i like the idea a lot but finding the optimal configuration for a given piece set was absolutely a brute force affair. since it's solving for the optimal config, it would be nice if you added an upgrade that let the user see.. or at least get a hint at the optimal config.
That was implemented at some point, but I had to remove it. I see the solver as a guide, pushing the player to understand that he needs to (at least try to) optimize, even if he does not find the optimal configuration.
Also, having a “decent” configuration is often largely enough to unlock new upgrades / new cells to buy / new prestige perks pretty fast (less than a minute usually), which would make the “exact best” configuration obsolete already…
The hints could be efficient for very early stages, but at some point, there is no difference between providing the player nothing at all, and providing 1 or 2 exact piece positions, because the complexity is still enormous (the solver literally does billions of iterations for each solving round before it breaks). I would have to almost provide the solution itself. Also this solver breaking is a reminder that brute force is not the appropriate way to solve it, because after that, you’re on your own to solve it.. This should indicate that there should be enough information on the board to exploit the pieces capabilities in various ways to obtain a “good enough” configuration to continue progressing at a good pace in the game.
yeah i figured the solver was doing a brute force. do you use any heuristics or does it just brute force every permutation? cool, either way. i like putting simulation stuff in my games too. just getting an AI to play snake was a huge pain
I started with brute force indeed, then I tried to define some heuristics, but in fact the rules change pretty much every time you buy a perk, an upgrade, a piece or a new square, so the best solution can be pretty much anything for any position. So I gave up the idea of defining heuristics and focused on optimizing the brute force instead..
Loved the game! This is a screenshot from the Steam Demo (just because I played there too, and it was the most optimal scoring I found) Not sure what the full board record is! Have you thought about opening a Discord server for this and the other games you will be releasing in 2026? I can help with that if you'd like! I have experience in these kinda things and would love to help you bring the community around your games together. Let me know / contact me on Discord (sefaku)
Thanks for the feedback! I can say the record is above 600K for the 5x5 board here.. I considered adding a leaderboard but it might only be in a dedicated mode in the final version instead.
I have considered creating a discord, but imo the amount of people actually interested in my games is not high enough to make it worth it yet… maybe in a few months, but thank you for the proposition!
Hi, nice game. I maxed out the demo. One thing that I notice that I don't know if it's intentional but the cycle speed cost is lower for each upgrade, so you start requiring 5M and the last upgrade is 1. something M
That was planned all along ;) I didn’t want people to have to wait more at the end of the demo and end up hesitating between buying this upgrade or buying the last square to finish, so I wanted to be sure they would buy all the successive cycle speed upgrades as a sort of final explosion of production…
That’s… Impressive! I literally never managed to beat the solver… Might be a rounding error somewhere.. Good job, though there is definitely room for improvement in your position! Plenty of square not unlocked yet that can only increase your production (as long as you control them by at least 1 piece)!
Hey! The prestige progress only is saved, so it should help you restart more easily if needed, but do you have more details about which popup/ at what point in the game and the freeze itself (generation is frozen, but buttons still seem active)? I’ve tried replicating this bug for hours now, but was not able to yet…
Sorry for my very unusable bug report ;) Well, it was my very first play attempt, and in a very early stage in the game, i had two or three pawns and one Knight placed on the board with a production of 14 and no more pieces unlocked yet. But i do not remember wich popup it was, sorry, but i think it had just text in it. I restarted the game now, but everything went fine. Maybe it wasn´t a bug in the game but a hickup from unity :)
Finished the Demo and wishlisted on steam. A few remarks you might want to consider:
- The reset/prestige mechanism is done without confirmation or being able to look what costs what first. This is not good, because you cannot decide when you want to prestige and can even accidentally do so.
- Tooltips near the edge are cut off
- It was kinda unclear to me what produce/harvest mean and how to check where I was only producing, but not harvesting.
Yes, that’s implemented in the whole game in fact, but with only 6 prestige points, I removed it in the demo to streamline the gameplay and be sure to not have people second-guessing themselves when going to prestige, since these are expected to be short prestige/reset (5 minutes or so). Stacking prestige points would mean you will have way too many new rules to understand & exploit at once afterwards…
For the tooltips cut off, I suppose you talk about the prestige graph, but you can move the prestige scene with mouse/drag. I will make this more obvious
This is a big one, it seems I didn’t explain the generation correctly; You produce & harvest on all the squares you control, but each cycle is a 2-steps process where multiple pieces will produce on all the square they control, but then they will all harvest on these same squares they control. Each piece harvests everything that is available on the square after the production step.. Ok, still not clear. I need to find a way to make it clearer, or even maybe to separate steps visually in game.
Thanks for the explanations, 1 & 2 make sense. To be honest, the producing/harvesting mechanic sounds too complicated, personally I'd get rid of it and only produce.
that's the whole point of the game and why/how it go up so not a good idea to get rid of it. But you can explain the mechanic simpler (i think at least) with the cell give number of pieces which control the cell * number of pieces who harvest it which is normally the same. And so the more you control one specific cell the more it produces. thinking with cell by cell seems better than specific pieces i think.
