[Custom Dungeon] [1234 challenge] Feedback

[Zyx]

I made this dungeon to answer to a challenge proposed by Paul Stevens:

"And nobody ever managed to answer my
challenge of creating a puzzle that required four
switches to be pressed in a particular sequence"

This dungeon only works for PC DM. It crashes on CSBwin. (could you check why, Paul?)
Just enter the dungeon, pick a character of your choice, and press the switches until the iron grate opens.

[Paul Stevens]

It appears to be little-endian.

It works just fine in CSBwin after one pass through
CSBuild to convert its endianness. (Don't look that
up in Webster's.)

[Paul Stevens]

I quote from 10 November 2002:
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
An interesting puzzle. Can you build a dungeon that
requires the switches to be pressed in the proper
sequence? A prize goes to the solution with the
fewest actuators. The rule is that it must work if the
most recent four switch-presses are in the proper
order. For example if the proper order is "ABCD" then
if you have pressed "ABBABCCDBABCD". the wall
will open after the final "ABCD" and not before. Note
that "ABCCD", for example, should not work. Once
opened, the wall must close again if any switch is
pressed. Decision of the judge is final.
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Your solution seems very close. But if you re-read the
penultimate sentence in the challenge you will see
that you have failed miserably.

[Zyx]

Damn! I wasn't aware of this 10th november 2002 declaration!
On the work again...

[Paul Stevens]

I should also warn you that the Judge has decreed
that, because the challenge was issued before the
advent of the And/Or Edge Detection Invention, the
use of said And/Or Edge Detection Invention will be
considered a violation of the rules and will make any
dungeon utilizing such And/Or Edge Detection
Invention devices as an integral part of the mechanism
which solves the challenge ineligible for prizes in the the
Contest and any such submitted dungeon shall be
NULL and VOID and will will be considered property of
the Examining Committee and will not be returned to
the submitting party and the submitter shall forever
after be known as a Cheater and become ineligible
for nomination to the DM Hall of Fame (located somewhere
near dmweb.free.fr).
============
I consider this an equitable ruling because it clearly
reflects the intent of the challenger on 10 November 2002.

Judge and Examining Committee Chair,
PAul

==========================================
==========================================
Hey, Christophe,

A DM Hall of Fame ain't a bad idea. Portrait, background,
and list of DM/CSB accomplishments. I nominate Mr.
ChristopheF. Quite a few others are easy selections: George
would be elected on the first ballot, I am sure. People
who have made a large, long-lasting, positive contribution.
Unlike the Baseball Hall of Fame, you don't have to die
to be nominated and elected.

[Zyx]

So I infer that I can use CSBuild to make this dungeon, as long as I use no "edge detection" and no DSA?
That's a good new because I was considering making a research by myself about some hex codes (with DMute) for and/or gates, as the manual made by Beowuuf seems to be wrong about them.

[Paul Stevens]

Oh, certainly. Use any editor you choose. Use a binary
editor if you like. But it has to use the runtime capabilities
that existed in the original DM/CSB.

You can run it with CSBwin if you like but no
DSA and no edge detection.

The purpose was to demonstrate how hard some
seemingly simple problems are with the original DM engine
and how easy they are with DSA.

[Charlatan75]

Hello,

I tried to make a dungeon to answer to this challenge.
Hmm... in fact I used a lot of actuators... and teleporters... and boulders...
I'm afraid you will find my solution ridiculous, but I found fun to try to make
something. )

When you enter the room with the four buttons, what you can see on your left is the "diabolical mecanism of the system" (also called "the four boulders"), so it will not be hard to find the right sequence to open the door.

I used DMBuild(v0.85.mu) to make this dungeon and it works (at least on my computer) with the PC version of Dungeon Master.

- Charlatan75 -

[Charlatan75]

Hello again,

I found a way to simplify my system, without boulders and teleporters... )

I also used DMBuild(v0.85.mu) to make this dungeon and it works with the PC version of Dungeon Master.

