• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS
PATCH ::..
This patch fixes the port tile passability bug and turn count bug in the Settlers of Kentan puzzle:
http://rpgmaker.net/games/4531/downloads/4047/
Download the file and extract it into the Data folder of the game, overwriting the existing map file.

OVERVIEW ::..
Welcome to the sixth installment of the beloved community puzzle game: Befuddle Quest: The Next Generation. We have upgraded the engines to maximum power: RPG Maker VX Ace - the next generation in RM.

MISSION LOG ::..

Crew members participating in the away mission made a single-map puzzle in RPG Maker VX Ace. The mission commander, Captain Kentona, then linked the maps into a single project.

For new recruits unfamiliar with the Befuddle Quest mission structure, please read the past mission logs, starting here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/1101/


STORY ::..
Humanity is on trial, and only Zack can save us!

Years since his last adventure (wherein Zack solved the riddles of time after a teleportation machine malfunction trapped his wife Broomhilda in time), Zack and Broomhilda were enjoying a nice picnic when all of the sudden a starship flies above and beams Zack and Broomhilda aboard!

An advanced alien race has condemned humanity to extermination, as they are quite guilty of backwardness and barbarism. However, these omnipotent beings are nothing if not merciful and have given humanity a chance: Zack must prove humanity's worth by completing a series of puzzling engagements on the starship's holodeck. If successful, the aliens will agree to allow humans to exist.

THE BEFUDDLE QUEST SERIES ::..

Befuddle Quest
Befuddle Quest 2: Charmed & Dangerous
Befuddle Quest 3: Love is a Four-Legged Word
Befuddle Quest 4 Dead
Befuddle Quest 5: Zack to the Future
Befuddle Quest 6: The Next Generation

Latest Blog

Beam me up, O'Brien! (BQ6 is complete)

This game (slightly overdue) is now complete. Play now!

Hopefully this community puzzle game isn't as disappointing as I fear. The fanfare and interest in the game this go-round seemed lackluster to me, even though in the end we did get 12 submissions. Maybe I am expecting to much? Probably.

Anywho, here are the submissions. (If I didn't see a name associated with a submission, I made one up for it):

Jude - Filter Circuits
kentona - Settlers of Kentan
GreatRedSpirit - A Thing Happened
Avee - Deadly Invaders
Rachael - Mirror Cavern
thatbennyguy - Keying In
Liberty - Ancestry
Bobhostern - Avoision
Gibmaker - Tile by Error
Marrend - Drawcab Monks
Caz - Chappy and the Intercom
Hexatona - FLASHDUEL


Now for my award ceremony...

Best Puzzle:
Rachael - Mirror Cavern

Funnest Map:
thatbennyguy - Keying In

Overachiever Award:
kentona - Settlers of Kentan

Biggest Rip-Off:
kentona - Settlers of Kentan

Shake Fist In Frustration Award:
GreatRedSpirit - A Thing Happened

Posts

Pages: first 12 next last
Bug fix for Settlers of Kentan has been uploaded. Sorry about the issues. You will have to redownload the game, unfortunately, for the 20 of you who have so far.
Another bug issue - The Flash Duel. Sometimes when I move back, the game hangs. Waiting doesn't help at all. >.<;
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
Kentona, I'm livid! I had 14 points on turn 31, and it suddenly said I failed! I should've had 4 turns left! Also, when I went to go restart, I had all my settlements and cities. Thus, it's the only one I haven't finsihed (though technically I still won because I would've gotten 2 coins in those 4 turns...I was 1 lumber away from upgrading to a city and getting my 15th point). Breezed through all the puzzles! Good work...review at some point.
Wow thanks for this, kentona. Very professional and well-done, and thanks for "most fun" award. I agree with Dec that my puzzle wasn't very polished, but I enjoyed partaking anyway!