Sorry I missed this answer, thats a nice way to explain it indeed! I didn’t want to go as far as providing the formula behind, but if it ends up being clearer than a complex description, I might reconsider…
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After hundreds of attempts, I can’t do any better. I’m not showing you the entire screen,
that wouldn’t be fair play 🤪
Impressive!! That’s.. a lot! Thanks for not spoiling a solution!
i like the idea a lot but finding the optimal configuration for a given piece set was absolutely a brute force affair. since it's solving for the optimal config, it would be nice if you added an upgrade that let the user see.. or at least get a hint at the optimal config.
That was implemented at some point, but I had to remove it. I see the solver as a guide, pushing the player to understand that he needs to (at least try to) optimize, even if he does not find the optimal configuration.
Also, having a “decent” configuration is often largely enough to unlock new upgrades / new cells to buy / new prestige perks pretty fast (less than a minute usually), which would make the “exact best” configuration obsolete already…
The hints could be efficient for very early stages, but at some point, there is no difference between providing the player nothing at all, and providing 1 or 2 exact piece positions, because the complexity is still enormous (the solver literally does billions of iterations for each solving round before it breaks). I would have to almost provide the solution itself. Also this solver breaking is a reminder that brute force is not the appropriate way to solve it, because after that, you’re on your own to solve it.. This should indicate that there should be enough information on the board to exploit the pieces capabilities in various ways to obtain a “good enough” configuration to continue progressing at a good pace in the game.
just a heads up, that sharpnova guy goes around and just flames people on itch - check his comment history. id ignore any criticism he gives.
yeah i figured the solver was doing a brute force. do you use any heuristics or does it just brute force every permutation? cool, either way. i like putting simulation stuff in my games too. just getting an AI to play snake was a huge pain
I started with brute force indeed, then I tried to define some heuristics, but in fact the rules change pretty much every time you buy a perk, an upgrade, a piece or a new square, so the best solution can be pretty much anything for any position. So I gave up the idea of defining heuristics and focused on optimizing the brute force instead..
This is a screenshot from the Steam Demo (just because I played there too, and it was the most optimal scoring I found)
Not sure what the full board record is!
Have you thought about opening a Discord server for this and the other games you will be releasing in 2026?
I can help with that if you'd like!
I have experience in these kinda things and would love to help you bring the community around your games together.
Let me know / contact me on Discord (sefaku)
Thanks for the feedback! I can say the record is above 600K for the 5x5 board here.. I considered adding a leaderboard but it might only be in a dedicated mode in the final version instead. I have considered creating a discord, but imo the amount of people actually interested in my games is not high enough to make it worth it yet… maybe in a few months, but thank you for the proposition!
Of course!
I'll try to find a better setup..
And do hit me up if you ever want to get a Discord going <3
Much love
Hi, nice game. I maxed out the demo.
One thing that I notice that I don't know if it's intentional but the cycle speed cost is lower for each upgrade, so you start requiring 5M and the last upgrade is 1. something M
That was planned all along ;) I didn’t want people to have to wait more at the end of the demo and end up hesitating between buying this upgrade or buying the last square to finish, so I wanted to be sure they would buy all the successive cycle speed upgrades as a sort of final explosion of production…
That’s… Impressive! I literally never managed to beat the solver… Might be a rounding error somewhere.. Good job, though there is definitely room for improvement in your position! Plenty of square not unlocked yet that can only increase your production (as long as you control them by at least 1 piece)!
i'm not smart enough to know the what would be the best configuration, and the next square a i bought broke the solver
Gnäh :( One Info-Popup made the game freeze and reloading destroyed the progress :(
Hey! The prestige progress only is saved, so it should help you restart more easily if needed, but do you have more details about which popup/ at what point in the game and the freeze itself (generation is frozen, but buttons still seem active)? I’ve tried replicating this bug for hours now, but was not able to yet…
Sorry for my very unusable bug report ;) Well, it was my very first play attempt, and in a very early stage in the game, i had two or three pawns and one Knight placed on the board with a production of 14 and no more pieces unlocked yet. But i do not remember wich popup it was, sorry, but i think it had just text in it. I restarted the game now, but everything went fine. Maybe it wasn´t a bug in the game but a hickup from unity :)
Finished the Demo and wishlisted on steam. A few remarks you might want to consider:
- The reset/prestige mechanism is done without confirmation or being able to look what costs what first. This is not good, because you cannot decide when you want to prestige and can even accidentally do so.
- Tooltips near the edge are cut off
- It was kinda unclear to me what produce/harvest mean and how to check where I was only producing, but not harvesting.
Thank you for the feedback!
Thanks for the explanations, 1 & 2 make sense. To be honest, the producing/harvesting mechanic sounds too complicated, personally I'd get rid of it and only produce.
that's the whole point of the game and why/how it go up so not a good idea to get rid of it. But you can explain the mechanic simpler (i think at least) with the cell give number of pieces which control the cell * number of pieces who harvest it which is normally the same. And so the more you control one specific cell the more it produces. thinking with cell by cell seems better than specific pieces i think.
Sorry I missed this answer, thats a nice way to explain it indeed! I didn’t want to go as far as providing the formula behind, but if it ends up being clearer than a complex description, I might reconsider…
Really cool game! And I really appreciate the Czech localization!
Thanks! The game is complex enough, I felt it would be a good idea to have localization to help understand it…
Seems fun, but crashed/froze after about ten minutes. (Firefox)
Thank you for letting me know!! It is fixed now!!