- Charlatan75 -

[Paul Stevens]

It works just fine with CSBwin after conversion
to big-endian.

It appears to be a solution to the problem.
Everything I tried worked. I count twenty-two
actuators.

We will have to wait and see what Zyx comes
up with.

[beowuuf]

*cracks fingers* right, i'm digging out that damn dungeon i started, and testing it, before i forget again for the millionth time!

[Zyx]

Well done Charlatan. Now I'll have not only to meet with the convention #20021110's requierements, I'll also have to stay under the 22 actuators!

[Zyx]

Here, my second try. 18 actuators!

[beowuuf]

*throws my .dat file across room metaphorically* bah, work curse you! keep getting lock ups, and its 32 actuators aaaaaaaanyway : )

Well, i'm impressed with charltan's, it works well and seems to be very economic. The only way you can fool the system is double tap a switch, and i think the DM engine makes it impossible to protect against that - but even a quick series of presses on the same switch in succession is blocked

*bows to the winner*

...unless zyx has somehting up his sleeve.... : )


About the and/or thing and my manual - which part did i get wrong? Is there a hex code wrong?
There is definitely code missing - all hex from 5 0 to 85 ff is used for every instance of set/unset by close on each face, i just haven't got round to marking it all up yet

[beowuuf]

Lol, ask and it shall appear...

Biut I can't play it to see it! It's CSB4win, right?

[Paul Stevens]

Eighteen is correct. I cannot break it. This
is a lot better than I expected anyone could do.

I looks legal to me.

Did you take advantage of the fact that two messages
sent at the same time arrive in a particular order. There
is nothing in the rules that prevents this....I am just
curious.

By the way - does everyone know what in what order
messages are processed when they are timed to
arrive simultaneously? It is easy to construct a
dungeon in which the order is critical!

For example, two actuators operated by the same
pushbutton; one sets a bit in an And/Or and the other
clears the same bit at the same time. In one case
the bit will be set when it is all done and in the other
case it will be clear, depending on the order the
messages are processed.

How can you specify which order you want?

[Charlatan75]

Hello,

Excellent work Zyx! Your solution looks perfect to me ^^
I was happy to participate in this challenge, that I found very interesting!

- Charlatan75 -

[Zyx]

Beowuuf:
I am almost certain there is something wrong in the "Open on North face, close rest" column. It gets activated on value 85 8 which is, according to your manual, an "all opened state" (or "all closed state" if the 1 mean "closed" and the "0" mean "open").
I tried several times but had to quit because another, faster way was available. That's why I switched to CSBwin.
I would be interested in seeing your work anyway, I consider the challenge is still opened.

Charlatan75:
i'm glad you joined me in the challenge. It is interesting to see the other answers other people find to a common problem. Besides, you linked your puzzle with the rest of the dungeon and set several decorations, I think you won the "ambience prize"!

Paul:
Yes, I used the order of activation on a same tile. I was about to post something about the order. Here it is:
(it is, of course, another complain/comment/suggestion/bug report for CSBuild)

When there are several actuators stacked in a wall, I think you should precise that the last one is displayed (this would be the top of the stack, although the the bottom list), and that an input message would be processed from the first (=bottom of the stack=top of the list) to the last (=top of the stack=bottom of the list). Right now it is quite confusing.

A simple way to clarify this would be by putting numbers (indexes) to each item, as for an open floor cell, with an explanation about displaying and about order of triggering.

I am not 100% sure how it works in the following case:
Cell 1 contains actuators A, B and C.
Cell 2 contains actuator D.
An input message on cell 1 activates A and C
A sends a message to cell 2. D is activated and sends a message to cell 1 that will activate B.

I don't know if order of activation will be A, D, B, C (the " interruption" way) or A, C,D,B (the "stack" way)

[Zyx]

This challenge was a good idea, it could be neat to organize from time to time some "dungeon designing challenges".
Any ideas?
Anyone interested?

