That's probably a bug and/or cheat, yeah! (I'd guess it's just a bug, but sometimes the line is blurry.)

Sorry!

Just found a video that I wanted to include with my earlier response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGar7KC6Wiw&sns=fb

Play

Staying indie for the foreseeable future. You have to be either ignorant or fanatical to want to work in the mainstream games industry.

I live and breathe indie. I was indie before indie was indie.

When the stars begin to flicker out and the long heat death of the universe begins, I will be the last to go - because dying is too mainstream.

Does that answer the question? You may need to be more specific.

Huh, you're right. Odd. And you're the first person to mention it.

The missing word is "know", which can be guessed from idiomatic context, so it's not that huge a problem, but... still. I'll fix it when and as I do the next bugfix release.

Thanks for letting me know!

this is good preparation for the corporate world

Huh, it has? Try http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqoSgjEpBTQ , then.

Play

The Malevolence Engine is a replacement for the old testing system. When Manufactoria first came out, all the levels worked like custom levels do now: a few specified strings were run through the machine, and if the machine produced the expected output, it was considered correct. The Malevolence Engine is much more thorough, but it requires knowledge of the problem to work; when the only knowledge provided is the tests (which is pretty much what defines user levels), it can't function!

In retrospect - this was suggested a month or two after I finished implementing custom levels - it would have been much more intuitive to build custom levels by specifying a solution machine, which the player would have had to match the output of. The Malevolence Engine would easily be able to test custom levels built in that way. But at the moment, and really for the forseeable future, the complete reimplementation of custom levels that would be necessary is... impractical.

Unfortunately.

Heh. I know more than a few people have missed the message(s), but I think you're the only person who's made it all the way through without. Well done! You are a True Robot Hero.

I've been meaning to add one for a while, but had some issues with formatting... that was before the current site design, though, so now I've added one. Let me know if there are any problems with it.

Oh, and thank you for offering to donate, of course! It's honestly touching.

Heh. Good night, belatedly! Best of luck in the morning.

Pineapples are inherently wonderful, I guess? I wonder how many other stories of this ilk lurk about the webs.

For Manufactoria. In general, I'd suggest you try to break levels down into subproblems - for instance, in Robolamp ( http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=3 ), first check for one blue, then two, then three. In Robobugs ( http://pleasingfungus.com/?lvl=5 ), check for "rbrb..." and for "brbr..." A lot of what the puzzles are about is figuring out what the right subproblems are!

For more specific advice, you could ask more specific questions, or (perhaps more productively, since I'm a bit rusty at the game - it's getting close to a year since I made it!), you could look at the esteemable Dr. Donut's Guide: http://www.gamefaqs.com/flash/997766-manufactoria/faqs/60235 . It has hints! It has solutions! It has LAYERED hints! The complete package.

It feels very silly to promote a gamefaqs guide for one's own game, but has that ever stopped me before?

(I guess if it did, you'd never know!)

Really? A friend of mine just started playing, so I started the game up for the first time in months a few days ago, in an attempt to show him the ropes. (He insisted on running around as spy, despite having no idea how to play. It was... kind of grisly.) Maybe I'll get into it again! That'd be nice.

The Pineappleope was made by an internet acquaintance of mine many years ago, a young lady going by the name of "Fish". I liked it so much that I began using it as my avatar in a number of places, and she didn't mind.

I seem to have an affinity for strange animal associations, don't I?

The Mann Co. update made me extremely worried; the Christmas Update lost me. They were just... way too vigorous with the 'monetization' of the game, and it got to the point where I wasn't having fun with the game any longer.

A large part of this was of course the ridiculous amount of time I'd put into the game already; Steam says I'd played it for 330 hours over 3 years, which seems plausible. The transition into "America's favorite war-themed hat simulator" helped rekindle my interest after I'd pretty much exhausted myself otherwise, and I maintained a proud set of weapons, hats, etc. Gave names to each of my Heavy weapons (my favorite class), that kind of thing.

But as time went on (especially after the Mann Co. update), the rate of new items kept increasing - an absurd complaint! But, coupled with the ever-increasing cost to craft new weapons, it became increasingly impractical to keep up with the metagame without either pouring vast amounts of time or actual real money into it.

So I stopped.

I don't think it's a bad game, not even now. 2011-TF2 is still Valve quality, which is to say, a pretty dang good game! Just not as good as it was. It's gone downhill in the strangest way possible: by continually adding new content and features.

A lesson in game design, I guess?

Thanks, I think!

I'd refer you and others like you to Dr. Donut's Manufactoria FAQ: http://www.gamefaqs.com/flash/997766-manufactoria/faqs/60235 . It offers several hints for every level, as well as full solutions. Give it a look!

if those are two different questions then they should have probably been two different questions

this was a MONSTROUS mistake on your part

anyway

1) shadow of the colossus - team fortress 2 (2008-2010) - the world ends with you

the three second-best games are spelunky and portal and stalker: shadow of chernobyl

in no particular order

2) dwarf fortress - xcom - gravity bone

gravity bone should probably be in that first list but seven games in a "best three games" is just too many! also the beginning of the second level wasn't very good.

I suspect that pathologic/the void will probably work their way into the second list at some point, but not yet.

1) yes (it is a pineappleope)
2) I started this account before formspring had custom backgrounds I think?
3) k

I would say: amanita (for the aesthetics and also the developer)

my friends would probably say: xochinanácatl

(assuming they could pronounce it?)

really it is a matter of personal taste I guess?

Hm - I tried just now and didn't have any problems. (It took a bit to load, but that's the only problem.) PM or email me with details, and I'll see if I can sort it out!