trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
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jbluestein wrote:
I think it might be worthwhile to note somewhere what objects do block jumping -- living snake heads, are there pits or anything else that block jumping?

Rule of thumb:

* You can jump over red (and purple!) stuff.
* If it's not red (or purple!) you can't jump over it.
* Walls with rocks in them are brown, and living snake heads are grey. Neither of those colors are red (or purple!), so those objects are unjumpable.

- Gerry

ErikH2000
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jbluestein wrote:
I think it might be worthwhile to note somewhere what objects do block jumping -- living snake heads, are there pits or anything else that block jumping?

Again, I have to quote this sentence:

"The jumping movements 4-7 are possible if there is a square along the column or row of travel that is clear, and no walls or living snake heads are between your snake's head and that square."

That's it. There are two things that block movement (walls and living snake heads). There are no other elements (i.e. pits) or gameplay rules other than what's described in the first topic. Note that "boxes" may be what you are thinking of when you say "pits".

-Erik

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jbluestein
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ErikH2000 wrote:

jbluestein wrote:
I think it might be worthwhile to note somewhere what objects do block jumping -- living snake heads, are there pits or anything else that block jumping?

Again, I have to quote this sentence:

"The jumping movements 4-7 are possible if there is a square along the column or row of travel that is clear, and no walls or living snake heads are between your snake's head and that square."

That's it. There are two things that block movement (walls and living snake heads). There are no other elements (i.e. pits) or gameplay rules other than what's described in the first topic. Note that "boxes" may be what you are thinking of when you say "pits".

You're right...I just hadn't sifted through the right parts of the rules.

In such cases as these, I would (were I the guy making the rules, and if I had time) offer a summary of 'board elements'. You've mentioned all of them in the rules, and it's all covered, but it strikes me that greater clarity could be achieved in this way.

Something like:

Things that can be in a square:

snake body: red, jumpable
living snake head: grey, not jumpable
wall: brown, not jumpable
dead snake head: purple, jumpable
boxes: red, jumpable

It's a pretty short list, but if (someday) the list is expanded it's pretty easy to have such a central repository of information.

Go Snakes Go!

____________________________
"Rings and knots of joy and grief, all interlaced and locking." --William Buck

ErikH2000
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jbluestein wrote:
In such cases as these, I would (were I the guy making the rules, and if I had time) offer a summary of 'board elements'. You've mentioned all of them in the rules, and it's all covered, but it strikes me that greater clarity could be achieved in this way.

I agree. I'll try to put something like that up a bit later.

-Erik

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ErikH2000
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I'm putting together the arena now. I will accept new players up until the very start of the contest (deadline given in first post), but definitely not after that.

-Erik

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golfrman
Level: Master Delver

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so a little over 4 and a half more hour till the start

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Someone Else
Level: Smitemaster

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yep

ErikH2000
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I decided to break the contest into two snakepits to make it easier for players to see things. Everyone will begin in the first snakepit, and whoever exits the first snakepit will begin in the second snakepit some days later. The first snakepit contains the aforementioned Initial Test and Pair Chamber. The General Arena will be in the second snakepit.

You can actually see the first snakepit now: http://forum.caravelgames.com/snakes.php

There is a game running with real players in it, but it will be restarted fresh in negative 954 weeks, 3 days when the official contest starts. When the contest starts, I will have added any new players that have joined in the time between now (as I write this) and then. So yes, you may still enter the contest by submitting a solution to the entry puzzle.

Your goal in this first snakepit will be to reach the rightmost side. As soon as everyone has either reached that side or died, I'll start survivors in the next snakepit. We may finish the snakepit a little early if it is clear which players will go on to the next snakepit. This first snakepit has two purposes, to weed out nonparticipants and to give everyone a little practice. It is possible to die in this snakepit, but if you pay attention and understand the rules, you'll find that survival is completely within your control.

You can start looking at the first snakepit to figure out how you'll survive the Initial Test. Remember, I will be resetting the game that is currently shown, so your snake head will restart at its initial position at Local Time:08-13-2006 at 01:00 AM. If you enter commands for the real contest before the reset, they may not be used as you had intended.

-Erik

____________________________
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ErikH2000
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I'd like to point out that any kind of discussion public or private related to the game is fine. Please don't e-mail me questions about the game though. Post here so everyone can get the benefit of the answer. If you don't understand the controls or how the rules work, please ask. Also, I don't think this first snakepit is particularly competitive, so open discussion on which paths to take is encouraged.

-Erik

____________________________
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---

[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 08-12-2006 09:32 PM]

tokyokid
Level: Smiter

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Just making it clear: can the snake jump over the rocky-brown squares or only the red ones?

Sergenth
Level: Master Delver
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Snakes will only jump over red things, such as blocks, snake bodies, "dead" snake heads (x.x) and delicious cherries, because snakes do not find them as delicious as you or I.

