ReThink 4 News

Hello,

you can now adjust the games difficulty in the settings.

The options can be found within the settings menu, and look like this:

The game will default to the "Standard" difficulty, but can be changed to any other setting whenever you want.

These settings only affect the B,C,D,E areas.
The game will show a Note (like the other tutorials) about the difficulty settings when entering the B area.

Here is how the 3 settings look on a smaller puzzle:

[Hard] is as it was prior to this patch, with every tile accesible:

[Standard] removes some tiles to place cubes on, removing a lot of possibilities for non working solutions: [Simplified] reduces the accessible tiles to the ones necessary for the default solution (the one inteded by me), with some additional tiles.
There are a few puzzles that did not get any changes with difficulty, since they already had very few tiles to begin with (mainly 2 in the B area) - there simply was nothing to make it simpler.

If you change difficulty from a higher to a lower setting, it may happen that a cube then is on a white tile - this is not a bug!
You can move the cube from its position like you always could, but not back onto the white tile:


This Update is a compromise, it isnt perfect, but it aims to give everyone what they need. No solution was nerfed, and everyone can still access the game as it was when it launched, it just defaults to a more digestable difficulty now.

This Update also adds a few "shortcuts" to certain puzzles that had some waiting time in the past, until things rotated back into place.

Hello,

I have good news for everyon who got stuck in the game, or found it too difficult in general.

Later this week, there will be a patch that adds a difficulty option to the game, which you can change at any time.

Important: I did NOT nerf anything, or change any solution - everything is still exactly the same.

So, how does it work?

Depending on the chosen Difficulty (Normal, Hard, Simplified), the game will hide tiles that are not needed for the intended solution. (The game will default to "Normal", and ask about difficulty when entering the Area.)

It will look like this (Top: Hard, Mid: Normal, Bottom: Simplified:


All this will do, is reduce the amount of possible "missplaced cubes".

It will not reset any existing puzzle-solution, but a cube may be on a white tile after the patch. That is no issue though, since you can still grab it and place it somewhere else.

This update will not interfere with savegames etc, the difficulty is saved seperately.

Hello,

I dont have that much to show currently, since it will take a bit more time until I get the update done, but it will come with the following improvements/additions in addition to the ones already made in previous patches. (PS: No, the game is not "broken" or anything like that, I just found ways to improve it with relatively little effort.)

[h3]Upcoming changes (planned):[/h3]
- An additional Section between B and C, to improve the transition from Tutorial to "actual Puzzles", especially for new players.

- Performance improvements regarding the GameThread, which will bring somewhere between 25% and 92% more FPS in situations where you are limited by the GameThread. (This also has a small effect on the RenderThread, therefore in general slightly increasing FPS even in situations where the GameThread is not the limiting factor.) NOTE: This will have no (noticable) impact if you are heavily limited by your graphics card.)

- Additional Puzzles in each area that will act as "buffer" and allow you to skip 2 puzzles per area and still progress through the game, by providing more Keys than you actually need. (to prevent people getting stuck because they cant solve 1 of 21 puzzles in an area.)

- Additional (optional!) difficult puzzles at the end, for those who solved all previous puzzles and have the excess keys from previous areas.

- "Shortcuts" in certain puzzles to reduce the wait at the end. (Specifically: puzzles that take quite a bit of time to change states.)

- New Fences that are more visible than the current ones (see image below)

When?
This year, I expect, but certainly not before Christmas.

Thats all for now, more on this once I actually have something to show besides raw numbers and Fences.
While speaking of fences, here are some fences:




Regarding the Performance IMprovements in GameThread (CPU) limited situations:

Hello,

as the title already implies, I just "pressed the button" and made the game playable for everyone.

If you find bugs, please report them, so that they can be fixed. (I will be here for the next ~16 hours now and observing whats going on.

Have a nice day.

Hello,

first of all, I want to apologise for the inconvenience caused, but let me explain why.

I have now been testing stuff, and fixing small bugs for the last 16 hours because I underestimated the actual Size of my own game. (Yes, I know, it sounds stupid, but the game is huge... not just "20 puzzles more" in comparison to the previous one.)

Technically, I could rush it now... but you deserve better than that, which is why I am giving myself another day, allthough I am aware that this will annoy some people. (I am really sorry about it, but I think you prefer a less rushed game :P)

Given that the game also uses a "new" Engine (UE5) I am double-checking everything... and its worth it, I still found a few bugs that UE5 caused and implemented workarounds. (nothing big, but sometimes UE5 just does weird things.)

The game itself is fine, but I also dont want to be exhausted when I press the release button... when its actually important that I am "there" and able to fix possible issues quickly.

Have a nice day, and again, I am sorry - I didnt plan it like that.

PS: If you are wondering "how big it is", here is a hint: ReThink 3 fits into this game multiple times.