GCPP:Proposal-Switchtail

{{Grand Crafting Puzzle Project


 * codename = Switchtail
 * username = Matthias
 * extra contact = on Midnight as Merus, e-mail mattcrampy@gmail.com


 * game concept = Swap pieces of metal on and off a network of wheels to heat them, work them or satisfy orders.


 * objective = Take metal pieces from the shoppe wheel and pass them through the forge and anvil wheels until they satisfy certain static conditions, then pass them back to the shoppe wheel. The ultimate goal is to pass multiple pieces through with a minimum of working.


 * gameplay =



Summary
Move metal pieces from the purple shoppe wheel (where they start) to the red forge wheel by rotating the wheels until a piece is next to the indigo tabs. At these tabs, you can swap pieces from one wheel to the wheel next to it. Pieces on the anvil wheel heat up, and when they're hot they'll change shape - they go circular on their own. Swap the piece to the grey anvil wheel while it's hot, and every turn it has a chance to be hit and go squarer. There's a temperature sweetspot where pieces will change quickest. As you play, orders will come in on the purple shoppe wheel for square (or rounded, octagonal, diamond or rectangular) pieces - once the pieces have cooled down, swap them back over to the purple shoppe wheel on the same space as an order to score it. You can cool a piece down quickly by swapping it to the blue bucket wheel from the anvil, but this hurts your score. If you heat up and work a piece too much or cool it down too fast, it'll shatter and score no points. Use up all twenty pieces of metal, by fulfilling orders or shattering them, and the hour ends.

There's always one bench wheel between the main two wheels (in orange) that doesn't affect the pieces (although pieces cool down over time), and up to three other wheels scattered around (in the brown positions - one wheel connects to both the forge and anvil wheels, and rotates depending on what wheel it last swapped with).

The board
The player is presented with a network of wheels, which act like meshed cogs. Each wheel has depressions around its outside, lining up with its spokes, in which pieces of metal are placed. The spokes alternate in colour. There are three large, special wheels.

The shoppe wheel, which has twenty-five spokes (the purple wheel on the layout image), has twenty pieces of metal scattered around the outside. When pieces of metal leave the shoppe wheel, orders begin appearing on the spokes with no metal pieces on them. This wheel has an odd number of spokes, so one spoke here has a very visible colour to serve as a reference of how far the wheel has rotated.

The forge wheel, which has sixteen spokes (the red wheel on the layout image), is connected to the shoppe wheel and the the anvil wheel via swap points. Players can click on a swap point to move a piece of metal next to it to the other wheel, if the space next to the swap point on the other wheel is empty. If a piece of metal is on the forge wheel, it will heat up.

The anvil wheel, which has twelve spokes (the grey wheel on the layout image), is connected to the shoppe wheel, the forge wheel and the bucket wheel via swap points. If a hot piece of metal is on the anvil wheel, it will be shaped. Cold pieces of metal on the anvil wheel will lose quality at a very slow rate. If a piece with zero quality is on the shoppe wheel, it will shatter and be removed from play.

The bucket wheel, which has eight spokes (the blue wheel on the layout image), is connected to the forge wheel via a swap point. Hot pieces on this wheel rapidly cool down, at the expense of quality.

There is one other important wheel: the drive wheel, which connects to the anvil wheel (the green wheel on the layout image). This wheel is marked with two coloured arrows - if the player clicks one of the arrows on this wheel, it will rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. It will also rotate the wheel connected to it (the anvil wheel) in the opposite direction one space, which will rotate every wheel connected to it by one space, like a network of cogs. The drive wheel has no spaces for metal on it, being taken up entirely by user interface. (These coloured arrows, at low levels, will appear on all the other wheels as reference.)

There are also one to four bench wheels, of six spokes (the brown wheels on the layout image), connected to the main wheels via swap points, that change position every order fulfilled (taking any pieces on the bench wheel with them). These wheels do not affect the pieces on them. One bench wheel is always between the shoppe wheel and either the forge or anvil wheel (this is orange on the layout image).

Play
Play almost always starts with moving a piece from the shoppe wheel onto the anvil wheel. The object is to move a piece from the shoppe wheel, heat it up, move it to the forge wheel, shape it, swapping it back and forth until the piece is the desired shape, cooling it, then moving it back to the shoppe wheel to be scored.

A move consists of rotating the wheels or using a swap point. Metal has three properties. Its shape is represented by the shape of the piece from square to circle (see picture). Its heat is represented by its colour, from grey/black at 0 to red at 0.3 to yellow at 0.6 to white at 1, its maximum heat. Heat is also indicated by how much the piece shakes when moused over. (It is intended that heat should be somewhat ambiguous.) Its quality is roughly represented in the UI - a piece with maximum quality is grey at 0 heat, whereas a piece that has been heated to red is black at 0 heat. A piece starts with maximum quality (128), and if it reaches 0 quality, it shatters. There is no way to improve the quality of a piece.

