Comments on: Virus, a flash based tile game

Virus, a flash based tile game

jonson — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:52:09 -0800

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.

By: jonson

jonson — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:55:52 -0800

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!

By: grobstein

grobstein — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:01:45 -0800

Does that mean you changed the whole board in 30 moves?

By: tellurian

tellurian — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:03:02 -0800

Lets go lower!

By: jonson

jonson — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:07:01 -0800

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.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:10:19 -0800

i apparently rock at this game.

By: zardoz

zardoz — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:10:46 -0800

Nice one! It's interesting how some colors are hard to read against others.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:12:54 -0800

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.

By: T.D. Strange

T.D. Strange — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:13:09 -0800

By: jonson

jonson — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:13:20 -0800

phaedon, do tell? I got to 19,000 points, three rounds in.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:14:22 -0800

im at 18125 and still playing, but shit, im trying to watch lost too

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:16:35 -0800

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.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:18:35 -0800

26...

By: gummi

gummi — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:18:36 -0800

I didn't even complete it on the first try, got 34 on the second. Lower, now! simmer down now!

By: phaedon

phaedon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:20:06 -0800

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.

By: facetious

facetious — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:20:15 -0800

fun.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:20:58 -0800

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.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:21:03 -0800

27... Yep, seems to work.

By: T.D. Strange

T.D. Strange — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:22:28 -0800

crap. cant break 28.

By: grobstein

grobstein — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:24:27 -0800

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.

By: phaedon

phaedon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:28:33 -0800

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.

By: pjern

pjern — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:39:05 -0800

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.

By: pjern

pjern — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:46:21 -0800

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.

By: inconsequentialist

inconsequentialist — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:51:26 -0800

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)

By: fenriq

fenriq — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:51:42 -0800

That was pretty fun. I got a 30 too.

By: Bookhouse

Bookhouse — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:53:26 -0800

I got a 22 on one round thanks to the advice here. Go for threads.

By: inconsequentialist

inconsequentialist — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 22:59:48 -0800

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.)

By: crinklebat

crinklebat — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:06:22 -0800

Man, I wish I hadn't seen this. I had things I wanted to get done tonight. My best so far: 26.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:09:54 -0800

33703 score with a low of 24 and boy, do my eyes hurt.

By: mach

mach — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:10:41 -0800

Metafilter: Lets go lower!

By: phaedon

phaedon — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:13:09 -0800

that was, by the way, the shittiest episode of Lost ever

By: oaf

oaf — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:21:08 -0800

I developed my own strategy after losing on the first round about three times, and got down to 26.

By: crashlanding

crashlanding — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:26:05 -0800

49640...sooo close to 50k I got to 24 with a best of 23.

By: metaplectic

metaplectic — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:32:27 -0800

died on max 23 with 2 colors left final score: 51773 fastest growth: 21

By: painquale

painquale — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:41:04 -0800

Max attempts: 27. Best: 23. Second try.

By: baphomet

baphomet — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 23:57:03 -0800

28134, fastest 27. Awesome game, thanks for the post jonson.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:13:54 -0800

Looks like you got a level more than me, crashlanding. 47103, level 25, fastest rate was 23.

By: twine42

twine42 — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:28:12 -0800

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.

By: maxwelton

maxwelton — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:47:57 -0800

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.

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:35:33 -0800

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.

By: nadise

nadise — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:52:41 -0800

final score: 40719 fastest growth: 23 I dig this game!

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:56:00 -0800

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.

By: FeldBum

FeldBum — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:58:11 -0800

Lesson learned: stay away from MeFi when you have work to do.

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:05:56 -0800

Oooh, I'm stealing that for the next MeTa. MeFi Moderation: so far, sentience seems to beat any formula.

By: Tzarius

Tzarius — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:08:21 -0800

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.

By: Tzarius

Tzarius — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 02:32:23 -0800

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.

By: dabitch

dabitch — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 03:36:09 -0800

Oh great now I'll never get anything done today.. have to beat 21, have to beat 21..

By: catseatcheese

catseatcheese — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:31:12 -0800

Thank you.

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:42:31 -0800

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.

By: LordSludge

LordSludge — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:57:29 -0800

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.

By: dowcrag

dowcrag — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:57:55 -0800

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.

By: mitocan

mitocan — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 06:13:47 -0800

Great Game! ... but i'm colorblind :-(

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:18:56 -0800

Metafilter: addictive flash game

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:19:19 -0800

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...

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:19:31 -0800

(er, second level, not last :P)

By: empath

empath — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:22:54 -0800

This seems really easy to me, and not particularly interesting.

By: fusinski

fusinski — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:22:57 -0800

Me too... it's a struggle to play. Would be nice if they identified the tiles with a symbol as well as a color.

By: fusinski

fusinski — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:23:39 -0800

Colorblind, that is.

By: soundofsuburbia

soundofsuburbia — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 07:59:23 -0800

Great game!

By: cortex

cortex — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 08:31:58 -0800

Anything that dresses up graph theory as fun is okay in my book. I'm sorely tempted to take a algorithmic stab at it.

By: mikeweeney

mikeweeney — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 08:39:33 -0800

So far I've beaten the first five levels with exactly 27 moves each time. Weird. But good game!

By: inconsequentialist

inconsequentialist — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 08:46:34 -0800

Justinian: Yeah the strategy is clearly to maximum penetration early on..... That's what she said!

By: nicwolff

nicwolff — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 08:54:59 -0800

26 on my first game, 24 on my second.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:04:48 -0800

You know I get addicted to this stuff, and yet you still insist on posting it...

By: I Foody

I Foody — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:08:19 -0800

Yeah I got 24, 25, 26, 22, 28. This game is cake.

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 11:58:01 -0800

38671. I lost the last level with one remaining cell. Dangit!

By: MythMaker

MythMaker — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 12:08:08 -0800

Once you figure it out, it's not so hard... 26, 27, 29, 25, 27...

By: mbd1mbd1

mbd1mbd1 — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 13:27:05 -0800

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.

By: mbd1mbd1

mbd1mbd1 — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:35:46 -0800

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.

By: IronLizard

IronLizard — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:28:24 -0800

You beat me by 40 pts, mr moonpie

By: quin

quin — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:30:10 -0800

38792, fastest growth 24. Not bad for my first time. Very entertaining game. Great find jonson.

By: litlnemo

litlnemo — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:42:42 -0800

40053/23. I did better on Virus3 which is easier to do because of the dots in the cells, but annoyingly slow.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 18:50:46 -0800

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.

By: milovoo

milovoo — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 13:30:32 -0800

ooh! The triangle version of virus3 seems really weird if you've been doing the hex version for a while.

By: inconsequentialist

inconsequentialist — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 23:00:22 -0800

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.

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 00:24:37 -0800

I approve.