Welcome
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 22:35Posted in category Project Status
PuzzleManiak is a collection of 20 puzzle games (Bridges, Dominosa, Filling, Galaxies, Loopy, LightUp, Mines, Net, Pattern, Rectangles, Sudoku, Slant, Tents, Unequal, Untangle, Blackbox, SameGame, Pegs, Guess and Map) available on iPhone/iPod touch and iPad.
Most of the games have been invented by Nikoli.
All the game engines have been developed by Simon Tatham, Richard Boulton, James Harvey, Mike Pinna, Jonas Kölker, Dariusz Olszewski and Michael Schierl.
All games are generated on-the-fly and have an unique solution, thus you’ll never play the same puzzle twice.
All games have a lot of difficulty levels, from easy to very hard.
Statistics are maintained for each game, and each level of difficulty.
For each game, a daily web challenge is available: in this mode, everyday, all players around the world will play the same unique puzzle and compare their scores to other ones.
There is also a ‘special web challenge’ in which all players play a unique puzzle game, but without knowing which one it is before starting it.
A new online mode has just appeared: after any (local) game, you can submit it to the website, so that every other players can play it and so you can compare your scores to the other ones. This mode is the ‘Players challenges’ mode.
Current puzzle is always saved when exiting, so you can resume it later, whenever you wish.
10 best scores of each game are saved locally.
You can get the whole collection in one application for $1.99 here:
iPhone/iPod Touch version
iPad version
PuzzleManiak is available in English, Dutch, French, Japanese and Spanish.
Rules of all games are available in the games, or here.
Here are some screenshots of the game:
On the Web Challenge page you’ll find the Web Challenge scores of all games. If you access this website from the games with your iPhone, you’ll be able to see your daily rankings on Web Challenge games.
Copyrights infos.
Most of the games have been invented by Nikoli.
All the game engines have been developed by Simon Tatham, Richard Boulton, James Harvey, Mike Pinna, Jonas Kölker, Dariusz Olszewski and Michael Schierl.
All games are generated on-the-fly and have an unique solution, thus you’ll never play the same puzzle twice.
All games have a lot of difficulty levels, from easy to very hard.
Statistics are maintained for each game, and each level of difficulty.
For each game, a daily web challenge is available: in this mode, everyday, all players around the world will play the same unique puzzle and compare their scores to other ones.
There is also a ‘special web challenge’ in which all players play a unique puzzle game, but without knowing which one it is before starting it.
A new online mode has just appeared: after any (local) game, you can submit it to the website, so that every other players can play it and so you can compare your scores to the other ones. This mode is the ‘Players challenges’ mode.
Current puzzle is always saved when exiting, so you can resume it later, whenever you wish.
10 best scores of each game are saved locally.
You can get the whole collection in one application for $1.99 here:
iPhone/iPod Touch version
iPad version
PuzzleManiak is available in English, Dutch, French, Japanese and Spanish.
Rules of all games are available in the games, or here.
Here are some screenshots of the game:
On the Web Challenge page you’ll find the Web Challenge scores of all games. If you access this website from the games with your iPhone, you’ll be able to see your daily rankings on Web Challenge games.
Copyrights infos.
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Jason P says:
July 20th, 2008 at 4:23 am
please tell me you’ll release puzzlemaniak for 2.0??
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admin says:
July 20th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Unfortunately, I can’t release PuzzleManiak as it is for firmware 2.0 because of copyrights problems concerning some games (for instance, Guess, which is still commercialy used by the owner of this game).
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David says:
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:40 am
I see that MinesManiak is up. Congrats. Any idea why that one went up first, given that submitted Sudoku before it?
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Ron K says:
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:27 am
That sucks. Will you be releasing each one that isn’t copyrighted individually? I would buy my favorites but would like it better if all were under 1 icon like puzzlemaniak. Too many icons already. Would there be a way to make it modular? The first game you buy would come with the parent app and then as you buy more games, they are just added to the parent app.
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admin says:
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
@David, there was a problem with the 1st submission of SudokuManiak, so I submitted it again and it should be available today or tomorrow (it’s status is ‘ready for sale’ so it’s coming soon).
