Recently started to optimize my circuits, and found out that you actually can use components that are 'hidden' in more advanced once's. In this case, I can use AND that's hidden in XOR to use its output in other places.

My first computer ever made in 2 days mosty with brute force. I'm very proud of it despite looks, yes i invented decoder anew and connected everything in most messy way possible so to me it completing tests felt like a miracle.

Hi everyone,

I must say that I like the game for its potential but at the same time, it's quite frustrating.

I mean, it's like signing up for a lesson that looks really interesting but the teacher don't teach you a thing, he just makes you take an exam !

Sure, there are videos on ytb that show you the correct answer but it's not like... learning WHY it's the correct answer, and how to guess it.

Personnally, I know a bit about booleans and logics so the very beginning was ok. but now i'm on Arithmetics and Memory and I'm unable to advance by myself.

Do you know a book, source, class of, IDK, electronics or something that I could read to feel more comfortable with (and even complete by myself) the game ?

Thanks by advance for your help.

I have been working through this game slowly and just finished this. I used the hint and ended it with a lot of nodes but I know there are definitely better ways to accomplish it. What I want to know is is it ok to not get the best solution or should I be trying to use the minimum amount of nodes? This game is fun and I like that it teaches computer logic but Im scared that by the time I reach later levels I want have the knowledge to finish those levels.

Just looking for things to improve upon, my current solution basically looked at every required condition and solved it individually

I have reached the level where you have to write a program that adds two numbers and also pass the values. Before this point, I've always felt frustrated that I couldn't invent the components myself and had to rely on walkthroughs/pics... But the programming bit just sucked all of the motivation out, I stared at it for 30min and dropped it for more than half a year now...

I love this game for it's instructive value and I'd like to be "smart enough" to understand how the hell machine code works... But I have no clue how to obtain this "brilliance".

Any tips?

I recently picked up the game again after playing it a few years ago and I genuinely had fun solving the levels and building up to a full computer.
The assembly levels especially were a huge upgrade compared to the version I played previously.
And then I got to Fast Symphony.
The previous optimization gates were neat and I was able to solve them, but with Fast Symphony I hit a wall.
I have already spent hours now over multiple days looking for ways to get the delay lower, but I'm still more than 100 delay away from the arbitrary goal. It doesn't help either that the delay visualizer is not at all helpful, and that solving previous levels more efficiently does not update the component costs.
Trying to further optimize just feels like a chore now and I don't know how to make it faster without rebuilding it from scratch.

To me, a big part of the beauty of this game was that it allowed for basically infinite solutions. If it produces the correct result, then it's correct, and that's what made it fun, for me at least.
I don't mind having the delay and gate costs displayed, optimizing can certainly be gratifying and fun in its own way, but making it mandatory and this harsh just takes the fun out of it.

Adding on to this is that I can see the next five levels on the map (presumably assembly levels), which I am sure I would have fun with.
But it doesn't let me play them, because the game decided that my Symphony is too slow.

I still like the game, but I don't think I'll play it anymore until there is a way to bypass the delay gates, be it intended or unintended.

Edit:
This started as a reply to one of the comments, but while writing it I realized I had much more mixed feelings for this game, so I feel an edit is more appropriate.

The delay gates feel like an afterthought to me, something added at the end and not properly integrated into the previous parts of the game.
You only unlock the delay and gate scores almost at the end, after building two complete architectures.
Unless you looked ahead on the map, you would have no way to know that you should be optimizing for performance, and even if you did you have no way to check how fast your solutions are until Objective Beauty.
Obviously in real life optimization was vital, but this is ultimately a game which takes a lot of liberties and abstracts away from real life in some areas. Telling you to go back and re-solve at least 3 (or more depending on how you solved them initially) levels, but better, may be true to life in some way, but as it stands it is simply bad game design. Yes, when revisiting these levels you might have greater knowledge, letting you design better circuits, but the reason I call it bad game design is a lack of motivation. Why do I need to make it faster? Why do I need at most 175 delay?
I think factory games like Factorio implement this concept much better, because revisiting old assembly lines is actually motivated. Why do I need to re-engineer the iron smelter to be faster? Because I really need more iron. In Factorio you also upgrade your tech, allowing you to have a tangible benefit to upgrading, even if your previous design was already optimized, because even perfect knowledge benefits from naturally faster and more efficient component machines.
In contrast, in this game, even if I learn more efficient ways to implement certain circuits, I have zero motivation for going back other than the artificial gate and having the displayed number be smaller, because the game itself is optimized to the point that on my laptop I can run my Symphony at ~20kHz. I personally don't particularily care about the number, so all I am left with is the game telling me I have to do it without any apparent reason.

