19/06/2023
When I last posted about the difficulty of our gameboard in February (v0.3), I leant towards it being 'pretty difficult' (whatever that really means). That was on the basis that around 50% of puzzles were unsolved, and you would only need to solve 6 of a possible 33 to appear on the public leaderboard. The most impressive solve at the time - by my subjective estimation - was million dollar graveyard.
Since I wrote that post, things have moved on considerably. We've improved existing puzzles as well as expanded and diversified the range of new content. We've also introduced an unlockable hints system, and grown our player base (mainly attributable to a post on the wonderously nostaligic Nordinho.net). As a result, almost 95% of the current 55 puzzles (v1.2) have now been solved – which is great. There are so many impressive solves, it's hard to single one out – although 'a quest', from the alchemist/mountains attractor does stand out to me. I had a lot of fun designing that one.
Whilst we want wyfio to be challenging - and we're happy with having a handful of unsolved puzzles - we don't want it to be mind-meltingly or arbitrarily difficult. Having said that, the relatively high solve rate of the overall content, belongs to an exceptional few rather than being the rule for the majority. The 'rule' for the vast majority is a solve count of <5 puzzles. And whilst for some players that might genuinely represent a 'best effort' I suspect most puzzlers would probably have more solves in them if they really went after it.
On reflection then, how hard do I think wyfio is now?
...Pretty difficult :)