@Ron K, I fully agree with you, it would be much better to have only 1 icon for all games. But I can’t do that, so you’ll have to live that. Sorry.
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OscarH says:
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Still sad about the sudden end of PM. Nonetheless, I’m happy to report that I just bought you app, SudokuManiak
Will you do LightUp and Unequal/Futoshiki for the AppStore or are there copyright issues too?
Cheers,
OscarH
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admin says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:06 am
@OscarH, First, thanks for having bought the app
Have you wrote a (good) review on iTunes? It would be so great…
Untangle will be released soon (wainting for Apple) but LightUp I don’t know because of copyrights issues. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know here.
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Cal says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:38 am
Hi, I’m Cal, #3 on the iPhone global ranking. I would like to say that currently, the only reason I use my iPod touch is to play PM games. Whether or not I will update my iPod to 2.0 basically depends on if the full (or mostly full) version of PM is available in the app store. I have no interest in getting individual games. If you release PM in the store, I will likely update and buy it. Otherwise, I see no reason for me to update to 2.0, and lose the ability to play PM. Thank you for producing such a fun puzzle collection, and I hope you find a way to submit the full version to the app store.
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beej says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:20 am
please tell me Slant isn’t copyrighted? i’m already having withdrawal symptoms
am i going to have to carry 2 iphones for long?
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admin says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 am
@Cal, nice to meet you. Congratulations for your 3rd position!!!
Unfortunately, because of copyrights issues, I won’t release the full version to the AppStore. Why aren’t you interested by buying games individually? Are you realle playing all of them?
@beej, Slant is in the list. Wait & See…
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Charlie says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:52 pm
where are the game directions. Cannot find them on game board
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admin says:
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 pm
@Charlie, I’ve just added the rules of the 3 games there: http://www.puzzlemaniak.com/main/?cat=8
Sorry, I should have done this before.
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Cal says:
July 24th, 2008 at 12:20 am
See, I don’t understand why you can’t just take all the non-copyrighted games and put them into a collection (and maybe add a few new games), as opposed to releasing them all individually. I like the ability to chose what game to play when I want to. For example, I am not a big sudoku fan, but I might play a game here and there if I have the ability to, as it comes with the other games. I would not buy it individually just to play it a few times. Same goes with most of the other games.
Also, the daily challenges are a lot more fun when you could get one of 27 different games to appear, and have no idea what it will be until you play it. Like this, you know exactly what game it will be, which takes a lot of the fun out of it.
I understand that copyright issues are getting in the way, but I’m sure that there is some way to do this. I just find the separate games to be a lot less fun. That’s just my opinion.
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Jason P says:
July 24th, 2008 at 3:38 am
I will echo OscarH’s request for unequal, but not for me, my fiancé bugs me about it everyday!
Would love to see unequal in the app store, hope you got it planned
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admin says:
July 24th, 2008 at 7:32 am
@Jason, unequal or untangle? untangle will be released soon. unequal, don’t know.
@Cal, For now, there are only 4 games I’m sure they are not copyrighted. So, releasing a compilation with only these 4 games didn’t meant anything for me.
I can agree that you were all waiting for PuzzleManiak as it was before, but it can be released without any risks for me, so…
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Jason P says:
July 24th, 2008 at 11:29 am
@admin – definately unequal
how about a remcompile for the jailbreak users? or would this be too much of a task?
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Cal says:
July 24th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Well, in that case, I would rather have an outdated jailbroken iPod touch then a new one without the ability to play PM. That said, I don’t know how much longer I can go without updating and seeing all the new stuff that’s available. If and when I do decide to update, there is a likely chance I will not buy the puzzle maniak games. (I might though)
And personally, I would rather have a collection of four games then 4 one game apps. Then you could slowly add more games to it, right? Again, just my opinion.
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admin says:
July 24th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
@Cal, if you’re such addicted to puzzlemaniak, why won’t you buy any of the games if you update to firmware 2.0? Because of the price? Or because of the 4 icons instead of just one? For this icons issue, I think that Apple will shortly release an App allowing to sort icons in folders. So that’ll solve the issue, won’t it?
