It doesn't, but the first white horizontal swipe is always needed.
Unfortunately there is a "reset" button that, when pressed, resets your progress without confirmation.
How far does it go? I hit some really hard ones with 3 fingers. I think my phone gets confused if my fingers are too close to each other, which makes it especially difficult.
This also feels like playing a game of Operation [1]. The author just needs to add an annoying buzzer sound whenever you fail.
I used an iPhone 12 Pro, and it was pretty hard - couldn't get to 3 fingers because the site froze whenever I accidentally slightly triggered another gesture. Had to do a lot of phone-spinning though, lol. Pretty cool!
It goes up to 4 fingers, and the last one is 3 fingers again but basically impossible without switching fingers. Edit: nvm its possible without cheating
The hardest one for me was the 4 fingered puzzle where you had to move all 4 from one side of the screen to the other in a line, except the lines overlapped with the neighbors multiple times.
This would be a fun game with some UX improvements. It's extremely frustrating when the reason I can't finish a puzzle is because my finger slipped off the line and not because I just don't know the solution. I stopped playing because of how frustrating that was.
No, they're not the same. In Jenga you usually lose in a way that you know could have been avoided. "If I had just held my hand still" or whatever. That is not what this is. This game is frustrating because it was poorly designed not because it is "hard".
Totally agree, the dexterity is what makes it fun. I was thinking about how a larger screen would help, or if I had longer fingers, or if I cut my nails it'd be better. The annoying fails build me toward a sweet victory. good rush.
Also, the cost of failing is not much, quick iterations. You just have to remember what you did.
Made it to 3 fingers and then couldn't advance as my phone interpreted a 3 finger swipe as a screenshot. I'm counting it as a win since I learned a new feature of my phone!
Had the same problem at first, but moving one finger before the others made it work.
At four fingers my phone can't do it anymore. It seems that it can only detect 3 pressure points at a time.
Does it really not? I remember a lot of years back everyone was boasting how they can recognize 10 touches at the same time. Perhaps try an app, to see if the limitation comes from hardware or software?
My Note9 is able to register at least 10 separate touches in Chwazi app (just tested). Seems weird a newer phone in the basically same line would downgrade to three.
> Seems weird a newer phone in the basically same line would downgrade to three.
You have data scientists busy analyzing telemetry all the time. It's conceivable someone figured "the data shows" most people don't even use 3 fingers at a time, much less 5+, so why not simplify the screen driver / hardware to save costs (or trade it for some improvement elsewhere)...
Newer phones are more optimized than older ones. On the market, optimized doesn't mean better.
Found out that if you activate 3-finger touch for screenshot, that disables the phone's ability to register more than 3 touch points.
With that disabled I can now play the game again (and after several 4-fingered ones I'm now stuck at a 3-finger one)
quit at 2 fingers because, why am i doing this? (i've actually commented before on HN about my dislike of all the sliders in the iOS UI, what an annoyingly difficult specialized skill to have to say up on just to hit what should be very fast and simple radio buttons or checkboxes)
The slider-style switches are dumb eye candy, I agree, but you don’t have to treat them as such, they toggle when tapped.
My big annoyance is how these massive balls of JavaScript and images and crap have infected UIs of web apps everywhere, as though people couldn’t understand a checkbox or something. Silly “UI designer” fad, and quite pathetic for a designer really, to just copy whatever Apple did.
You could probably run a successful "ai design" scam where you ask your mark a bunch of psychographic details about the customer and product, then ask them for their website url.
You discard all the psychographic data and blindly apply let's call "apple-ify.css" where you change the fonts, colors and contrast to just knockoff apple and then charge something like $499 for it with an elaborate pitch using buzzwords about machine learning and big data on how you're doing the latest in analysis driven design with cutting edge AI.
Just the other day he posted about how they were able to modify the one member of the family identified in their paper which is not an aperiodic monotile into one that tiles without reflections.