[Paul Stevens]

When there are several actuators stacked in a wall, I think you should precise that the last one is displayed (this would be the top of the stack, although the the bottom list), and that an input message would be processed from the first (=bottom of the stack=top of the list) to the last (=top of the stack=bottom of the list). Right now it is quite confusing.

The reason it is confusing to you is that you have named the
top of the list "the bottom of the stack".

The actuators are processed in order as you read them in
the list. Just as you would process the words in a book. At
least in English. An input message goes to the first in
the list, then the second, etc. But we can say these things
in the context-sensitive help.

And, since they are processed from top to bottom, it makes sense
that the last one would be the one displayed. As you process
them you look for graphics. The last one you see is the one
that gets drawn because it is 'copied on top of' the previous
ones. Again, we can say this in the help. Keep it in mind
for when the context-help becomes available.

A much simpler problem than the one you describe.

Pressure pad in cell 1 contains actuator A and B.
A closes a door after 1 time unit. B opens it after 1 time unit.

When I step into cell 1 does the door open or close?
How can you be sure?

[Zyx]

Errr... my guess would be that the door opens, because the last message will be an opened.

This is a rough guess as I can't read C++ so the sources of CSBwin are of no use for me.
Because of the delay, a message A(close) and then a message B(open) are created with a counter of 1 tick.
The problem is to know how they are stacked and read from the stack. To conserve the order, when the delay is over, messages should be processed from the oldest (message A) to the newest (message B).
A save/load operation should not rearrange this order either.
I trust the FTL guys. They were terribly clever. The door will open.

*off to CSBuild to check it*

[beowuuf]

Zyx: In the manual, the 1 means 'active' and the '0' means 'innactive', or set/clear if you prefer. So 85 8 will be the active state and remain so as long as the north face is targetted by an open, and the other faces targetted by close, effects. Its the way i prefer to think of objects - by their internal state, not by what is targetted at them. I just checked it out in DM and it seems fine (for 85 . Tell me if I've missed something : )

[PicturesInTheDark]

I'm a bit confused - the latest version of CSBuild (0.775) shows 22 actuators (pushbuttons, AND/OR) for both solutions. And since the additional specification called for no use of AND/OR how come since everybody seems to agree the solutions were good, that CSBuild still shows AND/OR's? The question is just for understanding, so no hurry.

Regards, PitD

[Paul Stevens]

No...No...No.

You are not likely to solve the puzzle without any
And/Or-gates.

The Judge's decree says that you are not allowed to
use the newly invented 'Edge Detection' feature of the
And/Or gates. That feature was not in the original
DM/CSB.....I added it when I discovered I needed it and
found that there were some unused bits.

[PicturesInTheDark]

Ok. And why does the second solution contain 22 actuators? Or do the 4 additional ones behind the fake wall not count towards the solution?

Regards, PitD

[Zyx]

"Or do the 4 additional ones behind the fake wall not count towards the solution?"
That's it, they're just here to show the "1,2,3,4" texts if you can't find the right order.

[Zyx]

Beowuuf:
85 8 is depicted in your manual with bits "1111", that is: all opened, all set, or all active.
Now, you say:
"So 85 8 will be the active state and remain so as long as the north face is targetted by an open, and the other faces targetted by close, effects. "
If 85 8=1111 is all opened but receives 3 close effects then it won't remain an "all opened" state.


Wait. I think I'm beginning to understand.

"Open on North face, close rest" means:
north (byte1) is only set with an open effect
east (byte2) is only set with a close effect
south (byte3) is only set with a close effect
west (byte4) is only set with a close effect
The pad will only be activated in an "all set state", that is, "1111"

Am I right?

[beowuuf]

Exactly... I'm taking about their states with my numbers - so 1111 means all set, and these thigns only trip when all the faces are set.
How you set the effect is told by the top label - as you say, in that case open, close, close, close

I can try and clear that up if I get back to a re-write!

As i've stated before, that list isn't exhaustive - there are instances for a trigger needing opens to set all faces, or close all faces except west - i have a saved game ready to check those, I will release the results when i get them : )