Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register
Simplism Games Simplism Games
  Signup for free on our forum and benefit from new features!
  HomeHelpSearchLoginRegister  
 
Pages: 1 2 3 
Send Topic Print
mallet mania (Read 34186 times)
TBDMfan
Senior Member
****
Offline



Posts: 327
mallet mania
Feb 17th, 2011 at 9:50pm
 
with qetuth, harryck, caren, sam, nymike and myself there are now 6 active mm players around. maybe this motivates some of the mm veterans to come out of retirement?

we should talk more about mm, nono and ms. Wink
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
NYMIKE
YaBB Newbies
*
Offline


I Love YaBB 2.4!

Posts: 46
Re: mallet mania
Reply #1 - Feb 19th, 2011 at 2:39am
 
How do I solve 2x2 square mallet?  I spent awful lot of time with no success on that mallet.  So far in the tournaments I havent been competitive, I'd like to finish one tournament not in the last place.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
TBDMfan
Senior Member
****
Offline



Posts: 327
Re: mallet mania
Reply #2 - Feb 19th, 2011 at 3:40pm
 
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Harryck Repse
Junior Member
**
Offline



Posts: 81
Re: mallet mania
Reply #3 - Feb 19th, 2011 at 6:51pm
 
nice to see a thread started to talk about malletmania

Early this morning I got a 1 second on easy mode staircase board by just spam clicking both the right and left button on my mouse for 20 minutes lol. I actually just wanted the 2 seconds game then I did 2.36 and thought perhaps 1 was possible.

I had the same problem with that board Mike, I spent hours for trying but could never solve the hard mode. I never thought to try the strategy like Fritz used, that video will surely help me. i was just solving the easy corners then guessing the rest. maybe i'll finally solve a board tonight. Shocked

Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Qetuth
YaBB Administrator
*****
Offline



Posts: 72
Re: mallet mania
Reply #4 - Feb 28th, 2011 at 8:24am
 
Mid-season 34, I was devoting about a minute a week to the MM tourneys, and decided to play out the season and then stop posting. Then all of a sudden right as I went to stop playing everyone joined in! It's good to see it going again.
Back to top
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 
Qetuth
YaBB Administrator
*****
Offline



Posts: 72
Re: mallet mania
Reply #5 - Feb 28th, 2011 at 8:51am
 
I wrote a long post with some hints and tactics for using square mallets, even pointing to EWQs video for examples. But then it didn't post correctly and I lost it.

So I thought I'd post a link to this old video:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~queteq/MM/QQ-M2h-90s-130307.zip

This completing of 2h uses no guesses, and in fact 2h can usually be solved without guessing.

And Harryck - nice time! I think Gero was trying for 1s on Ve board years ago, but never got it. I've actually only gotten a few 2s in lots of trying.
Back to top
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 
NYMIKE
YaBB Newbies
*
Offline


I Love YaBB 2.4!

Posts: 46
Re: mallet mania
Reply #6 - Feb 28th, 2011 at 3:25pm
 
Haha the reason for the increased popularity of mm is I recruited Sam to play nono from minesweeper community and Sam decided to buy full version of mm after that I got one too and fritz followed, meanwhile harryck and caren resumed playing, finally christoph joined last week we might have more than 8 players soon, in my opinion its the hardest puzzle game I played.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
TBDMfan
Senior Member
****
Offline



Posts: 327
Re: mallet mania
Reply #7 - Feb 28th, 2011 at 7:54pm
 
97 on 2h Cheesy
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Caren
YaBB Newbies
*
Offline



Posts: 17
Re: mallet mania
Reply #8 - Mar 1st, 2011 at 12:26am
 
Qetuth, I watched your video.  I can follow the moves until the 1 minute mark.  Then when you start working on the middle I get confused.  I understand the edges, reducing everything to the same number, usually 1.  Then when you get a 1-2-1 you can clear and get a new corner.  I don't understand the second row in, should they be 3's or 2's or just the same number?  How do the corners work? 

The big tournament boards with 2x3 or H's I hardly ever finish the board, maybe 1 out of 40, probably less.  I think I just end up making random guesses.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Gero
Full Member
***
Offline



Posts: 152
Germany - Ingolstadt
Gender: male
Re: mallet mania
Reply #9 - Mar 2nd, 2011 at 1:58pm
 
Haha, nice to see some people finally playing this game  Smiley
Perhaps it will motivate me to try improving, too.

Funny to see Qetuth's video again, I think he made it for me some time ago, because I wasn't able to finish 2h.

