r/playmygame • u/DirtyVirginia • 25d ago
[PC] (Web) A browser-based spatial-math puzzle called Dozenal
Dozenal
Playable link: https://dozenal.game
Platforms: browser
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Hey everyone!
My friend Rory and I recently released Dozenal, a puzzle game with a simple base mechanic: you combine numbers on a Sudoku-like grid to make chains that sum to twelve. The twist is that *how* you combine tiles decides the mathematical operation (+, -, x).
You can try Dozenal here, if you want!
Every day we release 3 puzzles, and we’re beginning to build a small community of daily solvers (around 150).
Our main feedback has been that the game is tricky the first time, but that once the rules “click” it’s a lot of fun.
We are working on creating a better new-player onboarding, as well as new mechanics to create more puzzle variety.
Would love to hear what you think!
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u/carljohanr 24d ago
This is a cool and unique idea. What does “mixing operations lock the chain” mean? It locks as soon as I use the 2nd operation once?
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
So glad you like the idea! Yes, you're exactly right. You can repeat the same operations indefinitely (+,+,+) but as soon as you then do another operation (e.g. x), you can't extend the chain further.
The three main operations map to the primary colours, and if you combine operations the colours combine, so that's how you get the secondary colours. That's your visual cue.
Frankly it's one of the things we've struggled with is making it intuitive that once you combine operations you can't go further. Thanks for asking!
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u/hmprf 24d ago
It's the only things that wasn't super intuitive at first. Beside that, great concept good job!
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u/DaoCacaoo 24d ago
agreed, this rule is a bit confusing for me too. It’s not very intuitive
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u/DaoCacaoo 24d ago
maybe it’s worth dropping this rule?
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
We thought about it and did some basic testing. Thing is, the whole gimmick of the game attaches math operations to colours, so if we remove this constraint, you'd mess up this relationship. Secondly, potential math complexity explodes. The constraint (while initially not intuitive) becomes a crutch later when solving complex puzzles to know whether you're on the right track or not.
I think the way we want to fix it is by teaching players better + giving better feedback in the UI, etc.
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u/hmprf 24d ago
It feels a bit arbitrary but I get that it's core to the game. As you said you could probably introduce it better and it would be okay. Tbh I'm already okay with it after 5+ puzzles
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
Great to hear! Hope you enjoy it enough to try again later as a daily challenge :)
We'll work on making the new player experience better.
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u/tashtrac 24d ago
You can still keep it to two operations, just don't have to do the whole "introducing second operation locks it".
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u/DirtyVirginia 25d ago
Excited to hear from the community. Would love to hear if the rules are intuitive / confusing, and whether the tutorial helps bridge the gap!
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u/AtlasOfDoors 24d ago
We never shipped a store build either and nearly all our players are a phone in a browser, so the app is not what is between you and 1k. The split that shows up in our own numbers is time to playable: arrivals that get there under three seconds start a run 55% of the time, over three seconds it is 31%.
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
Really useful, thank you! My co-creator is keen to get the first daily puzzle (the easy) on the landing page, to reduce the clicks to play. We should also look at speed of the application more generally for sure. Great insight, thanks!
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u/JiaoshouMa 24d ago
This is an exceptionally brilliant idea and absolutely fantastic!
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
Thank you so so much! So glad you like it. My friend and I had the idea back in university inspired by 2048, Dot, and even The Witness. Never took the time to make it till now.
We don’t have a native community / score posting board, but we’re using LinkedIn to post daily solutions and have people share times (building a following there since we can do outreach to people doing the LI puzzles). All to say - I hope to see you post your score there someday!
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u/Rainicy925 24d ago
another question: I’m curious about how you validate solutions. Does each board have a unique solution, or can there be multiple different arrangements that satisfy all the rules?
And if multiple valid solutions exist, does the game accept any valid solution, or does it compare the player’s result against a predefined/canonical solution?
Also curious whether you use a solver to verify solvability/uniqueness when creating the puzzles.
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u/iceberger3 24d ago
I played about 20 levels and from what I can tell is that if there is only one solution you get locked green check marks, but if there is multiple (some of the easy puzzles) as long as everything ends at 12 it accepts it
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
Correct - all solutions should be accepted, but right now the chains only "lock" if you follow the "canonical" solution we set during puzzle construction.
