Arukone

November 7, 2018 9:52 AM

Simply executed but deceptively complex logic puzzles. Connect all the matching numbers in the grid using every space and without crossing lines. That's it. Choose your skill level and you're ready to go. Caution advised: these are highly addictive.
posted by genesta (41 comments total)

This...doesn't work for me? Nothing in the puzzle responds to clicking and I can't find any extra javascript to enable.
posted by rhizome at 9:56 AM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Connect all the matching numbers in the grid using every space and without crossing lines. That's it.

Um, I really don't think that's what it is.
posted by Naberius at 10:01 AM on November 7, 2018

rhizome: Click on "English", then on "Solve puzzle".
posted by madcaptenor at 10:02 AM on November 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

I clicked "Løs oppgave" and there was a page reload and there was then a button labelled "Sjekk". Clicking that landed me in some hell world where clicking in squares caused lines to appear but which had to be clicked again to toggle into different kinds of connectors.
posted by thelonius at 10:05 AM on November 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Is the idea that we're meant to print them out and solve them on paper?
posted by Naberius at 10:06 AM on November 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is flow-free isn't it?
posted by memebake at 10:08 AM on November 7, 2018 [11 favorites]

Yes, it is. I can't believe I didn't recognize it, I wasted way too much time with that game a few years ago. It apparently has other names as well.
posted by madcaptenor at 10:16 AM on November 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

The assertion that there is only one solution is wrong. On the very first puzzle I did, my solution was different than theirs.
posted by Grither at 10:17 AM on November 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

Is the idea that we're meant to print them out and solve them on paper?
If you, as madcaptenor says, click "English" then "Solve puzzle" you get what could possibly be the worst interface for solving these that I can think of, but it does work, and if you click a billion times in the right place, the "Check" button will say you are correct.

Pro tip: Draw your lines up to the numbers but not into the numbers. Why can you draw lines in numbers if it is just automatically wrong?
posted by aubilenon at 10:18 AM on November 7, 2018 [4 favorites]

Okay, finally got it to work. Thank you!

But yeah, that interface, Jesus Christ! Does the iOS app linked above let you just draw the goddamn lines and get on with it?
posted by Naberius at 10:27 AM on November 7, 2018 [2 favorites]

Yeah I solved the first puzzle in under a minute, but the interface was so terrible on my phone it took me 5 minutes to actually complete it.

I liked the puzzle though - it reminded me of a Professor Layton puzzle.
posted by littlesq at 10:35 AM on November 7, 2018

I have an iOS app on my phone called Puzzledom that has this particular game (or variants of it) on a square grid, hex grid, and even more complex versions. You can also just touch and drag to draw the line with none of this incessant clicking nonsense. I like this kind of game but I sure as heck don't like this interface for it.
posted by komara at 10:43 AM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

But yeah, that interface, Jesus Christ! Does the iOS app linked above let you just draw the goddamn lines and get on with it?

FlowFree? Yeah. UI for FlowFree is as you would expect. Just draw the lines. It's a nice little game.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:43 AM on November 7, 2018

I like the concept of this game but the means to complete are a bit lacking. Also worth noting that you don't give the numbered boxes a line. I solved my first puzzle in 4 minutes but had to go back and click every number to remove the lines since I figured you connected on through them. Why they even let you put lines there knowing those spaces cannot have them is frustrating. Would definitely want a version of this where I draw lines instead of clicking boxes to rotate through the line segment options.

Also one with pictures/icons instead of numbers, especially since numbers are not relevant to puzzle.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:49 AM on November 7, 2018

The numbers are traditional. This puzzle (along with a billion other computationally isomorphic grid puzzles) was invented by Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle company that popularized Sudoku. They called it Numberlink and used numbers
posted by aubilenon at 11:05 AM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am absolutely baffled to see that there isn't an implementation of this in Simon Tantham's Portable Puzzle Collection. (Android, iOS, Windows Store, Palm, Symbian, your MP3 player from 2001...)
posted by OMGTehAwsome at 11:05 AM on November 7, 2018 [12 favorites]

The one puzzle I did was pretty fun but having to click so many times to get the line I wanted means I'm not going to play it again. Better to print it out and do it with paper and pencil I think.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:05 AM on November 7, 2018

I strongly recommend the ios/android version, Flow Free (link to developer's website which links to google/ios/amazon stores) and its relatives, Bridges, Hexes, Warps. Those games are free but you can pay a few dollars for extra puzzles, which I have done. I like this game a lot but the interface here is infuriating.
posted by jeather at 11:06 AM on November 7, 2018

The assertion that there is only one solution is wrong. On the very first puzzle I did, my solution was different than theirs.

Yep, once I figured out how the damn thing works, I found a solution that fits their rules and then spent 15 minutes smashing my computer into a greasy stain on the floor trying to find out why my solution was not correct. Eff this ess.
posted by NoMich at 11:15 AM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

"The numbers are traditional. This puzzle (along with a billion other computationally isomorphic grid puzzles) was invented by Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle company that popularized Sudoku. They called it Numberlink and used numbers"

Interesting you mention that, I almost put in that comment I have never done a Sudoku puzzle because of the numbers, but I would do one with pictures or colours instead. Sudoku at least has some logical reason to use numbers.
posted by GoblinHoney at 11:15 AM on November 7, 2018

Not a good interface. I've clicked myself to death, read everything here, seen the solution, and still can't draw a single line.
posted by stonepharisee at 11:17 AM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Sudoku at least has some logical reason to use numbers

Sudoku works fine with any 9 distinct symbols or colors or whatever.