About the scene at 1:00 min. You have
4  6
[] 4
there. The difference between 4 and 6 is 2, so you can hammer it down to
2  4
[] 2
because you will always have to hammer at least 2 times with the mallet covering this pattern.
Try thinking about what happens if you hammer 4 6 without covering [] 4. You'll get (because further clicking leads to an unsolvable pattern):
2  4 Unsolvable pattern with further clicking: 1  3 and    2
[] 4                                                           [] 4       [] 4
This pattern automatically needs to be hammered 2x with the mallet covering it completely.
Now try the other possibility: Hammering
6            4
4 without [] and you'll get (stopping before pattern gets unsolvable):
4  4
[] 2
And again this pattern needs to be hammered at least 2 times with the mallet covering it completly.
So all in all you can see, either way you have to reduce
4  6     2  4
[] 4 to [] 2
and still you have all possibilities left for solving this pattern completly.

Hope you could understand my english and the explanation  Cheesy
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Caren
YaBB Newbies
*
Offline



Posts: 17
Re: mallet mania
Reply #10 - Mar 4th, 2011 at 3:24am
 
Gero, thank you for explaining.  I can follow what you say, but don't know how to apply it more generally.

What if it was:
4  7
[] 5

would I always be able to make it:
4  6
[] 4

then:
2  4
[] 2

Can the corners always be reduced to:
x  x+y
[] y

So if I have
2  6
[] 3

I could reduce it to
2  5
[] 3

Can I also make it so x and y are the same?  Can it always become:
2  4
[] 2

Does:
x  x+y
[] y

become:
x  2x
[] x
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
TBDMfan
Senior Member
****
Offline



Posts: 327
Re: mallet mania
Reply #11 - Mar 4th, 2011 at 12:47pm
 
caren, if x < y then yes.

thanks for the explanation gero and caren.
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Qetuth
YaBB Administrator
*****
Offline



Posts: 72
Re: mallet mania
Reply #12 - Mar 5th, 2011 at 3:41pm
 
If you have a corner with any numbers:
x  a
[] y
then x and y can be made the same: so if x<y you could go to:
x  b
[] x

Now as Caren said, if b>2x, it can be reduced to 2x. However, if b<2x, you can hit the whole corner until b=2x
If you're lucky enough to have b=x, then the whole thing can be cleared.

Now, the internal smoothing:
Lets say my top 2 rows of board looks like:
[]2222[]
[]3344[]
I could smooth this to:
[]2222[]
[]3333[]
Once an edge is smooth, you can then smooth the next row in, then the next row, and so on. This is because, however you clear that row of 2s, it's going to make the next row in a new edge with -2 to every square. But you only smooth each row along itself, you don't get to reduce every row to the same number unless you can smooth from two different edges (ie, the top and the side).

[]22[]22[]
[]334 55
[]334 44
Here, the smoothing is interrupted (ignore the corners, I'm assuming we can't attack from the sides here for demo)

[]11[]11[]
[]111 11
[]223 44
Think about what happens when the 1s are cleared - there are 2 ways to clear them, but either way makes the 3rd row a new edge as is, so it can be smoothed despite the extra first row []!

We couldn't do this the previous time because the 4 in the 2nd row makes it unclear what the 2nd row will look like, so we can't attack the third row.

Hope that made sense.


The most common games I play with MM these days are:
a) mallet 8, custom board, 20x15 with 0 hidden, change the number of hits needed up 1 when you win, down one when you lose. Current score is 151.

b) 2x2 hard, try to reach 70% cleared without reducing any square to 0 (except those that start 0). So basically try and get a board of pure 1s with occasional 2 or 3.

c) + hard, try to get entire board showing only even numbers, with rule that you cannot hit in same location twice.

But more commonly I play insanely huge custom boards from simon tathams puzzle collection. Or Diablo 2.
Back to top
 
WWW  
IP Logged
 
Sam Haynes
YaBB Newbies
*
Offline


I Love YaBB 2.4!

Posts: 12
Re: mallet mania
Reply #13 - Mar 8th, 2011 at 2:07am
 
I really like this week's tournament. Your move, Fritz & Qetuth.  Grin
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
TBDMfan
Senior Member
****
Offline



Posts: 327
Re: mallet mania
Reply #14 - Mar 8th, 2011 at 12:44pm
 
@sam: challenge accepted! Tongue

EDIt: took me roughly 45min to get a 30. Roll Eyes
Back to top
 
 
IP Logged
 
Pages: 1 2 3 
Send Topic Print