Message #829

From: Matthew Galla <mgalla@trinity.edu>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] Introducing "MagicTile"
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 03:37:05 -0600

Very nice, Roice.

Although the options are clearly limited, this program is a work of art. The
hyperbolic face patterns combined with the scrambled colors are absolutely
beautiful.

I played around with some puzzles I already understood, and it takes a while
to get used to the little quirks in your program, but well worth it! I did
notice that the outermost face for the cube and megaminx series is
controlled opposite to my intuition. If I am thinking in terms of macros and
try to apply a macro I know works near the center of the puzzle on the
outermost face, I find that I must invert every move on the outermost face.
A closer look reveals that this is because the outermost face is inverted.
Now this is just an idea, but have you considered inverting the movement for
just the outermost face? Although it my confuse some things visually, I
think it may be an overall improvement solving-wise.

Also, most of your 2-layer puzzles are currently not working (which I’m sure
you already know). Are you looking into correcting this function of the
program? If so, can we expect puzzles with an even number of layers >2? For
puzzles with even layers (excluding cube) the visual pieces will have to
pass under/over/through each other. This is an inevitable behavior if you
restrict the exterior shape of a puzzle (which your program does because it
forces it to be drawn on a hyperplane). However, as you demonstrated with
the two-layered megaminx (impossiball) this is clearly do-able.

I am also looking forward to an updatewhere we can reorient some of these
puzzles! This is allowable on the cubical and dodecahedral puzzles by
holding down every layer number, but I would love to watch some these
hyperplane tesselations shift!

My favorite thing about your program, however, is the identical puzzles with
different sticker patterns. I am very interested to know how you came up
with the different patterns of colors on say, {6,3}, as well as the other
puzzles with multiple color-pattern options.

All in all, an excellent program that opens up a world of puzzles I had
never considered before! Although, I should say that none of the puzzles in
your program are very hard ;)

Thank you for once again expanding the limits on twisty puzzles!
Matt Galla
PS How many moves counts as an official scramble so I can start submitting
my solves? :)
On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 9:04 PM, Roice Nelson <roice3@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Thanks to everyone for the thoughtful feedback on my question this week. I
> appreciate it, and it was good to get your perspectives.
>
> I think I’m ready enough to share a first pass of the new Rubik analogue I
> started playing with before the MC4D 4.0 fun, which I mentioned the
> possibility of here<http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/4D_Cubing/message/541>some time ago. While you might observe it doesn’t quite fall into the
> category of hyperpuzzles, it does in at least once sense mentioned below :D
> Here is the page with the download, pictures, and a video<http://www.gravitation3d.com/magictile>.
> To describe the analogue idea, I’ll just quote the beginning of the
> explanation on that page:
>
>
>> This program aims to support twisty puzzles based on regular polygonal
>> tilings <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_tessellation> having Schlafli
>> symbols <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlafli_symbol> of the form {p,3}
>> for any p>=2. That is, all regular tilings of polygons with two or more
>> sides, where three tiles (puzzle faces) meet at a vertex. The Rubik’s cube
>> is the special case where faces are squares (p=4). The other familiar
>> special cases are the Megaminx (p=5) and the Pyraminx (p=3), although you’ll
>> discover the last takes a slightly different form under this abstraction
>> (akin to Jing’s Pyraminx <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuD3YwQTW2c>).
>> All the other puzzles are new as far as I know, and some may be surprising,
>> e.g. the puzzles based on digons <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digon>
>> (p=2).
>
>
>> Each 2D tiling admits a particular constant curvature (homogenous)
>> geometry. The geometry is Spherical for p=2 to p=5, Euclidean (flat) for
>> p=6, and Hyperbolic for p>=7. Since you can’t "isometrically embed" the
>> entire hyperbolic plane in 3-space<http://www.math.cornell.edu/~dwh/papers/crochet/crochet.html>,
>> I have a connection to hyperpuzzling<http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/4D_Cubing/> even
>> though I’m talking about 2D tilings!
>
> …
>
>
>
>
> I’ve actually only solved the 3x3x3 on it so far, and I wonder if it may be
> more fun to watch than play! I’ve been calling it MagicTile, though perhaps
> there could be something better? As with everything, it is a known work in
> progress (the length of the task list has grown to scary proportions). I
> have no plans for further development at the moment, though I’ll happily fix
> any glaring bugs.
>
> Enjoy!
> Roice
>
> P.S. This is the only "twisty puzzle" group I’m active in, so if any of you
> are also members of other groups and think they would be interested to hear
> about these new puzzles, I’ll appreciate the exposure :)
>
>
>