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Cal says:
July 24th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Hmm, well, it’s a little of everything. Also, sudoku, net, mines, and untangle are a few of the games that I don’t play very often. I like netslide, inertia, map, sixteen, and a few others.
Also, are the games linked in any way? Or are they 4 seperate games? (Will there be a total global ranking of some kind for all the games combined?)
By the way, I am not really “addicted” to PM. (I really only do the daily challenge. I only occasionally play specific puzzles.) It’s just that I’m telling you how I feel about the switch.
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Pierre says:
July 25th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I would really like to see unequal. It has a very interesting game play. There are already too many sudoku in the AppStore. Definitively unequal. I bought NetManiak I would buy Unequal.
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admin says:
July 25th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Concerning Unequal, which levels would you like to have?
There are 6 different sizes playable on an IPhone: from a 4×4 square, to a 9x9square… And for difficulty, there are 3 levels of difficulty available: Easy, Tricky, Extreme.
As I only want to manage 6 different levels, which one would you want to have?
Is there better to play a 4×4 hard, or a 7×7 easy?
that’s the question.
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Pierre says:
July 25th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I do not have access to the “old” version anymore so it is a bit hard for me to answer that one. having easy level make the game more inviting for new users but it is the harder level that are more interesting and you have to balance the two. The 4×4 is really easy I would be more interested in a 6×6 or 7×7 but of course I already know the game.
Could we set the size and the level independently? Have one scroll wheel for the size and one for the level? I know it is not the way it was done on the previous version but the SDK gives you more choices.
What is your limitation? Not listing too many options? The complexity of generating the puzzles?
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Jason P says:
July 26th, 2008 at 2:38 am
@admin
regarding unequal – my fiancé says that she prefers having the option of having all easy medium and hard for 6×6 – so maybe 5×5 and 6×6 on easy medium and hard? (would be 6!) or maybe 4×4 and 6×6 – pierres suggestion sounds good
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admin says:
July 26th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I’ve no problem to generate puzzles of different difficulty/size.
I might work on giving you the possibility of choosing everything.
I might…
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admin says:
July 26th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
OK, let’s make a deal…
All people who want UnequalManiak with all levels, you make a positive review (on iTunes for sure) concerning each of my games (so, 3 reviews) and I’ll implement all the levels…
Edit: This was a joke. Pfffffffffff
I’ve already implemented all the levels, so you’ll get everything.
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James says:
July 28th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
You are just getting greedy. It’s strange that you had the games on jailbroken iPods and iPhones but you never checked before if they were copyrighted. I think that you should be ashamed of yourself. Also askingpeopleto write good reviews in exchange for something that might never appear is bad on your part.
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admin says:
July 28th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
@James, thanks for your comment.
I’m really happy that you wrote that post. Really.
Thus I can answer to everybody who think that I’m now just doing ‘easily) money with the games.
I didn’t care about the copyrights on the jailbroken version because it was not dsitributed all over the world by an official company like Apple, it was for people who took the risk to jailbreak their iphones, and it was like some piracy.
Now, on the AppStore, it’s more serious.
Because some money is involved, but it would have been the same problem with a free version (read below, before screaming).
For instance, Guess, the clone of Mastermind, a famous board game. Hasbro does have the rights on it. And, James, do you know if they are OK to see someone making money on this game without their approval? I don’t think so. Do you know if they plan to release a Mastermind on iPhone soon? If so, they won’t like a free version to be released, too.
And there are a lot of games in this case.
So, I didn’t want to take the risk of being sued for any games, so I released only the games without any copyrights.
For the reviews I asked for, it was like a joke. If you can’t understand that, that’s not my problem. You said that I asked something “for something that might never appear”, but you can see in the screenshots of UnequalManiak that I already implemented all the options people asked me to do last week.
For sure, in a better world, everything would be free and so everything would be perfect. But, in the real world, I had to pay for hosting this website, to buy a MacBook, to pay the licence for developing on iPhone, and to spent some time on implementing the games. I’ve to eat sometimes too… So, I have to sell the games, sorry for you.
Concerning the jailbroken version, more than 150 000 people played the online version. And do you know how much donations I got? 30. Yes, 30. That’s all. Not really well paid, isn’t it?