When a piece is worked, an order will appear on the shoppe wheel in a blank space. An order is a request for a particular shape of metal piece, and putting a metal piece in that space will fulfil this order, removing the order and piece from play and scoring it. Pieces that are still hot when they fulfil an order (more than 0.1 heat) are heavily penalised (from lawsuits?). If the last order is fulfilled, a new order is generated. New orders are also randomly generated every 10-200 turns until there are no more blank spaces on the shoppe wheel.

Orders will normally ask for the first five shapes. Special orders will sometimes (one every ten games or so) ask for a circular shape. Pieces normally start as shapes 5-10.

Wheel Effects
The forge wheel will heat up to four random pieces, the positions of which change every move. If there are less than four pieces on the wheel, it heats all of them up. Each piece being heated adds a random amount from 0.05-0.15 to that piece's heat every 5 seconds. Pieces that are hot lose quality, heat and shape each turn. They lose a random amount of quality from 1-6, with heat skewing the random number generator higher, per turn. The odds of a hot piece moving one step towards circle each turn is heat * 0.5. (This means that a white-hot piece will move one step towards circle every second turn on average, while a cold piece will not move at all.) They also lose 0.02 heat per turn.

The anvil wheel will push a hot piece towards a square shape. Four random positions on the anvil wheel are hit every move, and no position is repeated from move to move. A piece always loses 1 quality when hit. The odds that a piece will change its shape approaches 100% at 0.5 heat - at 0.3/0.7 heat, the odds are 0%, and it increases exponentially as the heat approaches 0.5. The closer a player gets to 0.5 heat, an orangey-yellow colour, the less time it takes the piece to go square.

The bucket wheel sets a piece's heat to 0, and degrades its quality by heat * 50.

You gain points by fulfilling orders with metal pieces. The better the quality and the closer the shape is (you can fulfil orders with metal that doesn't quite match) the more points you get. If the piece is hot, your score takes a dive. You also get a little bonus for fulfilling two orders within 25 moves of each other.
 * scoring = ===Summary===

Detail
A normal order is scored on its quality. There is also a bonus for fulfilling two perfect orders close together, being (25 - the moves between the two orders being fulfilled), which is added to the quality. If it is the same shape as the order, the score is the quality (plus any bonus); if it is one shape away from the order, the score is three quarters quality, rounded down (no bonus); if it is two shapes away from the order, it is half the quality, otherwise it is a quarter the quality. If the piece has heat of over 0.1, this score is then halved. Special orders are scored slightly differently - the amount of turns remaining is added to the quality before shape is taken into account, and the score is doubled afterwards.


 * variability = The placement of the bench wheels change for every piece submitted. As orders are fulfilled, 'special orders' start appearing in empty spaces on the shoppe wheel - these orders score double normal orders, but disappear within 50 moves. Pieces can start in a range of shapes. The heating, quality and shape changes are all driven by a random number generator.


 * end criteria = The puzzle ends when all 20 metal pieces are used up - either by being used to fulfil orders or by shattering.


 * difficulty scaling = At higher ranks, the coloured arrows on the wheels disappear, then the spokes take on a uniform colour. (As the same coloured spoke is usually going to line up, this makes it more difficult to determine what positions a piece will take as it moves.) Less bench wheels are provided to the player, until only the wheel between the shoppe wheel and anvil/forge wheel is left. The random numbers, particularly those tied to quality, start expanding their range (so quality loss from heat might go from 1-10 per turn, for example).

Ranking Design
Low ranks are expected to shatter pieces. Medium ranks are expected to fulfill all their orders. High ranks are expected to fulfill all their orders in a timely fashion. Ultimates distingush themselves from Legendaries by the speed in which they fulfill orders. In addition, as quality degrades faster at higher ranks, when players are expected to score bonuses and get special orders, this should flatten the bell curve a bit and make it a bit harder for everyone to cluster on Ultimate.


 * crafting type = Blacksmithing. I've used a similar concept for weaving, but honestly that weaving puzzle on Game Gardens is going to be used there.


 * known problems = While the idea of swapping pieces of metal from one workstation to another while being efficient captures the spirit of blacksmithing, the idea basically presents as a cog game, which isn't really blacksmithing. It appears to be partly machinable as well - the randomness in the wheels probably isn't enough.


 * notes = Based loosely on this earlier idea.


 * images =




 * discussion = http://forums.puzzlepirates.com/community/mvnforum/viewthread?p=764428#764428

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