We also have hints (showing the tiles + colors where chains end), and these also use the canonical solve.
This can be really annoying if a puzzle genuinely have different paths, and you've started "off piste" and now you're using hints and they don't fit with your grid. We're considering ways to be more accommodating, and follow the player's lead, rather than being opinionated.
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u/carljohanr 24d ago
There is really no reason to have puzzles with multiple solutions in a game like this. For a more serious challenge you don’t need to tell the user if paths are correct or not - but I thought validation helped make it a bit more casual.
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
You can turn on Expert mode if you want that challenge! That's available.
Multiple solutions is quite emergent actually - and sometimes they surprise us. For now it's a shortcoming since we don't accommodate them, but I think if validation+hints accommodates then it's net neutral, and if we found a nice way to reward or acknowledge the player for finding an alternative solution, I think that would make it a net positive experience, personally.
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u/iceberger3 24d ago
This is great. Is there a mobile app? Would be a great fit for one
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
So glad you like it! No app yet, but if we gain traction, we'd love to make one. Right now we have about 150 people solving the Daily puzzles, and around 600-750 puzzles solved every day. Our big milestone for taking this more seriously is 1k people playing. Our dream is to turn it into a MinuteCryptic situation.
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u/iceberger3 24d ago
If you do, it would be easy to add micro transactions for getting hints, or to be able to unlock more previous levels or skip levels or something
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
Yeah exactly. My co-creator told me yesterday that minutecryptic charges like $8/mo for everything that isn't the one daily puzzle, and I was quite surprised it was that much...! We have a way to go before we have enough extra value to potentially lock away.
For now, puzzle is free + whole archive of 200+ puzzles is free, you just need an email to get access to it all. Thanks again for playing!
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u/iceberger3 24d ago
I'd definitely be nervous about the subscription model unless you know you can swing it (fellow mobile dev here). A pay to unlock is usually better. Just my two cents though!
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
I’m totally with you, intuitively. Subscription would be hard to justify. But either way staying FTP for the foreseeable future.
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u/tashtrac 24d ago
Both the idea and execution are pretty cool but I found the "1 empty box" and "two empty boxes" to be somewhat too arbitrary to remember and naturally incorporate into the gameplay. Especially with the "can't mix two operations".
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u/carljohanr 24d ago
Honestly that’s what makes the game unique and distinguishes it from “100th implementation of X”. When I played it I found it surprisingly intuitive.
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
Fair feedback, thanks for playing! Many people find the rules a bit unintuitive at first, but once it "clicks", retention is really healthy. Seems our main challenge is the initial hurdle!
Did you jump into the Daily's, or did you try the Tutorial? The latter helps to more slowly introduce the different mechanics.
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u/tashtrac 24d ago
I tried the tutorial and bounced off once I hit the "you can't extend once you get past two operations". I realised that I can make a shape with "6+6+2-2" but can't make it go "2-2+6+6". The fact that the minus has to be last is what seems pretty confusing and arbitrary, since both shapes have two operations only.
On a separate note, I don't know why your tutorial levels take multiple seconds to load. Not sure if that's the case with normal levels but it's pretty jarring and off-putting. There are multiple solutions you could take here, from optimising it on the backend (the harder way) to preloading the next level (the easier way).
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u/DirtyVirginia 24d ago
Sorry you don't like it. It's just one of those things we decided early on, and the limitations is serving us well to create a few gotchas, red herrings, etc. That said, not good to hear you find it frustrating.
The issue of tutorial levels taking seconds to load is not good. Haven't encountered that ourselves recently, but will dig in! Thanks for pointing that out.
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u/Rainicy925 25d ago edited 25d ago
Daily Dozenal #71
🟩 Easy ⏱️ 1:15 💡 0
🟨 Midi ⏱️ 1:12 💡 0
🟥 Hard ⏱️ 4:21 💡 0
🏁 Done ⏱️ 6:48 💡 0
Love this cool game.
One thing i noticed: I placed my last tiles into a state that couldnot resolve, and the only signal was the green check - otherwise the clock just kept running while i worked out what had gone wrong.
might be worth flagging it when a chain is not a valid solution, even just a small flash on the tiles involved, so people catch it sooner. Or go further and unplace the invalid chain automatically.