And now the games cost only .99$ and you’re saying that I’m getting greedy? If you don’t like 1 game, to buy it, that’s all. For instance, how much Sudoku on AppStore have been freely released? 1, the demo of a non-free Sudoku…
Think about all of that before judging me too quickly.
Alx
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Jimmni says:
July 28th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
I’ll be very sad upgrading to 2.0. PuzzleManiak was one of my favourite apps that got a lot of play time. I have little to no interest in the 4 that are heading to the app store, and frankly one of my favourite things about PuzzleManiak was being able to choose a random game to play from a big pool of possibilities. I guess I’ll have to just make do with some of the new games available on the AppStore now.
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Pierre says:
July 28th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I agree with Jimmni, having a long list of games was fun but I understand that this not going to happen anymore for legal, technical and commercial reason.
I have however another suggestion to make: when you have enough games ported could we restore the daily challenge: get a rotating game each day that is chosen by the server and play the challenge. This is fun because you do not know which game you will play and it leads you to discover new games and if you like them pay 99¢. Make the daily challenge as a game that only enables you to play the daily challenge game for the day and change it every 24 hours.
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TammyT says:
July 30th, 2008 at 5:37 am
I paid for and downloaded minesmaniak and when it went to install it on my itouch it told me there was an error and it couldn’t be synced.
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admin says:
July 30th, 2008 at 7:58 am
@TammyT, first thanks for having bought MinesManiak.
I’m really sorry, but I can’t help you a lot.
Do you have problems with other apps you bought?
Try to download it again.
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monkeyb says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Way to rip off Simon Tatham’s Portable Puzzle Collection http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/
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admin says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 6:18 pm
@monkeyb, so you’ve read the about page, that’s good!
http://www.puzzlemaniak.com/main/?cat=18
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David Taylor says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Just bought Sudoku! It looks very good and is probably the best implemenation out there, neither too complex or too spare. The entry method is a good advance and it works well.
I have a few comments:
1. The yellow selection square for entering numbers sometimes doesn’t appear.
2. The timer is really annoying. While I understand that some players like it, please could it be disabled somehow if you don’t need it?
3. Please implement the display of the row and column in a different highlight color so that it is easy to follow with the eye. (We’re not all 20 years old any more!)
4. Please could you make the entry keyboard even fainter and more see-through?
Thanks for a great implementation!
David
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Cal says:
August 4th, 2008 at 2:13 am
You just released 11 games! Why can’t you just make them into one big game! It would be a lot more fun, and people are much more likely to buy a collection of 11 puzzles then one puzzle. Trust me, If you release a combined version, people will buy it. Otherwise, meh.
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Truck3r says:
August 4th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
@Cal: Don’t be so sure – some people (like me) would rather pay 1$ for a single game than 10 or 12$ for a pack of games where we really only wanted a few. I have, however, bought 10 out of the 11 games in the AppStore so far – they’re all great…
@TammyT: There is no such thing as an “itouch” – it’s called an “iPod Touch”. Also there is no “Ipod Phone” – it’s an “iPhone”…
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Worf says:
August 5th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Yeah, a combined version would be good. Also, are you going to consider bundling them? Right you’re you’re at 14, and when you release more, it’s gonna cost more…
Heck, I’d probably pay $20 for PM to work on 2.0, with jailbreak… rather than have to buy these apps one by one. Though, I guess soon we’ll be at 20 games… no more picking and choosing them all.
Yeah, I could buy the ones I want, but PM let me taste some of the others – I’d never have learned about Net if I didn’t play it, or Map. Fun, but for me, not worth buying individually…
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Truck3r says:
August 7th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Alex,
I’ve bought all your games for iPhone so far (except Sudoku) and I am being entertainted by each and every one of them – I can’t even complain about the price.
However, you need to weed out some general bugs, that seems to affect some (all?) of the applications:
1. FillingManiak seems to have some sort of memory leak – if I play the hardest difficulty it simply quits – sometimes I have to reboot the phone to launch any application after this.