"Live" snake heads and spikey black squares will never be jumped over.

Doom
Level: Smitemaster

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I think I missed it: When I give a command to my snake, it's executed when it bumps into a red wall/snake, but is this also true for black walls?

Here's an example situation: In the practise chamber, do I have to begin with "BBJ" or just "J" to make it past the beginning?

tokyokid
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Sergenth wrote:
Snakes will only jump over red things, such as blocks, snake bodies, "dead" snake heads (x.x) and delicious cherries, because snakes do not find them as delicious as you or I.

"Live" snake heads and spikey black squares will never be jumped over.

Thanks Sergenth!

ErikH2000
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Doom wrote:
I think I missed it: When I give a command to my snake, it's executed when it bumps into a red wall/snake, but is this also true for black walls?

All bumps count and remove a command. It doesn't matter what you bump against. And it doesn't matter if there is no opportunity to jump.

Here's an example situation: In the practise chamber, do I have to begin with "BBJ" or just "J" to make it past the beginning?

You'd want "BBJ" (assuming there are 2 bumps before your jump). If you just put "J" then the first bump would remove the jump from your pending commands.

-Erik

____________________________
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techant
Level: Smitemaster

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I see my number but I can't figure out my location. Is it 1 to 100 down or up? Or 1 to something else? And where do the across numbers run 1 left to right or right to left.

Also do we enter them now before the start time?

EDIT:
Oh I found me if I am the one marke with a yellow outline.

____________________________
DROD RPG Released!! You must try it out it is Great!!

---

[Last edited by techant at 08-12-2006 11:36 PM]

Sergenth
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When you select your name from the drop-down menu, your snake head will have a yellow-colored box set behind it.

In particular, your snake is one of the 2nd column snakes, entering from the left -- go 22 squares to the right and just scroll down to find your snake. I had lots of trouble finding mine at first, but only because I was dazzled by the glamor of Snakes!... to the Death.

And the numbering system seems to start at 0,0 on the upper left.

ErikH2000
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techant wrote:
I see my number but I can't figure out my location. Is it 1 to 100 down or up? Or 1 to something else? And where do the across numbers run 1 left to right or right to left.

What Sergenth said, but also the first number is horizontal from 0 (left) to 79 (right), and the second number is vertical from 0 (top) to 100-something (bottom).

Also do we enter them now before the start time?

I would wait for the game to reset, which (as I write this) will be about a half hour from now. (See previous post describing game reset.)

-Erik

____________________________
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techant
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Sergenth wrote:
When you select your name from the drop-down menu, your snake head will have a yellow-colored box set behind it.

In particular, your snake is one of the 2nd column snakes, entering from the left -- go 22 squares to the right and just scroll down to find your snake. I had lots of trouble finding mine at first, but only because I was dazzled by the glamor of Snakes!... to the Death.

And the numbering system seems to start at 0,0 on the upper left.

Thanks that 0,0 thru me off

____________________________
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ErikH2000
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The game has started!

The list of people who have entered is found below. The sequence of movement matches this sequence below. Also, you can find this same list of players in the dropdown of "Alive Players" on the snake page.

1. Niccus
2. Ezlo
3. TripleM
4. Brainy
5. Hikari
6. Doom
7. silver
8. Elfstone
9. Tim
10. Mikko
11. larrymurk
12. tokyokid
13. Maurog
14. trick
15. Sergenth
16. Chaco
17. NiroZ
18. Beef Row
19. Jason
20. Mattcrampy
21. krammer
22. jbluestein
23. Watcher
24. McFrugal
25. zex20913
26. Banjooie
27. Pilchard VIII
28. Ostegolectr1c
29. captainzakku
30. Krishh
31. michthro
32. Pinnacle
33. coppro
34. techant
35. Timo006
36. jamesdenem
37. Tahnan
38. Penumbra
39. jaxpylon
40. Znirk
41. NekoIncardine
42. Lst6
43. kie
44. golfrman
45. Snacko
46. nabla
47. Jolima
48. Stephen4Louise
49. nobodybutyours
50. Chris
51. Marlowe
52. Darkmatt
53. goldenlion
54. eytanz
55. bflatjeff
56. Syril Ram
57. Tuttle
58. Stefan
59. Someone Else
60. Kevin
61. Grumpf
62. Rabscuttle
63. RabidChild
64. tyrion

The timing of the Initial Test gives everyone 24 hours to figure out how to keep their snake alive. So take a look at the snakepit, find your snake, and enter some commands to get past the first trap. If you're confused, please ask questions here.

-Erik

____________________________
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dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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I added a section of game elements to the first "Rules" post in this topic. This is not a change in rules. The old rules described the same information as is found in this new section, but some people may find the explanation more clearer with the game elements described all in one place.

Also, briefly after the contest started, the small view wasn't synchronized with the full-size view. Fixed it. Hope it didn't confuse anyone too much.

