optional:
It is possible to loop every other blue particle around back to the laser, so that it turns every other blue particle purple. The problem is that this puzzle requires a score every 24 cycles, but doing so means a purple particle only comes out every 48 cycles. It is possible to loop and bounce one out of every four purple particles around and through pause pads long enough to get three purples in a row. As long as one does not also delay any of the other purple particles too long, this allows three purple particles go through in a row. If you hit "back" immediately after the third particle is registered, a score can be recorded.
I got the first score of 81 this way.
Power: Optimal: 81 Mj (And better than any prior scores!) Efficiency: Optimal:
3.86 (27 Mj / 7 Tiles)
4-1:
Place an arrow at the tip of the laser to direct particles out of the beam. Send the red particle from the top input up to power the laser first, and send the particles from the bottom input up the beam. Send the green particle from the bottom input on a path to hit a wall, but place an activation switch for the arrow at the tip of the laser in its path. Place a deactivation switch for said arrow in the red particle's path.
Optional:
Find ways to incorporate both green particles in the output.
Optional:
Redirect the blue particle out of the output path and back into the beam at the appropriate time and place to become a purple particle.
Optimal output is
six purple particles
per iteration!
Power: Optimal:
486 Mj
Efficiency: Suboptimal.
4-2: You can solve this
without any alternators or switches! Though they'd surely provide more power output.
Minimally,
send the red particles up, down the first laser's beam, and out of the beam at the laser's tip. Use the red, yellow, and green particles to power the laser. Result: four blue particles per iteration.
Optional:
Use an alternator to send half the blue particles to power the second laser, while redirecting the other half to the output level in its beam path. Result: two purple particles per iteration. Or see if you can hit two particles with one blue, and save the fourth. Or hit all three with one blue. (This takes switches.)
Power: Suboptimal. Efficiency: Suboptimal.
4-3: Here you have a line of red particles alternating with a line of yellow coming up from the bottom, and occasional red and yellow particles coming in from two top inputs left-to-right respectively. Minimally,
place an arrow at the tip of the left laser. Discard all the occasional yellow particles. Discard half the occasional red particles with an alternator. Use the others for timing, to hit switches controlling the arrow at the laser's tip, and discard them when done with them. Let the red particles from the bottom power the laser; then turn on the arrow and move them off to the right. This sends one blue and two purple particles to the output.
Optional:
Discard only half the occasional yellow particles; use the others to power the second laser when the purple particles have left and three yellow particles are in the beam. Doesn't do much, but does a little.
Obviously, more optimizations are possible. For instance, you can
get more yellow particles in the second laser's beam, send the previously discarded yellow particle up said beam, and turn lots of particles blue.
Power: Suboptimal. Efficiency: Suboptimal.
4-4: Like I said before, timing is critical for this one. But the trickier problem is
how to handle five particles distinctly.
My solution was to
split up four particles with alternators, and handle the fifth separately with a switch controlled by the first particle.
Power: Optimal:
405 Mj
Efficiency: Suboptimal.
5-1: The first "resonator" puzzle. The trick is to
loop the particles around in delaying patterns long enough that they all come together at once.
The other trick is to
get the particles out of that square formation and into a line to go to the output.
One way is to
think of the square as two parallel lines of particles. Take one around a short delaying loop; send the other straight to the output.
This is a compact pattern that becomes very useful for these resonator puzzles.
Power: Suboptimal. (I don't even know how that's possible with a pure resonator puzzle. Maybe they
run the output through more delay loops and spike it all out at once
?) Efficiency: Suboptimal.
5-2: Similar to 5-1. Requires
dealing with a group of five particles like 4-4. (See spoiler there.) But I actually did all of this part with switches in this case.
Also requires
a different way to get the particles into a line to go to the output.
Power: Suboptimal. (Again, not quite sure how that's possible.) Efficiency: Suboptimal.
5-3: Requires
dealing with another odd-numbered group of particles - three this time. See spoiler for 4-4 again.
Also requires
saving one yellow particle each iteration so two can be fed through the yellow resonator.
Consider that
particles can go through resonators in any direction.
Though it's not a requirement to solve the puzzle.
Power: Optimal (Yay!):
54 Mj
Efficiency: Suboptimal.
5-4: A resonator with a laser. I tried
just using the laser, feeding one line of particles in to power the laser and one to get pumped up
, but I couldn't get that to work. I could probably get 99 points per 6 cycles that way, but the goal was 100. By
bouncing the "green" particle out as a yellow and joining it with an excess red particle from the other feed to feed the resonator
, I just barely squeaked through this one - three out of four iterations meet the goal, and only if I
time the output from the laser just right
. But since the fourth doesn't, I have to hit "back" at exactly the right time.
Power: (very) Suboptimal. Efficiency: (very) Suboptimal.
I'd be interested to know what others come up with here.
This brings up two important points about resonators. First,
lasers eat particles, but resonators don't. Therefore, resonators can be superior - if they produce high enough colors often enough.