2. The games that require input of numbers – I like the general concept of the semi-transparent keypad that appears – however it is quite annoying that it also appears if you “missed” and there is no highlighted cell to put the number in – so please – only show the keypad if I have tapped a cell that accepts a number.
3. Some games have a bug, that goes like this. I finish a game at some level and enter my name for the highscore list, then I choose to play the web challenge. If I have already played the webchallenge for the day, I am told so, an typically the timer restarts – some games then allow me to modify the puzzle (although I already finished it), so I am able to just rotate one piece a few times and then get an unrealistic low hiscore of 3-4 seconds on a difficult puzzle.
4. Please make a confirmation dialog appear when I press “New” – I hate to lose a game I am playing, because I accidently taps the “New” button instead of one of the bottom cells. This request for confirmation also applies to “Again” and “Solve” as they screw up the game completely without warning – it’s ok that “Undo” doesn’t ask for confirmation – it doesn’t do that much harm…
I hope to see these things fixed in upcoming updates – the games are really great, it would just be nice to get these annoyances out of the way…
Keep up the good work!
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jsuber says:
August 7th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
You’ve responded positively to previous comments about the games in general, let me be specific.
On Tents, I like to turn green all the squares that cannot have a tent on them. But in Patterns when I try to turn white the squares that cannot be black I sometimes touch the tiny squares wrong and accidentally turn a different one white. But, whereas in Tents I could then turn it back with a second tap, that’s not allowed in Patterns. I think you should allow a second tap to make a black or white square grey again.
In Slant, LightUp, and Bridges I think you should not have an immediate indication of an error. Let us find it when we *think* we’re done and have to go back and untangle things. At least make it an option not to have that constant reminder, as in some Sudoku apps that let you turn off or on an error checker.
Going further, on Bridges I think you should take a hint from the free version and just indicate whether there are too few, enough, or too many bridges on a given island, rather than lighting up when a necessary path is blocked by a bridge. Or better yet, don’t indicate anything at all and let us find the problem.
On virtually all of the games but especially Pattern, Slant, Loopy, Rectangles, and Filling, try to figure out some way to make it easier to touch the intended spot. At the higher levels with larger boards and commensurately smaller boxes, it is very difficult to touch where you want and only where you want.
Thanks for the openness.
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admin says:
August 8th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Sorry, I’m late to answer all of you, but I’m currently on vacation, without my Mac, so I can’t easily answer you and I can’t fix bugs for now. But I’ll work on them jsut after my vacation (end of august…).
@Worf, I’m thinking of doing a pack of all the puzzles, but really later, you’ll have to be patiuent (Xmas?)
@Truck3r, FillingManiak never crashes on my iphone. Can you reproduce that bug? It does interest me to improve stability of the games.
OK for #2., I’ll work on that.
#3, good point for you!
I just reproduced it, thanks a lot.
It’ll fixed in all games in next version (but not before september).
#4, as you’re a lot to ask me to display a popup to confirm that you want to start a new game, I’ll work on that too, don’t worry. I’ll add such popup for the solve button too. But not the “again” because you can undo it easily.
@jsuber, For Pattern, i’ll work on that. Somebody else asked me this feature too, so I think it’s important.
Removing hints is not so easy as the game engine doesn’t allow that.
For your last point, cut your fingers
@all: Thanks a lot for all your comments.
If you really want to help me a lot, please write some good reviews in iTunes on the game you like. Thanks in advance for that.
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MikeD says:
August 12th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Hi, great games. I’ve purchased them all, and plan to review them on iTunes.
Any way you could pull the high scores and remain in the app? It is a bit painful to have to go to Safari each time I play the web challenge.
Any more games upcoming?
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MikeD says:
August 12th, 2008 at 4:02 am
Oh, also, please preload the last used/configured name for high scores. Thanks!
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admin says:
August 12th, 2008 at 11:16 am
@MikeD, welcome back!
for your #1, see this article: http://www.puzzlemaniak.com/main/?p=332
no more games coming up, sorry for that.
and, for your last point, I do’nt understand your query as the name is saved between 2 games. Not for you???
