Virus, a flash based tile game

February 21, 2007 9:52 PM

Virus is a very simple, addictive flash game; using the colors available to you at the bottom of the screen, convert all the tiles on the board into a single color. Similar colored connecting tiles become part of the viral mass. Via.
posted by jonson (75 comments total)

Okay, so techically this is "Virus 2", not "Virus." Virus was that movie with Jamie Lee Curtis & the shitty Baldwin. Also, so far my best score is 30. Beat that, bitches!
posted by jonson at 9:55 PM on February 21, 2007

Does that mean you changed the whole board in 30 moves?
posted by grobstein at 10:01 PM on February 21, 2007

Lets go lower!
posted by tellurian at 10:03 PM on February 21, 2007

Yes. And since then, I've done it once again in exactly 35, which is the maximum number of moves it allows you on the intial round. Otherwise, I've failed about six times.
posted by jonson at 10:07 PM on February 21, 2007

i apparently rock at this game.
posted by phaedon at 10:10 PM on February 21, 2007

Nice one! It's interesting how some colors are hard to read against others.
posted by zardoz at 10:10 PM on February 21, 2007

Kind of easy. I usually get 27 and haven't failed.

In the beginning give up the temptation of maximizing area on each turn. Instead, maximize "surface area" - this may involve a sacrifice to get to a rich "vein"

In the end game, only switch colors if you are sure you can obliterate all remaining cells of that color in one turn - otherwise you'll waste turns.
posted by vacapinta at 10:12 PM on February 21, 2007

31
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:13 PM on February 21, 2007

phaedon, do tell? I got to 19,000 points, three rounds in.
posted by jonson at 10:13 PM on February 21, 2007

im at 18125 and still playing, but shit, im trying to watch lost too
posted by phaedon at 10:14 PM on February 21, 2007

29-30-30-... Still playing...

The idea seems to be to look for long contiguous strips that maximize contact with other contiguous pieces. Then you can pick off the individual pieces along the way.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:16 PM on February 21, 2007

26...
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:18 PM on February 21, 2007

I didn't even complete it on the first try, got 34 on the second. Lower, now! simmer down now!
posted by gummi at 10:18 PM on February 21, 2007

the trick is to maximize your moves towards the end of the round, to take out each color category with as few moves as possible. breaking 30k. feeling kind of meh.
good post.
posted by phaedon at 10:20 PM on February 21, 2007

fun.
posted by facetious at 10:20 PM on February 21, 2007

Yeah the strategy is clearly to maximum penetration early on, not area. Last three games I've gotten 27, then 25, then 23 by doing this. Around turn 14 stop doing this automatically.
posted by Justinian at 10:20 PM on February 21, 2007

27... Yep, seems to work.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:21 PM on February 21, 2007

crap. cant break 28.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:22 PM on February 21, 2007

I got 27 but reject the suggestion that means it's easy. You have to maximize the connections among pieces of a color at the time you switch to that color, and you decide when to do that subject to the same condition for all the other colors. That seems hard to me, and it's surely an oversimplification.
posted by grobstein at 10:24 PM on February 21, 2007

to expand, i think the way the game works is, you don't have much control in the beginning. look for long threads of colors (not clumps) and try to work your way to get to those threads effectively (you might occasionally burn a mid-round on a "less squares" color - to try to get you to a longer thread quicker). after that, in the late stages, be careful not to burn a "blue" round when say... selecting blue gets you 99% of the blue, but not the last 1% blue (which will necessitate another round later). so again, put your self in a position where you might get less yellows or oranges, but you set yourself up for an "all blue" round.
posted by phaedon at 10:28 PM on February 21, 2007

I've been playing this for months... I can break 50K on a good day, and my personal lowest score on an individual board is 21, as I recall. There are some bugs in the gameplay, I've noticed towards the lower right side of the board, you occasionally get pieces flipping that shouldn't. Still, it's a nice way to relieve some boredom / stress.
posted by pjern at 10:39 PM on February 21, 2007

A word or two on strategy: I try to efficiently as possible, for the first 7 or 8 moves, to get out to the center of the board or beyond, then I use a few moves to try and send 'feelers' or 'tendrils' of a color branching out, in a manner that maximizes the 'surface area' (not the number of actual pieces of my color, but the maximum 'outline' area, if that makes sense) to maximize my end game, which i start looking at somewhere around move 16 or so.
posted by pjern at 10:46 PM on February 21, 2007

FLIP... A little bit lower now.... FLIP... A little bit lower now... FLIP... A little bit lower now... FLIP....

