New Level -- Seven Gates of Hell

Post, download, and discuss custom levels for Return To Wonderland.
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Muzozavr
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New Level -- Seven Gates of Hell

Post by Muzozavr » Wed Apr 01, 2015 6:53 pm

I would never submit this (for a certain reason) but today is April Fools... it's confusing to judge timezones over the Internet, but still.

This puzzle has a bit of a shameful "design secret" to it. On the one hand it's kind of awesome, on the other hand it's nothing to be proud of... for a certain reason. That reason will be revealed the next day.

As of now, this is just a normal. completely solvable puzzle. Really. No april-trickery here, I'm being as fair as I possibly can. Just... push... some... boxes. :twisted: Yep, it's a Sokoban puzzle.

Again, there's a certain reason why it's nothing to be proud of... but I do like the result. :wink:
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Rest in peace, Kym. I hardly knew ya.
Rest in peace, Marinus. A bright star, you were ahead of me on my own tracks of thought. I miss you.
Muzozavr
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Post by Muzozavr » Thu Apr 02, 2015 8:27 am

6 downloaders, no reports of solving...

... and for a good reason, I might add.

It's April 2 in my timezone, so here's my shameful secret: I never really "designed" this level at all. I generated it using YASGen, a computer program. It has a "connected goals" option which can produce some surprisingly neat, human-like layouts.

I selected it, of course, and human selection is mandatory -- I was able to reject quite a few candidate levels that were either boring or didn't look appealing enough. Having said that, I had to look at the solution (when generating) to make sure it wasn't something completely stupid. So, the even more shameful part of the secret is that I haven't actually solved the level myself. I tested it, I replayed YASGen's solution (that I optimized with YASO for ease of use) step-by-step in Wonderland, so I know it works and I know you're on the right side to exit. But I haven't solved it myself as a puzzle.

Considering the anti-logical nature of a few of the moves and that the best solution found by YASO involves at least 233 moves overall (not including walking to the exit) it's no surprise that no one has solved this level yet. :lol:

There are some Sokoban collections generated with computer programs, some of them are very hard. So the Sokoban community would probably accept such a level. Anyway, the "April Fools!" part is that you weren't engaged in a battle of wits of me. You were engaged in a battle of wits with a computer program. :lol:
Rest in peace, Kym. I hardly knew ya.
Rest in peace, Marinus. A bright star, you were ahead of me on my own tracks of thought. I miss you.
Amnon
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Post by Amnon » Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:43 am

Hi Muzo,

I already made good progress, but I'll report when it is done.

You should not expect replies so quickly when you post a level like this, especially as we have not yet completed Mark's recent difficult level and you know, we have other duties in life as well...
Muzozavr
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Post by Muzozavr » Thu Apr 02, 2015 10:48 am

I did not expect quick replies, but I promised to reveal the "shameful design secret" on the 2nd of April, which I did.

I actually had trouble finding a good way to start the post because no one had posted anything. I know there are other reasons no one had reported solving the level yet, but I needed some way to start the post nicely.
Rest in peace, Kym. I hardly knew ya.
Rest in peace, Marinus. A bright star, you were ahead of me on my own tracks of thought. I miss you.
Amnon
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Post by Amnon » Tue Apr 07, 2015 2:17 pm

The most hellish sokoban I've ever seen. After many days of utter frustration I gave up and downloaded a sokoban program. Even then the solver program did not find a solution with the default parmaters, so I had to increase the maximum number of moves for it to work.

Phew, never again!
Muzozavr
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Post by Muzozavr » Tue Apr 07, 2015 2:30 pm

Considering that it was built by a Sokoban program, it's only fair. :wink:

What program did you use? I'm just curious. YASS (part of Sokoban YASC) can solve it on default settings.
Rest in peace, Kym. I hardly knew ya.
Rest in peace, Marinus. A bright star, you were ahead of me on my own tracks of thought. I miss you.
Amnon
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Post by Amnon » Tue Apr 07, 2015 2:50 pm

Muzozavr
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Post by Muzozavr » Tue Apr 07, 2015 3:29 pm

Makes sense that you had to change parameters. JSoko is a good solver, but statistically not the best. Even YASS isn't the best.

Different solvers have advantages with different types of levels and YASGen probably has some algorithms similar to YASS, so it makes sense that YASS could solve it on default settings but JSoko couldn't. However, according to Lee Haywood's tests, statistically the most well-rounded solver program is actually Takaken.

The statistics can be found here: http://sokobano.de/wiki/index.php?title ... Statistics It's a curious thing.
Rest in peace, Kym. I hardly knew ya.
Rest in peace, Marinus. A bright star, you were ahead of me on my own tracks of thought. I miss you.
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Jutomi
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Re: New Level -- Seven Gates of Hell

Post by Jutomi » Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:58 pm

Welp I finally got around to recording this :lol:

Note: I also used a solver to solve this for me. :roll: Tbf though I came along pretty well back when this first came out; I just couldn't get myself to figure out what I had done all over again :P

Happy April Fools Day! :lol:

My video solution~
Your only little stinker that's absolutely NOT a z-bot by this name,
Jutomi~ :mrgreen:

Also, if you want to see my level list, here it is! :D
(Also: List of Hubs, WA Manual)
Oh, and my YT wonderland channel. Forgot about that.
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