And for the reviews on iTunes, no pb
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demuredemeanor says:
August 13th, 2008 at 3:13 am
Isn’t it great that the appstore has brainwashed devs into selling apps that are made from _free_ code, and then splitting it into multiple apps to make more money?
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SJ says:
August 15th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
@demuredemeanor
Am I missing the point that its not the fairies that make the apps, but a group of people who (yes, using free code) make the apps, run a website, answer all our questions and generally babysit us all when it comes to these games…..for a few pence??
They are not monkeys chained by the ankle working as our little free slaves (are they??). Have you had any questions or issues yet – people like Alex can’t do enough for you.
The app used to be completely free, was downloaded something like 150 THOUSAND times….and they got about 20 dollars in donations for all their work (I’m paraphrasing the figures, but they are about right).
I dont wish to sound rude @demuredemeanor, but if the code ( I have no idea what that means), but if it is free as you say, can you not make your own application and play your own games? No-one is forcing you to buy these games.
I have had hours and hours of fun with my sudokumaniak for what amounts to pennies…… They are nice people who spend a lot of time on a nice product – Iets not deny them making a few bucks?!
Happy gaming xxxxx
PS SOMEONE COME ONTO THE SUDOKU BOARD AND DISCUSS IT WITH ME – I’m talking to myself there
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SJ says:
August 15th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
HANG ON – Admin have been on holiday!!! We must be paying them too much !!!!!!
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Truck3r says:
August 18th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
About the bug in FillingManiak…
I can reproduce it like this:
1. Reboot the phone to make sure it’s not some other app causing this.
2. Start FillingManiak and select the hardest difficulty (9×9 I think it is).
3. Solve the puzzle.
4. Select new puzzle (same difficulty) and solve again.
5. Repeat until app quits or phone freezes – for me that only takes 2-3 puzzles…
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Alice Eastwood says:
August 28th, 2008 at 2:09 am
I love UnequalManiak, but I do wish that when I turn off the screen the timer would stop. It’s embarrassing to have been “working” a puzzle for “hours”!
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admin says:
August 28th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Instead of turning off the screen shutdown the game. Then when you restart it, your current game will be resumed
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SJ says:
August 28th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Still no-one is coming on to the Sudoku comments page http://www.puzzlemaniak.com/main/?p=92#comments to talk to me
Pasolino – who are you and how do you halve my time scores every day – it drives me nuts!!!
Oscar – You are also very good indeed. Got any tips for me? Although on a couple of occasions when you don’t play I have been in first place which I was hugely excited about.
Ryan – have you noticed our scores are within 10 seconds of each other almost every single day?
I still miss VERY MUCH the double tap option to hide the solve and reset buttons and I wish the pencilmark box would stay open while I put more than one number in.
Hope everyone is playing happily x
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ryan Reply:
December 13th, 2008 at 4:40 am
Hahaha, I did not! I wonder if they still are?
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Linda says:
August 28th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Is there a problem with Bridges because it’s not available in the US iTunes store anymore. That’s one of my favorite games! Oh yeah, when will maps be available.
I read above that you’ll have a games pack sometime in the future? What if we already bought a majority of the games?
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admin says:
August 29th, 2008 at 9:31 am
@SJ, I’ll work on the ‘double tap trick’ to go in full screen mode. But not now, sorry.
@Linda, Bridges will come back in iTunes tomorrow. I’ve added some screenshots on the description and changed the release date so that it’ll appear to the new users.
For the game pack, unfortunately I can’t release something for the one who paid the games idividually and the others. That’s like a compilation of songs, if you already bought all the other albums…
Sorry for that.
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pyabo says:
August 31st, 2008 at 12:43 am
I was going to ask why there was no Nurikabe implementation… but after digging around the site I realize why now. Maybe you could talk Simon into writing some code… I wonder why he never included it in the collection?
Anyway, nice job on the iPhone port. Well worth the $ for the individual games, in my opinion.
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thekitchensink says:
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Thanks a bunch for making puzzlemaniak, it’s the most played game on my iTouch. I guess Black Box and Same Game ran into copyright issues? Those are the two I miss the most, and it’s weird because I’ve never seen Black Box anywhere else.