How Low Can You Go??

This game is great at parties!

(31)
posted by inconsequentialist at 10:51 PM on February 21, 2007

That was pretty fun. I got a 30 too.
posted by fenriq at 10:51 PM on February 21, 2007

I got a 22 on one round thanks to the advice here. Go for threads.
posted by Bookhouse at 10:53 PM on February 21, 2007

A word on my strategy since I've been playing this for minutes now. After the first 7 or 8 moves I make my vision blurred so I can see which color looks like it most wants to be *friends* with the virus, i.e. I look for which color tile seems to be most touchy feely with the virus color (somehow my blurred vision helps me make this determination faster). Then I make the virus *hug* that color.

(Warning: I know nothing about strategizing.)
posted by inconsequentialist at 10:59 PM on February 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

Man, I wish I hadn't seen this. I had things I wanted to get done tonight. My best so far: 26.
posted by crinklebat at 11:06 PM on February 21, 2007

33703 score with a low of 24 and boy, do my eyes hurt.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:09 PM on February 21, 2007

Metafilter: Lets go lower!
posted by mach at 11:10 PM on February 21, 2007 [1 favorite]

that was, by the way, the shittiest episode of Lost ever
posted by phaedon at 11:13 PM on February 21, 2007

I developed my own strategy after losing on the first round about three times, and got down to 26.
posted by oaf at 11:21 PM on February 21, 2007

49640...sooo close to 50k

I got to 24 with a best of 23.
posted by crashlanding at 11:26 PM on February 21, 2007

died on max 23 with 2 colors left
final score: 51773
fastest growth: 21
posted by metaplectic at 11:32 PM on February 21, 2007

Max attempts: 27. Best: 23. Second try.
posted by painquale at 11:41 PM on February 21, 2007

28134, fastest 27. Awesome game, thanks for the post jonson.
posted by baphomet at 11:57 PM on February 21, 2007

Looks like you got a level more than me, crashlanding.

47103, level 25, fastest rate was 23.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:13 AM on February 22, 2007

I've been playing it for months and got my rate down to 24. Then I discovered Virus3. It's significantly slower on my ancient office machine but still fun.
posted by twine42 at 12:28 AM on February 22, 2007

Level 26, fastest 23. Is there any actual strategy other than trying to grab large chunks and in the end game trying to not leave "islands" of color? I try to race across the board to the opposite corner, but obviously that's not Clausewitz.
posted by maxwelton at 12:47 AM on February 22, 2007

Best so far 25. No final score yet; still working on my first game.

Beware: when your original cell matches the colour of adjacent cells, you don't get them as freebees. When you change colour, they won't come with, and you'll have to change back to your original colour to snag them.
posted by dreamsign at 1:35 AM on February 22, 2007

final score: 40719
fastest growth: 23

I dig this game!
posted by nadise at 1:52 AM on February 22, 2007

Hmm. I can't shake the feeling that there's a very simple pattern I could follow to be the king of this game. But so far, sentience seems to beat any formula.
posted by Citizen Premier at 1:56 AM on February 22, 2007

Lesson learned: stay away from MeFi when you have work to do.
posted by FeldBum at 1:58 AM on February 22, 2007

Oooh, I'm stealing that for the next MeTa.

MeFi Moderation: so far, sentience seems to beat any formula.
posted by dreamsign at 2:05 AM on February 22, 2007

Mathematically, a 'simple' solution with the least number of turns would probably be to evaluate the board, assigning each cell a value representing how many color changes it would take to reach that cell directly, and then go directly for the cell with the highest value. There may be edge cases in which there are two or more high-value cells, with the specific arrangement of colors such that the color progression needed to reach the highest-value cell does not reach the next-highest cell. To determine that solution is more work than I am willing to expend, for the moment.
posted by Tzarius at 2:08 AM on February 22, 2007

Or, just brute force iteration by trial-and-error. Depends how many cycles you can spare. Would be interesting to see novel solutions for this problem.
posted by Tzarius at 2:32 AM on February 22, 2007

Oh great now I'll never get anything done today.. have to beat 21, have to beat 21..
posted by dabitch at 3:36 AM on February 22, 2007

Thank you.
posted by catseatcheese at 4:31 AM on February 22, 2007

Strange. I must take back what I said earlier. Starting with the same colour as cells adjacent does in fact give you the benefit of a group of starting cells. I don't know why it didn't once before.
posted by dreamsign at 4:42 AM on February 22, 2007