Second,
you can take the output of a resonator that has two or more colors to feed itself.
This may be how this is supposed to be solved, but I didn't find a way to do that here. But this is important later.
6-1: Here we have
a group of five particles
yet again. Again see spoiler for 4-4. Your goal here is to
send groups of four particles through the resonator, while collecting another group of four from the fifth particles.
I used traps
liberally but not excessively. When you have the last particle, avoid using a trap to hold it.
Also remember from 5-3 that
particles can go through resonators in any direction.
Power: Optimal:
60 Mj
Efficiency: Suboptimal.
6-2: This was a tricky one! At first I thought I could
set aside 1/3 of the red particles, feed 1/3 through the red resonator to get yellow, and 1/3 through red and yellow to get green, then just feed them all through the big resonator.
But this didn't get me to the required power level. It turns out this requries
what I call "priming the pump". First, set up that you're going to be sending red particles into the big resonator, which come out yellow, which you feed back in to come out green, which you feed back in again to come out blue. And you'll only send those blue particles to the output. But! You need those other two resonators to generate yellow and green particles to feed in with the very first red particles, to "prime the pump" to get the whole thing started.
Note that this means
turning switches on or off permanently. A little odd, but get used to it.
Power: Optimal:
108 Mj
Efficiency: Suboptimal.
6-3: A tricky resonator and lasers. But note the
low power requirement
! So I
just used one laser. Working around the resonator parts was a little tricky, but you've got switches, traps, and plenty of particles.
I managed to send
four 81-point purple particles
to the output
for every eight red particles in. One per sixteen particles would be more than sufficient to meet the 50-point requirement. And I'm only using one of two lasers.
There's at least a little room for improvement.
Power: Suboptimal. Efficiency: Suboptimal. At this point, I don't care.
6-4: Clearly another case of
priming the pump. Take a few red particles to power the laser, have it shoot a few more to produce the needed colors, and pipe the rest to just under the resonator. Then let the resonator do the work, turning all red particles into purple particles all the time!
Of course, there are implementation details.
Particles come out of the laser in yellow-green-blue order, and you need to reverse them. I ran them over three deactivated arrows aiming to the side, activated them with one red particle I separated specifically for timing, then ran them back down and over to the resonator.
I checked it out too. It's pretty fun, though quite heavy on the battery. I'm trying to get max everything and I got to 2-1 so far, so I'm ignoring you post beyond 2.1. I'll probably have to give up on this idea on higher levels...
For 1.4:
It took me a while to get to 27Mj. At first I thought it was mathematically impossible. You have 3 reds from one input A1,A2,A3 and one from the other B1. The goal is to get As into the laser and have *everybody* in line: A1 turns A2,A3 and B1 into yellow, A2 turns A3 and B1 into green, and finally A3 turns B1 into blue which goes to output. Only the B1 goes to output. It's not hard to get this with 7 tiles.
For 2.1 you said you got optimal solution:
From your post it seems you get 6 greens for 6x9=54. You are doing it with 10 tiles? I have 11 and don't see a way to improve this. Another approach would be 2x27 which I was trying at first. I'm just wondering if 6x9 can be made with 10 tiles or if I need a completely new approach.
Edit: For 1-4, I get the first B1 blue, but on other iterations the first red ball gets blown away by the wrong color of laser. (I'm using only 5 tiles.) There simply isn't enough of a break in the laser firing to get 3 balls in line, is there?
Give it time, it's still early. Unless it was coded by Snowden they will soon have an update asking for permissions to everything under the sun like every other app eventually does.
Or they advertize an app as "free" download only to go the IAP route, you get to play for an hour or two then discover that your weapon is vastly underpowered and you need to pony up more $$ to keep playing. I hate this crap and I'm hoping that eventually a smart publisher will just price the game as a one-time purchase, I get the feeling a LOT of people are getting tired of IAP-based games as well..
Yea, I guess developers got tired of finding hacked versions of their game so that was one incentive to go the IAP route. Anyway installed EF, pretty neat game, up to 1-4 so far but I like it in that it's forcing me to think up solutions to problems rather than blast 3-D zombies LOL, since I stopped doing crossword puzzles I think my ability to use my brain has dipped a bit, maybe this type of game will help.
I can sort of imagine EF going freemium. Say, $1 each for extra lasers, and/or premium skins. I'd be mostly OK with it if (1) all the puzzles could be solved without paying, and (2) scores for puzzles solved without premium help were separate from scores for those with premium help.
Glad this thread came up again. I glanced over it the day this thread came out, and by the time I got away from work, I couldn't find it again! installing now.
Killing myself trying to get 27mj on 1-4. I can get 2 greens output for 18mj, just not sure how they got a third during the cycle. Maybe they somehow get 1 blue?
You and me both! Can someone who's done it please post a link to a screenshot? (No more inline screenshots please - they're huge and they give away spoilers.)
You and me both! Can someone who's done it please post a link to a screenshot? (No more inline screenshots please - they're huge and they give away spoilers.)
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