+1 csk is as good as it gets. Had him for my first CS class there and to the end of my time there, that class stood out both in terms of quality and enjoyment/engagement.
If you're at Waterloo and have the chance to be in Craig's class, jump at it.
Doesn't work well on phones though, you really need a tablet. When you get to 4 fingers, it starts randomly losing track of a finger or two when fingers get close to each other. I tried two different Android phones and an iPhone.
What's annoying and counter to popular convention / user expectations is that you have to keep your finger in the established path to keep grip of the "ball". (S'pecially given your finger often blocks the view of it).
Uhm haha. On behalf of our community I would like to say that I was perfectly capable of understanding this mechanism thank you. Pretty sure the reason for the unintuitiveness for some people must rely on something else entirely.
Android stock maybe. Android as delivered by various vendors? It depends. I've seen variations of this mechanism pop up - including ones requiring to keep the finger on the path or else you "lose the ball", and that one was in the phone UI, where you needed to swipe to accept or reject a call!
For me it wasn't that the slide doesn't stay in place (that much is expected), but that if you deviate from the path it immediately slips back to the beginning. That's a bit anti-pattern w.r.t. typical slides that either have a forgiveness zone around the element or update to the point on the slide nearest to the gesture point.
I'm not sure that the game would work without this restriction. If you kept grip of the ball regardless of if your finger was on the path none of the game's puzzles would work since you could just move your fingers wherever you wanted without losing the ball.
Definitely one of the core challenges of the game, and understandably not to everyone’s taste. I learned that I inadvertently swipe in a slight arc on the first puzzle and enjoyed learning to move precisely.
This is pretty fun! It seems the starting position of your fingers is important, as is the ability to rotate the device. Interesting to see how many mobile HN users there are too.
227 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 248 ms ] thread[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36103176
I was at 4 fingers :(
This also feels like playing a game of Operation [1]. The author just needs to add an annoying buzzer sound whenever you fail.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_(game)
I wonder if there is optimum phone size for this, mine might be smidgen too small
There are 31 levels, though I didn't personally finish. Proof [0]
[0] https://imgur.com/a/ldY0IkC
At least with this you don't need to rebuild the whole tower!
Also, the cost of failing is not much, quick iterations. You just have to remember what you did.
My Note9 is able to register at least 10 separate touches in Chwazi app (just tested). Seems weird a newer phone in the basically same line would downgrade to three.
You have data scientists busy analyzing telemetry all the time. It's conceivable someone figured "the data shows" most people don't even use 3 fingers at a time, much less 5+, so why not simplify the screen driver / hardware to save costs (or trade it for some improvement elsewhere)...
Newer phones are more optimized than older ones. On the market, optimized doesn't mean better.
Quite fun game!
My big annoyance is how these massive balls of JavaScript and images and crap have infected UIs of web apps everywhere, as though people couldn’t understand a checkbox or something. Silly “UI designer” fad, and quite pathetic for a designer really, to just copy whatever Apple did.
You discard all the psychographic data and blindly apply let's call "apple-ify.css" where you change the fonts, colors and contrast to just knockoff apple and then charge something like $499 for it with an elaborate pitch using buzzwords about machine learning and big data on how you're doing the latest in analysis driven design with cutting edge AI.
Meanwhile it's just a stupid static css file.
It'd probably work frighteningly well
If you're at Waterloo and have the chance to be in Craig's class, jump at it.
(To watch. Not to try to actually speedrun yourself. That sounds painful, emotionally as well as physically.)
Samsung Galaxy S20
Really cool!
(This was extra cool when iPhones supported 3D Touch.)
The feedback is immediate and highly discoverable.
The Lock Screen on your phone has totally different criteria (ease, muscle memory) than a toy that uses the same metaphor (fun/challenging)
Also: isn’t it more fun this way??
Meanwhile, I find typing anything on my phone very annoying.
Slide to unlock ... a new puzzle - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36112310 - May 2023 (4 comments)
I think maybe the focus and fine motor control needed to keep the ball within the lines…