EDIT: Ratings for each puzzle:

Jude - Filter Circuits 4/5 simple, short, effective.
kentona - Settlers of Kentan 4/5 deep gameplay, fun, lags a fair bit.
GreatRedSpirit - A Thing Happened 1/5 basically pull a few switches, no strategy. frustrating.
Avee - Deadly Invaders 2.5/5 dodge game diversion.
Rachael - Mirror Cavern 3/5 good mechanics, fun game but needs more challenge.
thatbennyguy - Keying In 5/5 A+++ best game ever would do again.
Liberty - Ancestry 2/5 good mapping, but needs good puzzle component.
Bobhostern - Avoision 0.5/5 kinda too basic and simple. wasn't included in game
Gibmaker - Tile by Error 4.5/5 very well designed, magnificent mechanic. mind-boggling fun. best puzzle of the lot.
Marrend - Drawcab Monks 2/5 confusing and hard to understand. also the solution is too simple.
Caz - Chappy and the Intercom 3.5/5 great mapping, good boulder-pushing component.
Hexatona - FLASHDUEL 4.5/5 extremely fun, great replayability, if only a bit slow to navigate throughout menus and hard to pick up. but once you do pick it up it's addictive.
I haven't beaten ANY of the BQ's (I'm crap at Unbefuddling) I'm STILL gonna play it, Settlers of Kentan looks good enough at least...

Puzzles completeted: 1
I've got some trainin to do...
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I hear you, benny. Though, knowing the base material makes my puzzle horrendously easy. Not knowing it makes the puzzle more convoluted than it needs to be.
What's this about Avoision not included in the game??
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
All right, I've played, or at least tried, all of these. Here's my commentary on each puzzle.


"Filter Circuits" by Jude
I really like this idea. I mean, I've seen light-based puzzles before, but combining different colors to achieve your goal isn't something I've seen often. Maybe I'm playing the wrong games, though.

"Keying in" by thatbennyguy
I'm not sure how the spikes work the way they do, but it's an interesting puzzle all the same.

"Ancestry" by Liberty
The mapping is top-notch. Anything less would be uncivilized. Though, I'm not sure why, but I expected something more complicated? I dunno. Whatever.

"FLASHDUEL" by Hexatona
I'm not sure I completely understood the rules when they were being spouted, but I managed to eek out a 3-1 victory. It was fun enough, though, and that's what counts!

"Tile by Error" by Gibmaker
I didn't even realize what those dots at the top represented for a little while, but I eventually got the gist of things. Saying that, Darigaaz, I hated this so hard, it's not even funny. I managed to get up to five dots before I rage-quit out of sheer frustration.

"Chappy and the Intercom" by Caz
This puzzle has an odd Portal feel to it, thanks in part to the the intercom (Or whoever is on the other end of the intercom) making commentary before and after each puzzle is solved. The intercom is no GLADOS, but it serves it's purpose in making this more enjoyable than it would be without the comments.

"Mirror Cavern" by Rachael
I really liked the execution of this puzzle. It made me think of the section of the Final Fantasy 6 ending with Gogo mimicking... whoever it was that he/she/it/whatever was mimicking. Man, it's been too long since I've played FF6.

"Deadly Invaders" by Avee
This one was a bit difficult for me. I was trying to focus on the movement patterns for a while, to see if there was some kind of opening I could abuse, but it just didn't work.

"Settlers of Kentan" by kentona
To be honest, this is what I was most interested in playing. No, more like, this was the game I was most interested in understanding how it came to be. At any rate, I'm used to playing until 10 points, and not having a turn limit (Not that I win at Settlers of Catan anyway), so this was a challenge. I noticed that I couldn't access the ports at all, so that made life as a Settler a bit more difficult than it needed to be. Still, I managed to eek out a victory from this, though I made a screenshot before I made my game-winning move in the case that I came across a game-crashing bug.

"A Thing Happened" by GreatRedSpirit
Finding the right switch combination was a challenge. Outside of that, there isn't much else I want to comment on.

"Avoision" by Bobhostern
Oh man, I totally got that demon trapped behind a wall, and just waited in one spot 'till the timer ran out. Kinda lame, that tactic. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I'm not particularly keen on having that demon so close with the map's start-up event.