Everyone who thinks you've found a different solution besides the one they wanted, did you fill in every space in the grid? Because that's also required.
posted by aubilenon at 11:32 AM on November 7, 2018

You have to click on Løs oppgave before it lets you draw any lines. And then the actual line drawing is done in a pretty awkward way, by clicking repeatedly to cycle through all the possible pairs of sides you're connecting.
posted by RobotHero at 11:32 AM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

aubilenon, yes, mine filled in all the spaces on the board. When I clicked "check" at the end it said my solution was correct, but then showed me a picture of a different solution.
posted by Grither at 11:36 AM on November 7, 2018

oh then that's an incorrect/invalid puzzle of this type. They are not supposed to be ambiguous.
posted by aubilenon at 11:39 AM on November 7, 2018

On the one hand, that's a terrible puzzle and a terrible interface. On the other hand, this website also allows you to generate Kakuro puzzles, which my mother loves and which are hard to come by.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:42 AM on November 7, 2018

are there co-operative games in this genre? i.e. two/multi-player that aren't in competition.
posted by lescour at 11:54 AM on November 7, 2018

This puzzle (along with a billion other computationally isomorphic grid puzzles) was invented by Nikoli, the Japanese puzzle company that popularized Sudoku. They called it Numberlink and used numbers

Wikipedia says its Western, and close to 100 years older than Nikoli's.
posted by Dee Grim at 11:59 AM on November 7, 2018

Also one with pictures/icons instead of numbers, especially since numbers are not relevant to puzzle.

I've played the free version of Flow Free on Android off and on for a long time and in addition to just drawing the lines feeling much better, my brain has a much easier time working these puzzles when you are connecting matching colors with a like-colored path than when you are drawing lines between matching numbers.

Here's a version you can play online in a browser. Using a mouse feels a lot clumsier than drawing on a touch screen with your finger, but it's still a thousand times better than the Arukone interface in the original link.

UPDATE: Link removed because possible malware site. Sorry.
posted by straight at 12:14 PM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

This link seems like it might be okay.
posted by straight at 12:19 PM on November 7, 2018

You have to click on Løs oppgave before it lets you draw any lines.

Well, obviously! How do you expect to draw a line by clicking through a rotating sequence of all possible configurations for each individual line segment if you haven't clicked Løs oppgave?
posted by Naberius at 1:08 PM on November 7, 2018 [7 favorites]

I've bought a couple of the Nikoli numberlink books. The Nikoli ones are particularly satisfying because they don't have the requirement that you have to use every square - instead, they enforce it in the puzzle construction. The most efficient solution uses every square.

The algorithmically generated puzzles that chicken out by saying more efficient solutions are invalid are programmed by cowards. Yes FlowFree I'm looking at you
posted by Merus at 3:24 PM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

are there co-operative games in this genre? i.e. two/multi-player that aren't in competition.

Picross S2 on Switch now supports multiplayer. I'm not aware of any PC compatible games that do this though. We sometimes did sgt-puzzles on a tablet as a kind of multiplayer game at lunch, so maybe.
posted by pwnguin at 4:52 PM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

Is it too much to ask for the English link to join the original in the FPP? Because a tiny notice saying English at the bottom of a list of links in the middle of a sidebar is not something the eye readily alights upon?
posted by JHarris at 5:04 PM on November 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

I too immediately saw a Flow Free clone. Not sure if this is a clone of that, or that is a clone of this. But the linked web site does not do a good job of describing the rules, IMHO.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 5:23 PM on November 7, 2018

... especially since numbers are not relevant to puzzle

Up to this point I was thinking this sounded like a variant of the PathPix games on iOS, which I see are available for Android too - but in PathPix the numbers are absolutely relevant: they tell you the length of the path (including the numbers at either end). So a 1 is a single square, a pair of 2s will be adjacent, and so on. Colours are also used, so if you see a dark green 7 then you need to find another dark green 7 that you can connect to it with a path of length 7. You end up with a pixel-art image with every square filled. Intuitive user interface too (you just draw the path).

PathPix is the original game, and the developer's added a whole series of others over the years. Highly recommended.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 4:12 AM on November 8, 2018

"... fill in every space of the grid ..." . Oh, OK, thanks. I won't get so annoyed, then.
posted by King Sky Prawn at 12:18 PM on November 8, 2018

I take it back, it annoys me more, now that I know that I need to put a path through every square. My brain insists on thinking of this as somehow connected to the real world, and using every square is a waste of resources. This is why we have global warming, people!
posted by King Sky Prawn at 12:27 PM on November 8, 2018 [2 favorites]

Thanks for reminding me about Pathpix, I'm running out of Flow games.
posted by jeather at 7:28 AM on November 9, 2018

My brain insists on thinking of this as somehow connected to the real world, and using every square is a waste of resources.

Think of it as a way of distributing resources to every spot on the grid, rather than of getting goods from A to B.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:22 AM on November 9, 2018

I solved without filling every square. The puzzle said as much. But it is not happy if you vary from their chosen answer, and still solve. Just odd.
posted by Oyéah at 4:59 PM on November 12, 2018