This should pass the puzzle of xor gate. I can't upload while editing the comment apparently. See next comment for picture.


@timeracers

Sorry for the late reply. Ignoring the two NOT gates on the right, the circuit is an [SR NOR latch][1]. The output of the bottom NOT gate feeds into the input of the top NOT gate, and the output of the top NOT gate in turn feeds the input of the bottom NOT gate, creating a stable loop in the circuit. If you put two more NOT gates onto each of those wires to prevent the signal from moving backward along the wire from one gate to the other, the circuit works like you'd expect:


In a future version, I should probably add a less cumbersome way to create a one-way wire, and/or find a way to make it more obvious what direction current is flowing - maybe something like Minecraft's redstone, where the brightness of the wire decreases the further it gets from the source? I'll have to think on it.

I also realized when I was recreating your example that latches don't work correctly. I'll upload a new version in a few hours to fix that bug. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip-flop_(electronics)#SR_NOR_latch

This is super cool! Gotta love digital logic.

I got a virus warning when I downloaded it. Not sure but Avast really didn't like it.

I seem to not have components available to add to my circuit.


I can drag to add/remove wires, and it may be user error, but I can't seem to find anything other than wires to use

@yirggzmb Ouch! I made a stupid mistake without testing, so the bridge part doesn't show up on the first level like it's supposed to. I've uploaded a new version to itch.io that fixes the problem.

@occultone I'm not familiar with Avast. Maybe it doesn't like runnable JAR files with native libraries inside them or something? I'll try packaging .app and .exe versions in a bit, maybe that will help.

@stuntdude Awesome! Working perfectly now, thanks!

Ok, proper review after playing a while - Enjoying this quite a lot. So far made it up to the "Bit Counting" level. Trickier than it sounds at first. The one suggestion I have is perhaps a "clear everything" button for when you'd like to wipe the board clear and try a different solution. At the moment, it's a bit cumbersome to clear everything.

Great game, good work. Nice use of the theme with some clean graphics.

Very good game, i like the clean look and the length you went to for instructions. Works perfectly! I had only wished for a "clean all" button. There is sooo much content here, well thought through.

Great entry!

Lat edit PS: Your feedback was really good!

Very cool game - this should be a required play for any first year electrical engineering student :)
You could extend this as far as you like - I guess it would inevitably become more of an educational thing than a "game", but I'm sure there are people out there (in addition to me) who would love to progress in complexity until you're building a processor :)

Some suggestions:
- agree a "clear" button would be great
- full screen support would be great
- some sounds/music would of course be great

To make this more accessible to non-elec eng nerds, you could maybe build more on the "big corporate" backstory. You've probably played Spacechem? That had a great story behind all the logic.

Great entry, thanks :)

That is a really nice entry. I had to remember all that stuff from my electronics lecture in university. All the mechanics work solid. I would like to have a clear button. A smarter way to draw connections would also be nice for touchpads.

Out of the various circuit games I've seen throughout the last few LD's, I think this one may be the best done. The tutorials and manual make it very accessible, and the added components after solving a level add a feeling of progression and make the game less repetitive. I ended up stopping at Add Three, but I will probably come back to this later. Great job!

I had a lot of fun with this game. I really like the way my previous successes get turned into these components, it makes me feel like I could be a true circuit designer. It's funny I thought the XOR was actually the hardest level and then when it got to other things like the adders and such it made more sense for me to think of things conceptually - which was really neat.

Wish there was a "clear all" button. Also sometimes dragging the vertical jumper was finnicky which resulted me me drawing wires all over.

Good job with this entry! I enjoy logic puzzles and I had fun with your take on logic gates.

Oh man, this makes me wish I had listened closer when we were doing logic gates in school. Not being able to click on a splash screen to dismiss it was a bit confusing at first, but not a deal-breaker. No sound might actually have been smart... I switched on some relaxing ambient music and tossed an hour into this. Nice one.

Had to look up the solution for XOR, *not* used to hardware logic me! The rest was much easier, even if my bit counter is a *bit* messy...


A solid, fun and educational puzzle! Edutainment anyone?

Interesting and complex game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P7M7EgUphM

Okay, this is quite the fun one. Reminds me of Zachtronics games a bit (Spacechem, TIS-100). One thing that would be useful is if the "tests" are shown one per one. Also, it seems there's a bug that the board doesn't reset per level.
But, yeah, a nice entry!

- +1 for a clear feature.
- I like that it doesn't have sound or FX, but maybe a satisfying noise when parts are fit into place could work.
- I know close to nothing about transistors and circuit design. It took me awhile to pass the first level and a bit of trial and error to figure out how the bridge worked, even with the manual. My mistake was trying to run wire from the top to the bottom point of the bridge, rather than just using the contact points. Even though you illustrated it. :P

Overall this game is both challenging and educational, both in good ways. I spent about an hour playing, and I will probably put more time into it later. Hope you continue with this!

This type of game is right up my alley; reminds me of Zachtronics, especially KOHCTPYKTOP: Engineer of the People. I made a game about wiring vacuum tubes in LD36, and I must say you've done a much better and clearer job than me :) Graphically, the UI looks clean and is works clearly. Perhaps you could have a clear all option? Great job!

I look at this game and I see that you have put some effort on it. I hope someone enjoys this technical concept game and good job!

Not bad at all! This is a throwback to when I read a book about this -- something like "The Elements of Computing Systems". Was that your inspiration?