"Drawcab Monks" by Marrend
Oh man, this guy. This guy! He seriously needs to be thrown out into the street and shot for this. You don't even know. Sarcasm and other joking aside, I really don't have much to say about this puzzle that I haven't already said.
author=Marrend
"Filter Circuits" by Jude
I really like this idea. I mean, I've seen light-based puzzles before, but combining different colors to achieve your goal isn't something I've seen often. Maybe I'm playing the wrong games, though.

I have convinced myself it's an original idea but it probably isn't. If I have played the right games, I don't remember them by name--only some vague subconscious memory. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to make the puzzle difficult. The last stage is about as tricky as it can possibly get. You can make it larger, but it doesn't really get any more complex or challenging.

I had the idea when I was thinking about radios. For many devices, frequency is determined first by a crystal. Think of it as the bus frequency in a CPU or something. It's usually pretty low, so they achieve higher frequencies by using various filter circuits. These circuits usually either divide or multiply the frequency. I wanted to design a puzzle around that idea, where you toggle circuits into divider or multiplier mode, but I was worried about difficulty. Plus, math puzzles can take your head out of the game and that damages immersion... which doesn't matter for a puzzle game but it does if you want to use this type of puzzle in an RPG dungeon.

So, somewhere along the line I got it into my head to change it from multiplicative to additive circuits. Colors emerged because I just extended from radio bands to optical ones, and by using colors I reduce the number of possible inputs and outputs that have to be considered. Color also has better visual feedback. It's easier to visually demonstrate that a receiver needs a teal signal than 1227.60 MHz.

You aren't the first one to compare it to light puzzles, but incidentally traditional light puzzles were something I never had in mind when I came up with it.
Yeah, in my testing of Settlers of Kentan, I originally had a 30 turn limit (arbitrarily chosen) but decided late in the development to change it to 35. I changed the TEXT for it, but forgot to change the code. Oops.

Anywho, you need to have a settlement next to the port to be able to use the port.

To be honest, this is what I was most interested in playing. No, more like, this was the game I was most interested in understanding how it came to be
What do you want to know?
author=kentona
Anywho, you need to have a settlement next to the port to be able to use the port.


The version I downloaded made the ports inaccessible. You can't walk on the pier to interact with the ship. This wasn't a problem in the test version you sent me before compiling the entire project, though.
author=Jude
author=kentona
Anywho, you need to have a settlement next to the port to be able to use the port.
The version I downloaded made the ports inaccessible. You can't walk on the pier to interact with the ship. This wasn't a problem in the test version you sent me before compiling the entire project, though.
oh crudmuffin.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
author=Jude
The version I downloaded made the ports inaccessible. You can't walk on the pier to interact with the ship.

That's exactly what I experienced. Should have been clearer on that point.

author=kentona
What do you want to know?

I think I can comprehend the theory behind how generating resources work. Especially when the tiles and numbers are permanently set. I guess my main question is what method you used to set up the board? I somehow imagine that you grabbed a physical copy of Settlers of Catan, and went with a configuration that you liked. Or something.
I had vaguely heard of Settlers of Catan but had never played it. I had the advantage of kentona explaining the game to me in IRC as I was playing it. I assume he setup the nodes based on probability. I haven't actually calculated it myself, but I imagine the general goal is to distribute commonly used resources like ore and grain so that they activate more frequently across an even settlement spread than something like brick.
Well, actually I went to Google Image search and looked up some images of boards, and I found one I liked, but even then I tweaked it a big to make the numbers and locations a little more balanced. I also shrunk the board considerably, so there are far fewer locations for settlements as there would be in a regular board.

I added in Coins to make up for the fact that you don't have any other players to trade with to make up your own resource shortfalls. With coins you should be able to trade for the resources you are missing if you run into a string of bad dice rolls.
http://rpgmaker.net/games/4531/downloads/4047/

Welp, here is a patch for the impassible ports and the turn count.
because this is THE NEXT GENERATION!

(real reason: because I wanted it to be Ace)
Pages: first 12 next last