Puzzle feedback improvements

[TudorEsan]

• added a better tutorial
• change the order of some components on mobile

[TudorEsan]

• Updated the layout to look like this

• Updated the favicon to this:

[Twey]

I like this layout much better! I do think there are a couple of ways it could still be simplified:

• given that we can locally check the correctness of the puzzle and we have no penalty for incorrect submissions (they're just rejected), maybe the ‘check’, ‘submit’, and ‘overlay’ steps could be merged into one, i.e. when they click the button we run the simulation forward and stop at the target generation, highlighting the cells that are incorrect, and if there are no incorrect cells we (issue a confirmation prompt to) submit the solution
• the text above the submit button looks like (and mostly is) static help text, but actually encodes part of the puzzle spec (the target generation) — this will confuse people when they switch puzzles as they won't expect that text to change so probably won't re-read it; rather it would be better to have all the pass conditions for the current puzzle together in one place
• I don't feel like the icons are very self-explanatory, so I'd prefer that the buttons have text embedded in them rather than requiring the user to refer to the key on the left

[TudorEsan]

1. "maybe the ‘check’, ‘submit’, and ‘overlay’ steps could be merged into one" - I like this ideea, I'm just not very confident that we could ship this for the tomorrow launch, I would like to not make very big modifications to the logic so we don't introduce any bugs, but let me know what you think
2. The static text above the Submit button was suggested by Mathieu, let mw know if I should remove it. If so, we would need a separate way of showing the "after x generations" constraint
3. Yep it's a lot more self-explanatory let me know if I should push this as well

[Twey]

Definitely hear you about not wanting to risk bugs :)

What if we put the target generation after the current generation under the board (‘generation 16/40’) and made the number even bigger to draw the eye? That way we can have the static text above the button be just static text.

Much prefer the buttons with the text, thank you :) Are we still using the icons in the ‘how to play’? If so it might be worth keeping the icons as well as the text (and adding one to ‘reset’, for consistency).

[TudorEsan]

okay will do all of this changes (using multiple commits so if we don't linke them we can easily revert them)

[TudorEsan]

hmm maybe this feels weird? `5/1` - I'm not sure if people will understand what is happening

[ma2bd]

Guys 5/1 doesn't work

[TudorEsan]

pushed the icons commit for now:

@ma2bd let me know if I should change anything else

[ma2bd]

"evolving" is weird

[ma2bd]

the text above the submit button looks like (and mostly is) static help text, but actually encodes part of the puzzle spec (the target generation) — this will confuse people when they switch puzzles as they won't expect that text to change so probably won't re-read it; rather it would be better to have all the pass conditions for the current puzzle together in one place

I disagree with the proposed solution. We need the definition of the puzzle in one place. I would in fact add information here to be self-contained down the road (but I know it's hard right not).

If the problem is that the number 40 is not visible we should just make it bigger / bolder / circled or whatever works

[TudorEsan]

"evolving" is weird

should we keep "Start" or just remove the text

[Twey]

I disagree with the proposed solution. We need the definition of the puzzle in one place. I would in fact add information here to be self-contained down the road (but I know it's hard right not).

That's the other direction: try to put the puzzle definition as a whole here, including the target state. But that makes this component a lot more complicated, and I think we already have a better solution for that in the form of the overlay, so we should lean into that.

[Twey]

Guys 5/1 doesn't work

It doesn't, I was thinking we'd stop the simulation at the target generation and not allow them to step past it.

[ma2bd]

Guys 5/1 doesn't work

It doesn't, I was thinking we'd stop the simulation at the target generation and not allow them to step past it.

Can we go back to what I suggested and just make the number of iterations more visible? thanks

[ma2bd]

Also a "play" button without text is fine

[Twey]

Can we go back to what I suggested and just make the number of iterations more visible? thanks

People will get banner blindness for this text after reading it once; I don't think there's any kind of visibility short of having it flash or something equally obnoxious that will make them read it again (at least until after they've been confused). I really don't advise mixing static and dynamic content like that.

[ma2bd]

Can we go back to what I suggested and just make the number of iterations more visible? thanks

People will get banner blindness for this text after reading it once; I don't think there's any kind of visibility short of having it flash or something equally obnoxious that will make them read it again. I really don't advise mixing static and dynamic content like that.

Fair point but the solution is to iterate on this particular frame

[TudorEsan]

whats new:

• reset to generation initial generation (without removing it from the board if you want to tweak the puzzle)
• next and prev puzzle navigation next to the title
• fixed a bug where the prev generation would delete the initial state
• block resubmission of puzzles, now shows puzzle already completed

what was modified:

• removed play button text
• addapted overall wording
• added logging to completed puzzles query (maybe it helps debugging that known bug)
• updated the error message of failed puzzles for now to: "Incorrect solution, try again"
• updated difficulty badges to be consistant