Mystery Box

UPDATE: Mystery Box for iOS is OUT NOW!! https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mystery-boxes/id6505112685

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My submission for the Judica Me Game Jam II. The theme was "small input, big output" and there was an added restriction to use only in-engine graphics.

GOAL:

Put a small (4-digit) number into the mystery box and get a big one! How? Why? That's up to you to figure out, as you attempt to figure out what's happening inside the box and find an input that will cause the box to produce the target number.

HOW THE BOX WORKS:

The box is composed of several layers. Each layer takes in the result of the previous layer, operating on each digit separately, and then sends that result to the next layer. Digits DO NOT CARRY.

You can use the "?" button to remind yourself of all the possible rules in the current challenge level.

EXAMPLE:

In this example, our box has three layers:

1. Multiply each digit by 3

2. Duplicate even digits

3. Add 5 to each digit below 5.

Let's give this box an input of 1234. It processes as follows.

The digits of 1234 multiplied by three = 3 6 9 and 12, or 36912.

The second step takes in 36912, and duplicates the even digits: 6 and 2. This results in 3669122, which is passed to the final step.

Now, finally, add 5 to each digit below 5. That'll be our 1's, 2's, and 3's turning into 6's, 7's, and 8's.

8669677 is the result.

All you will see is 1234 -> 8669677.

STRATEGY TIPS:

On lower challenge levels, each input digit has one unique output. I.e. 3 will always give you 336, 1 will always give you 1122, etc. Regardless of position.

Try to reverse engineer the last layer. Noticing a lot of repeating digits? It's probably duplication. Is every other number 1? It's probably addition.

Use 0's to search for multiplication. 0 x anything is 0.

If you're confused at a level, it's okay to press "give up". The game will show you the rules, and you can test them out and make sure you understand how they work before starting a new round.

Start each challenge level at 2 layers! New challenge levels add new rules and patterns, so make sure you understand how they work before you make things crazy complex.