One bothersome thing was that the window was too big for my screen, so I couldn't access the parts manual. Also, it's possible to put wire behind a gate, thereby creating a very hard-to-find bug.

It might have benefited from a couple more intermediate levels, but then again...most of us are programmers here, so maybe it's not necessary ;)

Nice game!

Good job with getting the simulation working well. That part was pretty impressive. My only complaint is that I'd like to have OR gates at some point, instead of running wires together. I did get stuck at Add 3, and I did spend a decent amount of time on it, though I'm ready to move on at this point. (Logic gates can only stay interesting for so long).

The graphics are simple at best, and the sound is completely nonexistent, but I think this is among the games I enjoyed the most. There's just something satisfying about constructing a system for a purpose using a set of clear rules. I avoided cheating by looking up how the various gates and such are supposed to be set up, which provided a big challenge considering my knowledge of these logic systems is vague at best. I really like how the solutions you create get added as components you can use - it gives a nice sense of progression.

A couple of issues:
* It feels like there are a few glitches with the simulation. One noticeable one was wires that would rapidly flash on and off.
* The first illustration for Binary Addition is incorrect. It shows a result of 12 (1100) when it should show a result of 10 (1010).

Oh, and I'm pretty sure this isn't the way you're supposed to solve the last puzzle (it's a complete mess, but it technically works):


Congratulations on making a Turing complete game in Ludum Dare! Now It's time to make a computer, then write Minecraft on that computer, then make a computer in Minecraft that can play this game.

Wow - did you make a Zachlike in 72 hours? I'm very impressed!

(If I were being picky, I'd ask for a Reset Level button, or complain about how easy it is to draw lines underneath things without realising it, or talk about how easy it is to miss the piece you're trying to click on and end up dragging a big wobbly wire across your diagram instead of dragging a logic gate. But that would be very unreasonable of me, considering how much you've managed to pack into this game in so short a time. Good game!)

This is interesting, too complex for me but i can definitely see what you were going for. I had a little trouble picking up the parts and often ended up creating random wires by mistakes, and a clear board button would be very useful, but other than that this is definitely a solid entry. Nice work!

As a circuit puzzle game, this is a reasonably simple but well developed for a game made in 72 hours. As a jam game it's functional and impressive, but I have to question where you would take this if you wanted to continue working on it. It doesn't seem like it's intuitive enough (or slow enough in the early levels) to teach anyone who doesn't already understand circuitry, but it doesn't seem complicated enough to challenge anyone who already knows what all these parts are. If you were to keep working on it, I'd suggest moving strongly in either of those directions.

Just to be clear, I'm being a little harsh here only because most of my other thoughts have already been covered by other commenters. On the whole, I agree with them that this is a very well made game for its type. I just wanted to give you some more granular feedback rather than just asking for a clear button! : )

@rockhoppergames Regarding post-jam direction, rather than choosing one direction over the other, I think I can do both. The basic plan is:

1. Provide a gentler introduction for typical players. Mostly this involves redesigning early level progression to guide the player more strongly toward correct solutions, like in a conventional puzzle game. I don't foresee this being a drag on electronics nerds, since someone with a lot of prior experience will be able to blow through the early game in just a few minutes - about long enough to get comfortable with the game's conventions and UI - and it would be easy enough to add a feature allowing advanced players to skip the tutorial stage entirely.
2. Add increasingly more complex levels to the game later on. This is easy enough - the reason the jam version stops short is because I ran out of time to add more levels.
3. Add solution metrics (e.g. number of parts used, footprint of circuit, etc.) and leaderboards. These are a crucial part of the game's design that just didn't make it into the jam version.

In other words, as much as I'd like to think I'm making a truly original game, I'm really just ripping off the Zachtronics formula and using it on a smaller project. In any case, I certainly appreciate getting feedback on something other than the lack of a clear button ;)

This is so cool, but maybe im baised because im an Electronics and Computer Engineering Undergraduate

Good idea, great job!

I found drawing transistors to be very difficult. Placing a inverter on top of a wire does not invert the wire, even though it looks visually the same as a properly connected inverter. These small UI missteps really destroys my enjoyment of the game.

This really, really awesome, however there's a few things I'm finding myself wanting very often (besides the "clear all button :stuck_out_tongue:)

* Horizontal bridges
* A nicer way to do one-way wires than a pair of not gates
* A nicer splitter than a triplet of not gates or a full adder with the same line feeding all three inputs
* Some UI improvements, regarding drag-and-drop, placing and erasing lines, etc
* In particular, it'd be real nice to be able to click a start point and an end point, and have the game draw a path from A to B, _placing bridges where necessary_.

Making suggestions for puzzle design is a bit trickier, but I think once you move beyond the really basic stuff, you need to start providing some constraints for the player; constraints will give the player an idea the general direction the answer is in without spelling it out for them. It might actually be good to have multiple difficulty tracks, which have the same puzzles to solve, but the easier modes impose constraints to keep you close to a sane solution. For instance, easy mode might tell you, "solve this with an XOR and an AND; intermediate mode might tell you, "Solve this with two gates", and expert mode would just tell you "Solve this".

Another way to create puzzles without requiring the player to re-invent things from a blank slate, would be to present broken circuits and have the player correct them. Though, that's a much bigger change to the gameplay than the other suggestions.

Anyway, all that said, this is a cool game.

@philomory Wow... if I could give your comment multiple hearts, I would! You've just given me so many good ideas to work with, you've practically done more for the game than I have :P