Yeah, I have a really bad cold sore outbreak, so this isn't fun for me at all. Somebody point me towards Kill the Goddamn Virus.
posted by LordSludge at 4:57 AM on February 22, 2007

an alternative strategy (if it counts as one) is to relax your vision - this seems to make choosing the next colour change pretty intuitive as you can get a feel for the greatest penetration colour to go for next. no real thinking involved.

works for me anyway, heading quite quickly toeards 40k.
posted by dowcrag at 4:57 AM on February 22, 2007

Great Game! ... but i'm colorblind :-(
posted by mitocan at 6:13 AM on February 22, 2007

Metafilter: addictive flash game
posted by stbalbach at 7:18 AM on February 22, 2007

Yes. And since then, I've done it once again in exactly 35, which is the maximum number of moves it allows you on the intial round. Otherwise, I've failed about six times.

Wow, I was going to post "where is the challenge"? The game just seemed absurdly easy. But, then I got pwnd on the last level, because I missed just one block...
posted by delmoi at 7:19 AM on February 22, 2007

(er, second level, not last :P)
posted by delmoi at 7:19 AM on February 22, 2007

This seems really easy to me, and not particularly interesting.
posted by empath at 7:22 AM on February 22, 2007

Me too... it's a struggle to play. Would be nice if they identified the tiles with a symbol as well as a color.
posted by fusinski at 7:22 AM on February 22, 2007

Colorblind, that is.
posted by fusinski at 7:23 AM on February 22, 2007

Great game!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 7:59 AM on February 22, 2007

Anything that dresses up graph theory as fun is okay in my book. I'm sorely tempted to take a algorithmic stab at it.
posted by cortex at 8:31 AM on February 22, 2007

So far I've beaten the first five levels with exactly 27 moves each time. Weird. But good game!
posted by mikeweeney at 8:39 AM on February 22, 2007

Justinian: Yeah the strategy is clearly to maximum penetration early on.....

That's what she said!
posted by inconsequentialist at 8:46 AM on February 22, 2007

26 on my first game, 24 on my second.
posted by nicwolff at 8:54 AM on February 22, 2007

You know I get addicted to this stuff, and yet you still insist on posting it...
posted by Mister_A at 9:04 AM on February 22, 2007

Yeah I got 24, 25, 26, 22, 28. This game is cake.
posted by I Foody at 9:08 AM on February 22, 2007

38671. I lost the last level with one remaining cell. Dangit!
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:58 AM on February 22, 2007

Once you figure it out, it's not so hard... 26, 27, 29, 25, 27...
posted by MythMaker at 12:08 PM on February 22, 2007

I got up to 86k and lost on the level with only 22 moves. I've done it in 21, but I think you'd have to put serious time and energy into analyzing a board to get under 20 moves.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 1:27 PM on February 22, 2007

Wait...my post was in regard to Virus 3, which only has 5 color options. The Virus game in the FPP has 7 color options and is much harder.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 2:35 PM on February 22, 2007

You beat me by 40 pts, mr moonpie
posted by IronLizard at 3:28 PM on February 22, 2007

38792, fastest growth 24. Not bad for my first time.

Very entertaining game. Great find jonson.
posted by quin at 3:30 PM on February 22, 2007

40053/23. I did better on Virus3 which is easier to do because of the dots in the cells, but annoyingly slow.
posted by litlnemo at 5:42 PM on February 22, 2007

I've got a 21 once though usually in the 27 range. There is a certain amount of luck involved as well as not all boards are equally doable.
posted by Mitheral at 6:50 PM on February 22, 2007

ooh! The triangle version of virus3 seems really weird if you've been doing the hex version for a while.
posted by milovoo at 1:30 PM on February 25, 2007

Okay, so the ultimate aim of the game really isn't to see how low you can go but to see how high a score you can get before you can't possibly fill up the board in the number of moves allowed. If you read the point system, you get ten points for each remaining attempt. So say that you start on the first round and leave all but one cell turned and you have 8 attempts remaining. Let's also say that that color is yellow. To maximize your score you don't go ahead and turn every cell yellow in order to get a measly 80 points. You change every cell to a color that's not yellow and then change them again to a color that's not yellow, making your score jump by about 300 points each time. That's the way you get a really high score. The only reason having as many leftover attempts as you can would be helpful is to get in those hundreds of extra points.
posted by inconsequentialist at 11:00 PM on March 4, 2007

I approve.
posted by RavinDave at 12:24 AM on March 12, 2007