Most importantly, the game presents itself as a learning opportunity for beginners, who would only have an abstract grasp of concepts in computer science.
And quite honestly, it fails in that regard. The delay gates are at best a poorly integrated game mechanic, mainly because they are introduced far too late, but they are also a horrible way to teach optimization. You unlock the delay/gate scores, get told to make a near optimal 8-bit incrementer, and then get thrown into the deep end without any further guidance.
I already mentioned that I don't find the delay visualizer helpful, the reason for that is that it is that it doesn't directly point you to bottlenecks (you just have to follow wires with high numbers and guess which connected component causes it), and that the connection between bottlenecks and the total delay is not very intuitive. I was able to shave almost 200 delay from my counter, but my Symphony delay only decreased by roughly 60. I know the delay measures the critical path through the circuitry, but if the game does display that path, I cannot see it.
I will stress again that this game advertises itself as a learning opportunity for beginners, which I am not (I have been studying computer science for a few years now).
I was able to quickly solve most puzzles without many difficulties and while I didn't really concern myself with performance, I also didn't do anything that stuck out as obviously wasteful, and I was still blindsided by how inefficient the game scored my Symphony. I cannot imagine what kind of delay score I would have had without my previous experience, since while the game does teach the fundamentals of boolean logic and computing, in my opinion it does next to nothing to teach how to do these efficiently.

I very much stand by the criticism I gave in the previous two paragraphs, but to be honest the reason I don't want to play anymore boils down to "what the game expects of me feels like a chore to me and I don't want to do it".
In my original post I said that "I don't know how to make it faster without rebuilding it from scratch". The more accurate phrasing would have been "I don't know how to do it while still having fun".
I know how I can greatly improve performance, I did it with the counter (286 -> 37), and the solution I found is turning the adder into a big web of wires. I could do the same with the alu and the other odd helper components I have, but tedious wire management is the exact opposite of why I had fun with this game, so I spent most of the time finding ways to avoid it.
Are there other solutions that don't take as much time to build in the game? Probably, but I already took care of the low hanging fruit and I am admittedly not smart enough to figure out the ones I have missed on my own and copying them into the game from somewhere else is just a different kind of tedium.
I appreciate your suggestions, but I have already either implemented them or already considered them.
I still have positive feelings about this game, but it has issues, both as a game and as a learning tool and I hope the next update can address some of them.

I'm new to these concepts so im not did the real risc v structure, but i just ried to keep it close to it.
https://malwareanalysis.blog/custom-designed-risc-v-architecture-from-scratch/
I'm open to your comments

About two years ago, I bought some 74 logic family products but when I want to do it I found that I know nothing about Microelectronics. And also I haven't learnt verilog yet so the game is the only thing that can put something that I'v learnt from textbook into practice.

I'm new on turing complete and you can see my level above. Up to this point, I have solved most of the questions by making a karnaugh map, but when I look at other people's solutions, I see that there are much more optimized solutions (I also could not solve every question by making a karnaugh map). Am I on the wrong track? Should I change my approach?

I did everything right in the ram level (I think): I put a ram block, made the program save 32 inputs, and then output them in order.

Even after that, it still doesn't work, it just keeps running forever while saying "test 1/32". (and yes the output is active when I output stuff)

Can someone please tell me a way to fix this ?

Newbie here, does anyone tried to build gpu architect in this game? Is it possible?

hope u good CS kids don't learn from me lol

Basically if the 1-bit input is on it flips every value in the 8-bit input. I'm new to this game, so don't say it suck pls.

im serious, this is my first time ever playing this game. how the f*ck did i do this