Anyway, is there no possibility of the option to buy all the currently available games under one icon, with a menu like the iTouch version of PM? I understand you can’t include some of the games, but I would definately buy an all-encompassing version for the cumulative price of buying them all seperately (or a little more, for the extra work). Thanks again!
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admin says:
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Concerning BlackBox, here is the wikipedia webpage on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Box_(game)
You can read there that the game is licensed by Parker Brothers company, so I’m not really sure that I can port it on the iPhone.
Concerning the compilation version of PuzzleMançiak, it should arrive later. Keep in touch!
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moviecouple says:
September 7th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I would really like to see a Dominosamaniak Lite in the appstore. Looks interesting but would like to try it first.
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admin says:
September 8th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
@moviecouple, Just wait that Apple validates it and you’ll be able to play it.
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Robert barga says:
September 13th, 2008 at 6:35 am
could youguys release a pack of all the game together for a flat fee and ls listedas one app( with a menu)?
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Ryand says:
September 15th, 2008 at 7:02 am
loved PM, but I’ll be waiting for the puzzle package.. Like the bundle idea a lot more. I look forward to hearing about an official launch for the pack, thanks!
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admin says:
September 15th, 2008 at 9:00 am
PuzzleManiak (the 15 puzzles in only 1 game) will be released soon.
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Truck3r says:
September 15th, 2008 at 9:08 am
OMG – you have *GOT* to fix the problem with the “Solve” button (in some games) – I can’t count how many times I have accidentally hit the solve button in eg. LoopyManiak when I was trying to complete a web challenge (and the challenge happens to be one of the bigger boards).
Please update the remaining games to make them display a confirmation dialog when “Solve” is pressed (or anything else that will make you lose your current puzzle)
I still love the games though, but it’s hard not to be annoyed that I will miss out on a lot of points in the web challenge because my fingers are too fat and keep hitting solve…
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jsuber says:
September 17th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
You’ve adopted many or most of my concerns in upgrades, but I’ll ask again if there’s not some way you can reduce some of the white space around the edges in Patern, Tents and Slant to allow larger targets for clumsy fingers. In Slant it appears simply to be a matter of expanding to the borders, in Pattern and Tents perhaps you could move the numbers closer to each other and to the board to allow for a larger board. At the higher levels, I find it very difficult to hit the right spot.
A more important problem for thick fingers is on Loopy. More times than I can count I’ve been working near the bottom and inadvertently hit “New” or “Again.” I can undo Again, but for New I’ve lost the game and all I’ve done to that point. Obviously I can complain again about more space but a simpler solution in this case might be just to add the confirmation dialog that you have on other games (e.g., Pattern), “Start a New Game? Cancel or OK.” Then it wouldn’t automatically erase everything. Thank you.
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jsuber says:
September 17th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Oh, and by the way, on Pattern, what’s the significance of the dividing lines? At 10×10, they signify the halfway point, which can be helpful, but in 8×8, they cut the board into 5 and 3. What are those for?
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peergynt says:
October 1st, 2008 at 2:01 am
I really liked PM, it was a great idea to have one app with that many Puzzles.
But – they are still Puzzles. In the Internet there are thousands of Puzzles to play – for free.
Now the iPhone is a great Toy, but it also cost me dearly. And there is almost no Mobile out there with less Software integrated. Now thats ok if I can download but this whole appstore Business pisses me off, because I dont see why I should pay for every little piece of Code out there.
I understand that you want to get something out of your work, but try to understand that some people don’t sit on money. I’m starting to regret buying that iPhone already.
Plus – I just don’t believe it that you bought a MacBook JUST to develop this game for us.
I
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azketta says:
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:15 am
First, I’d like to say that I love these games. I play a lot of these on conceptis and loved finding a portable version.
I do have a slight suggestion; sometimes on bigger puzzles I get stuck and have to try several things only to find later that some previous logic was flawed. It would be nice to have a ‘check’ progress button.
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Care Cup says:
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:20 am
In Rectangles, what do the squares do that are under the options menu? The one on the right seems to not do anything (I can’t even make rectangles). Also, stars = what?
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admin says:
October 2nd, 2008 at 11:16 am
@azketta, I won’t do such a button, that would be too easy to play.