-Erik

____________________________
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silver
Level: Smitemaster
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ErikH2000 wrote:

There is a game running with real players in it, but it will be restarted fresh in negative 954 weeks, 3 days when the official contest starts.

...
Remember, I will be resetting the game that is currently shown, so your snake head will restart at its initial position at Local Time:08-13-2006 at 01:00 AM.

these show two different times for me - separated by two hours, despite the board having only one (correct) opinion of what my timezone is. but looking at the text, I see them as the same GMT time. which is confusing to me entirely.


____________________________

ErikH2000
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silver wrote:
these show two different times for me - separated by two hours, despite the board having only one (correct) opinion of what my timezone is. but looking at the text, I see them as the same GMT time. which is confusing to me entirely.

Yeah, I don't know why the "untiltime" tag shows differently than "localtime". Some bug to fix, I guess. If I make any more time announcements, I'll just use the "localtime" tag. (For people who don't know what I'm talking about, there are special codes you can put into posts on the forum that show dates/times that are corrected to the timezone of whoever is looking at them.)

Anyhow, the contest did start, and snakes should be updating every two hours unless something goes wrong. I don't know that there will be any more events that depend on knowing when an announced time will occur, so I'm probably not going to worry about any timezone bugs that might exist for this contest.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

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Crud. The game didn't update automatically and I have no idea why. I ended up manually running the update. Worse, I have to leave to go someplace.

Anybody know anything about crontab files? If I got:

* 2 * * *

...followed by my command, that should run the command every 2 hours, right? When I run the command manually, it works without any problems. Other commands in the same crontab for the same user are running without any problems. The notification e-mail address is Matt's and he's away now, but I'm guessing he didn't get any errors sent to him.

-Erik

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Chris
Level: Master Delver
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I don't think this has been covered before:

Does the timing of the snakes leaving the first pit have any effect on the 2nd pit? I can see that it's possible to choose longer or shorter paths out of the first pit.

Ideally, whichever snake exits the first pit first should enter the 2nd pit first, but that is probably harder to code.

If keeping the correct separation between the snakes is too hard, then maybe you could reorder the move sequence such that the fastest snakes in the first pit get to move first in the 2nd pit? (Not that the fact that I'm 50th out of 60-odd at the moment has any bearing on this suggestion!)

ErikH2000
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Hmm. That crontab setting I had was obviously wrong. I'll try this instead:

0 0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22 * * *

...which should update the game at the start of every other hour unless I misunderstand how things work. I wish I didn't have to leave to go to a party right now.

Wait a minute... I'm going to a party!

-Erik

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Chris
Level: Master Delver
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ErikH2000 wrote:
Anybody know anything about crontab files? If I got:

* 2 * * *

...followed by my command, that should run the command every 2 hours, right?

No, that runs it once a day, at 02:00.

You want:

* 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23 * * * command

instead. (or 0, 2, 4, ..., depending on your timezone.

"man 5 crontab" gives details. There's some trick you can do using a "*/2" to run every 2 hours, but I don't know for sure how you tell it whether to run on even or odd hours using that, so spell it out in full using commas to be safe.

Chris
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Chris wrote:
You want:

* 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19,21,23 * * * command

That initial star means "every minute" of course, so that's wrong too. What you just posted is right.

silver
Level: Smitemaster
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in some versions of cron, I believe: 0 */2 * * * would also work


____________________________

Chris
Level: Master Delver
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I just tried these 3 lines on a Linux box:

*/2 * * * * date >> /tmp/cron1.txt
1-59/2 * * * * date >> /tmp/cron2.txt
0-59/2 * * * * date >> /tmp/cron3.txt

The results were as follows:

==> cron1.txt <==
Sun Aug 13 03:32:01 CEST 2006
Sun Aug 13 03:34:01 CEST 2006

==> cron2.txt <==
Sun Aug 13 03:31:01 CEST 2006
Sun Aug 13 03:33:01 CEST 2006

==> cron3.txt <==
Sun Aug 13 03:32:01 CEST 2006
Sun Aug 13 03:34:01 CEST 2006

Towards the end of the man page, there's a line:

''Ranges can include "steps", so "1-9/2" is the same as "1,3,5,7,9"''

ErikH2000
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Chris wrote:
Does the timing of the snakes leaving the first pit have any effect on the 2nd pit? I can see that it's possible to choose longer or shorter paths out of the first pit.

Not a bad idea, but no, I'm not going to have the time of entrance in the second snakepit be affected by time of exit in the first. It creates extra work I want to avoid. It's very time-consuming and easy to make mistakes setting up 64 snakes with that precision.

The top snake in each Pair Chamber has more opportunity to exit the Pair Chamber first so I also don't want to introduce unfairness that way.

Not that there won't be unfairness. Oh yeah, it will creep in 20 different ways.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)