30/06/2023
Do you ever find yourself in a conversation where somebody, in reference to some absent other, says 'I don't always agree them...but...'? And if so, do you immediately lose the thread of the conversation as you wonder 'well, who do you always agree with then?'
You see, I can't name a single person that I 'always' agree with – including myself. Just like the majority of people, what I think about things changes all the time. Sometimes in subtle, almost undetectable ways, and sometimes so radically that I find it hard to believe that I ever thought any differently.
This blog post is a list of some of those times where I've 'disagreed' with myself whilst developing concepts for wyfio puzzles. At some point in time, I obviously thought there was something to each of these ideas. At a later point, when the cost/benefit didn't seem worth it, my initial enthusiasm waned, or maybe due to a temporary restoration of my senses, I've set the concepts aside.
Linearity: the original concept for wyfio was that it would be entirely linear. The first puzzle was 'first steps' from the mycelium attractor. Look, I don't think it's that difficult, but it doesn't have a great solve rate and if I tell you 6:6 was the 5th puzzle, you can see why linearity was abandoned.
Random Number Generator (RNG) Puzzles: looking back at my notes, I've found a frankly ridiculous puzzle called 'harmony' that involved using quantum RNG to generate a specific number, which would initiate a timer, which would auto-solve once elapsed. Why?!?!... There was also a puzzle that would likely start with a blank page, and have a chance to randomly generate a series of different cryptozoological creatures, which when 'found' would solve the puzzle. I think this is a better idea than 'harmony' - although not by much.
Democrazy: as I reflect on this one, I'm thinking it's a serious contender for the outright worst idea in the list. In a nutshell, you would go into the puzzle and see a message reading 'your fate is in the hands of others'. Your username would then appear on a rolling list of players attempting the puzzle, to either be voted up or down to allow you to pass!
Techarchaeology: again, tied in with a linear gameplay format, these levels would be 'airgapped' requiring acquisition of some ancient/obscure media format containing a hidden code that would subsequently require some sort of 'manual' verification. And by the way... whilst you were waiting for the Bernoulli Box to ship to Brazil, the entire player base would be level gated behind you until you had solved it. (Democrazy is sounding slightly better already.)
Symbiosis: this was a two-parter. At some point, you'd get a code. And at a later point, you would need to combine that code with another player to progress. It's not a terrible idea, but the premise of it was simply to encourage people to work together. And that happens anyway. It would also be impossible to stop people just 'multi-boxing' it and getting another code with a second account.
Fakebook: this was based on needing to locate, and then contact, a fake public profile on Facebook to obtain a code and/or instructions for the next steps of the puzzle. Given how easy it is to go wildly-off piste when researching or trying to solve a difficult puzzle, this had plenty of potential to end in disaster.
I'll wrap up by giving some honourable mentions to an unnamed format that would involve flying around the surface of Venus within a Digital Terrain Model, a puzzle called 'patience' that would have invoked the opposite feeling in most players, and the original implementation of 'within the devs library' which nobody ever unlocked, and on reflection was next to impossible to solve.
Malum consilium quod mutari non potest.