Thanks for taking the time to write this! Yeah, a weird puzzle game like Understand may not be a good experience when tired, and maybe the game does indeed not work for you.
Anyway, I can describe how I approached the game, to maybe give another perspective for how one can play it. In principle, the initial puzzles can be understood and solved without lots of trial & error or brute-force searches. Maybe this inspires you to have another go? (And if not, that’s fine, too.)
Let me take level 1-3 as an example. (Note: spoilers follow.)
Since the main challenge early on is to figure out the rules, rather than to draw a valid path on each screen, I often try to learn as much as I can from each screen before proceeding to the next (though all screens are unlocked from the start). But that’s my aesthetic preference, and there are other approaches. (For instance, trying to quickly solve the first few introductory screens in a level, then coming up with hypotheses for why the puzzle dev made these specific screens to introduce the rules.)
That said, here’s 1-3-1:
6 tiles, 4 symbols, 3 rules (indicated by the circles at the bottom); and an initial suggested path that begins in a circle, ends in a square, and goes through a down-triangle.
If we just follow the suggested path, we see that it fulfills all rules on the screen, but we don’t learn anything new. So instead, we want to come up with hypotheses for what each of the three rules correspond to, and then falsify these hypotheses.
Just from looking at this setup, I have the following hypotheses:
Like in the earlier levels, the suggested path begins in a circle and ends in a square. This seems like a common theme (maybe in the entire game, or maybe just in world 1, who knows at this point). But does the direction here matter? That is, if I begin the path in the square and end in the circle, does it fulfill all rules? → Do the experiment. → It only fulfills rule 3, so direction matters!
Continuing from there, a natural assumption is “we have to start in a circle and end in a square”. How can we test that? Well, what if we draw only parts of the suggested path? → Do a few experiments like that. → If we start in the circle and don’t end in the square, rules 1 and 3 are fulfilled, but rule 2 never is. If we don’t start in the circle but end in the square, rules 2 and 3 are fulfilled, but rule 1 never is.
So at this point my current best guess for the rules (which I can still refine on future screens) is:
1: start in a circle
2: end in a square
3: ?
Continuing from there:
The suggested path goes through a down-triangle but not through an up-triangle. Can we go through an up-triangle? → Do the experiment, e.g. draw the path circle-upper_triangle-square. → This path does not fulfill rule 3.
What does that suggest for rule 3? Maybe “go through one (or all) down-triangles”? Or maybe “go through no up-triangles”? How can we distinguish those hypotheses?
Here’s a meta technique that can often help answer questions like this: Ask yourself, which rules are fulfilled if I just draw 1-tile-long paths? → Do the experiment in each of the 6 tiles. → All 1-tile paths fulfill rule 3, except the one through the up-triangle. This is inconsistent with rule 3 being “go through one (or all) down-triangles”.
So my current best guess for rule 3 is:
3: no up-triangle
So here we basically managed to discern all rules of the level just based on the first screen, and using little trial & error. But if that hadn’t been enough, we could’ve proceeded to the next screen, tried drawing a path based on our current understanding of the rules, and if that path hadn’t been valid or we couldn’t find any valid path at all, we could’ve repeated the above-mentioned process.
That’s just one approach to this game, but I found it a fruitful one. In particular, many levels have 3+ rules, one or two of which are very simple stuff like “start in a circle”, with the remaining rules being the actual challenge of the level; and once you’ve identified those easy rules, your trial & error experiments become far more purposeful and less wasteful.
Thanks for taking the time to write this! Yeah, a weird puzzle game like Understand may not be a good experience when tired, and maybe the game does indeed not work for you.
Anyway, I can describe how I approached the game, to maybe give another perspective for how one can play it. In principle, the initial puzzles can be understood and solved without lots of trial & error or brute-force searches. Maybe this inspires you to have another go? (And if not, that’s fine, too.)
Let me take level 1-3 as an example. (Note: spoilers follow.)
Since the main challenge early on is to figure out the rules, rather than to draw a valid path on each screen, I often try to learn as much as I can from each screen before proceeding to the next (though all screens are unlocked from the start). But that’s my aesthetic preference, and there are other approaches. (For instance, trying to quickly solve the first few introductory screens in a level, then coming up with hypotheses for why the puzzle dev made these specific screens to introduce the rules.)
That said, here’s 1-3-1:
6 tiles, 4 symbols, 3 rules (indicated by the circles at the bottom); and an initial suggested path that begins in a circle, ends in a square, and goes through a down-triangle.
If we just follow the suggested path, we see that it fulfills all rules on the screen, but we don’t learn anything new. So instead, we want to come up with hypotheses for what each of the three rules correspond to, and then falsify these hypotheses.
Just from looking at this setup, I have the following hypotheses:
Like in the earlier levels, the suggested path begins in a circle and ends in a square. This seems like a common theme (maybe in the entire game, or maybe just in world 1, who knows at this point). But does the direction here matter? That is, if I begin the path in the square and end in the circle, does it fulfill all rules? → Do the experiment. → It only fulfills rule 3, so direction matters!
Continuing from there, a natural assumption is “we have to start in a circle and end in a square”. How can we test that? Well, what if we draw only parts of the suggested path? → Do a few experiments like that. → If we start in the circle and don’t end in the square, rules 1 and 3 are fulfilled, but rule 2 never is. If we don’t start in the circle but end in the square, rules 2 and 3 are fulfilled, but rule 1 never is.
So at this point my current best guess for the rules (which I can still refine on future screens) is:
1: start in a circle
2: end in a square
3: ?
Continuing from there:
The suggested path goes through a down-triangle but not through an up-triangle. Can we go through an up-triangle? → Do the experiment, e.g. draw the path circle-upper_triangle-square. → This path does not fulfill rule 3.
What does that suggest for rule 3? Maybe “go through one (or all) down-triangles”? Or maybe “go through no up-triangles”? How can we distinguish those hypotheses?
Here’s a meta technique that can often help answer questions like this: Ask yourself, which rules are fulfilled if I just draw 1-tile-long paths? → Do the experiment in each of the 6 tiles. → All 1-tile paths fulfill rule 3, except the one through the up-triangle. This is inconsistent with rule 3 being “go through one (or all) down-triangles”.
So my current best guess for rule 3 is:
3: no up-triangle
So here we basically managed to discern all rules of the level just based on the first screen, and using little trial & error. But if that hadn’t been enough, we could’ve proceeded to the next screen, tried drawing a path based on our current understanding of the rules, and if that path hadn’t been valid or we couldn’t find any valid path at all, we could’ve repeated the above-mentioned process.
That’s just one approach to this game, but I found it a fruitful one. In particular, many levels have 3+ rules, one or two of which are very simple stuff like “start in a circle”, with the remaining rules being the actual challenge of the level; and once you’ve identified those easy rules, your trial & error experiments become far more purposeful and less wasteful.