11/07/2024
i've been addicted to puzzles since i could remember. and not the old, oh im gonna just gonna leisurely sit down and do all the puzzles in this newspaper. i'm talking going through a whole book of sudoku on a holiday, getting a sudoku app and completing years worths of daily puzzles (i was curious and found i've completed ~1000 just for daily puzzles...). and it's not just sudoku. i've gotten into minesweeper and according to my app, have played 4159 separate games totaling to 103 hours... and that's just the app. not including sites elsewhere and the desktop application (which ive gotten rid of for my own good). i'm not proud of it, cause i could have used all this time doing something more productive, but it is my guilty pleasure and still brings me a lot of joy.
the one thing about both of these games that makes them so addicting is the timer feature. this feature allows you to quantify each and every one of your runs and inevitably encourages speedrunning phases with each of these puzzles. looking to lower your times with each run, even trying to decrease your average time, it's incredibly hard to stop because maybe on this next puzzle you'll get your next personal best. this was the feature that lead to my addiction with puzzles, and now almost every online puzzle out there uses this feature. it's because they know it works for people like me looking to improve our stats.
and side note before i move on, for playing for as long as i have, i can tell you minesweeper is not worth it. there have been too many times where i get to a place where i have to gamble, and pretty much guess where i think the next mine is. it's super infuriating when you get it wrong, losing all of your work and having to start over again. minesweeper is not great if you're looking to speedrun since its really not consistent at all and you end up wasting a lot of time, especially if you're looking to speedrun the larger puzzles. now a days, you can find a "no guess" version of minesweeper, which completely eliminates this flaw, but i believe in this mode you won't be eligible for classic minesweeper speedrun leaderboards. also i'm kinda over it at this point and i don't wanna start another addiction phase with this puzzle.
after a while, the basic puzzles like sudoku, minesweeper, and it's variants get old. you've learnt all the tricks and start going on autopilot, just solving the puzzles without much brain power. you want to play something new and more stimulating again. just over a year ago, i stumbled across a new puzzle called shingoki. i can't remember exactly how i came across it, but i think i probably went to puzzle.com to play some minesweeper and saw shingoki at the bottom as one of their suggested games. i gave it a shot, and wow, i really had to think. it's a square grid puzzle with black and white circles with numbers in it and the goal is to draw a non-breaking line on this grid that touches all of the circles only once. the way the circles work: there is a number within each circle, this tells you how many line segments that must be connected to this circle. for the black circles, this indicates that the line must turn at the circle. for white circles, the line must go directly through this circle. and most importantly, it has a timer. i think my first time going through the 5x5 easy shingoki (the title sounds so puzzle brainrot) it took me damn near 3 minutes to complete. but as time went on, my brain started to hold on to the rules and i even started learning little tricks to save time. and now as of writing, i am 5th overall in the 5x5 normal shingoki at a time of 5.38s (by pure luck). its funny cause in 5x5 easy shingoki im 15th with a higher time 5.54s (also by pure luck). i still don't 100% understand the easy vs normal modes cause they feel the same to me, at least in the 5x5's. my screen name on there is akragg if you wanna try to find my other ranks in the 7x7, 10x10, 15x15, etc. they're a lot higher at time of writing, but im trying to change that (spoken like a true addict).
however, after speedrunning shingoki enough times, i've come to the realization there really is a limit to how fast you can actually solve these puzzles physically. many times, i'm able to solve a puzzle faster than my hand can move my mouse. when i say i've gotten these crazy low times out of pure luck, i mean it. in these rare moments my hand was able to move with precision and speed that i normally have a hard time pulling off. in this way, if you wanna make the leaderboard, you can't just have a quick mind, you have to be able-bodied. it is an unfair truth and something i'm actively taking advantage of whenever i have my speedrun sessions. i'm able to beat others just because of my physical ability, not necessarily my mind. though it is fun myself to flaunt how high up i am in the leaderboards, we all need to remember, just because someone is up there, it doesn't make them any "smarter". you can almost argue that speedrunning is a sport in this way. it's all up to your physical ability.
though we can see this is a problem, there really arent many great solutions to alternate puzzle leaderboard metrics. one way to gauge leaderboards could be win percentages. however, this could lead to many having 100% win rates, which isn't great for ranking. another could be having a leaderboard for number of games completed, but this would just turn off any new players to the puzzle. you're pretty much just investing hours of time just for a spot, and even then, how could you know if these users are actually good? their win percentage could be really low. one way i've actually seen some leaderboards set up are by number of steps, which basically is the idea that the less steps, the better. but this wouldn't apply to every puzzle game. it doesn't quite translate into shingoki super well either. maybe someone could potentially create an algorithm to calculate scores based on speed, win rates, games completed, and number of steps. but then again, this makes it hard for users to quantify this. and it doesnt solve the problem of timers, or users having to time sink their way to the leaderboards. for now, though unfair, time metrics are really the only way to quantify a leaderboard for most puzzle games.
so maybe i'm not a "puzzle addict" as much as i am addicted to the sport of speedrunning, where i am prisoner to one of the core human desires. gaining recognition through the numbers game to have your screen name up on a pedestal for all to see.