@Care Cup, the squares button should not be there, it’s definitively a bug.
And the stars are the level of difficulty.
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melody from hong kong says:
October 4th, 2008 at 3:52 am
isn’t the package available yet? I can’t find the download button
. Love pm
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admin says:
October 4th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Still not.
Please be patient, coming soon, really!
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Claudio says:
October 10th, 2008 at 6:51 am
Hi, i want to know how can i install Puzzle Maniak on my iphone 1.1.4…
thanks
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admin says:
October 10th, 2008 at 8:50 am
upgrade to 2.1, pay it, and you’ll get it
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Kathy says:
October 15th, 2008 at 6:33 am
I noticed that PuzzleManiak is now available for the iPhone. That’s great! How about a deal for those of us who bought a number of the individual games? I bought 6 of the individual games. How about a free upgrade to PuzzleManiak?
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admin says:
October 15th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Unfortunately, Apple didn’t manage such case.
So I can’t neither.
All individual games will be upgraded soon to get the same level of features as the golbal package.
That’s all I can do.
Sorry for that.
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aerodave says:
October 17th, 2008 at 12:34 am
You know, at first I felt a little cheated knowing that I had already spent $5 on PM games before the package was released. And I also wondered about the possibility of a deal for those of us prior purchasers willing to upgrade.
But then I realized that we’re talking about a few bucks, here. And I don’t care who your are, $6 isn’t that much money. If it were, you wouldnt’ have an iPhone. Now if you can seriously claim that you haven’t squeezed $.99 worth of value out of Pattern or Bridges or whatever your favorite game is, then you might feel a little cheated. But I can say I’ve gotten more value out of Rectangles than I would from, say, a bottle of Coke, or a losing lottery ticket. So I’ve gotten my dollar’s worth. To put it another way, I think that the $5 PM package is still a bargain at twice the price, so I can’t feel too bad thinking I (kinda) paid double for it.
Besides, Alx has done a great job bringing us these puzzles, and deserves a few extra bucks. Consider it like a tip for good service. With some of the crap other developers are putting out and getting paid for, the least we can do is support someone who’s actually making something good.
(Disclaimer: I don’t know Alx, and I receive no benefit from heaping praise on him. He just deserves it, that’s all.)
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pook says:
October 20th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Hi, thanks for this great pack. However, I’m a little bit disapointed by the behaviour of your app.
I can’t ‘save’ any internet challenge, Untangle is buggy (I have to reboot each time I try to play)
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Thiago says:
November 12th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Hi, I’m so addicted to Puzzle Maniac as many in this conversation. But I’ve just updated my Ipod to 2.1 version and, surprisingly, I’m not able to buy the new version of the game because it’s not available for international iTunes stores! Why that? I’m sure there are many fans of this wonderful game all around the world.
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admin says:
November 12th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
@Thiago, puzzlemaniak is available in all appstores.
foolow this link: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=292319186&mt=8 to get it.
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tjm says:
December 1st, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Sometimes PM crashes while loading, working on, or saving a web challenge, and I can’t submit my score for that day. Being able to re-load a web challenge would solve this problem, even if there would be a time penalty.
-tjm (no, I’m not tim.)
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nas says:
January 9th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I have an iPod Touch with version 2.1 firmware. When i try to download puzzlemaniak christmas edition from the app store it tells me that its not compatible with my iPod and won’t let me download it.
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admin Reply:
January 9th, 2009 at 8:05 pm
you must upgrade your ipod touch to firmware 2.2
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Mr.Hat says:
January 19th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Weren’t there 27 games before? Why are there only 20 now? I want to play Cube, Flip, Twiddle and Inertia again.
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TopWarmachine says:
April 18th, 2009 at 12:10 am
I just purchased puzzlemaniak today, and for some reason it does not appear in Itunes under the applications tab. I downloaded other apps today as well to see if they would sync up with itunes and they did just fine. If anyone could shed any light on this matter it would be much appreciated.
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TopWarmachine Reply:
April 19th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Nevermind, I fixed the problem myself. Also, sorry for not posting this in the bug report page even though the bug was not with the application, but Itunes itself.
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