No idea at all yet even with 3-letter words, here's a batch of koans in Deutsch.

KRAUT
UND
RUEBEN
DIE
LASS
LIEGEN
NAGETIER

-- Simon

Quote from: ccexplore on 2014-09-17 11:33:03

apparently getting to a point where he seems to have confused time limits in levels with the use of time as a component of a scoring or ranking system

I think the point here was more that because time limits are supposedly falling out of favor

Yes, I meant this. It's useful because there exist levels without time limit, or because the time limit might change without affecting the solution. Asserting normalness of anything was unnecessary.

I will concede the point around "the player thinks like this". I will assert that many players think like this.

Arbitrary/mashup scoring, like time limits, I deem it a design leftover from the early days of video gaming. When it's the main objective of a game, fine. If not, it dwells as one of many possible playful challenges, valued only by the few strongest enthusiasts of the game -- but then again this cannot be used as an argument against lexicographic scoring.

Expressing this as a single number is psychologically satisfying and makes comparison easy

I don't see how a single number is more satisfying, this is the same assertion of "most people feel like this" that you refuse to buy from me. If it's a challenge and not the main objective, then why mash up three ideas arbitrarily? What is the design history of this result? Do you have levels where you cannot get/kill everything and thus have to decide what to get?

If Repton is an example for the mashed scoring, then Sokoban (moves including pushing moves rank over pushes) and Laser Tank (moves rank over shots) are examples for the lexicographic scoring. The people in those communities wouln't want to switch to mashed scoring.

-- Simon

I guess c (large green circle), for it shares each property with another item, unlike the other items.

This of course has no logical solution and we can only guess what the problem author wants.

-- Simon

I advise to compute these scores until when the last lemming is saved. Anything afterwards should not count against the player. Otherwise, you discourage fast-forwarding and impose a guessing game of when to nuke for the shortest total time.

There are a few levels where nuking is part of the solution. The nuke is not considered a skill for these traditionally.

-- Simon

CLIX
CPLUSPLUS
SPROUT
SCHPAM
CLAMSPAMMER

-- Simon

Yes, NATURALSCIENCES and MISUNDERSTANDABLE were the last piece here. Earlier ideas were always explaining 90 percent of cases, but not these.

-- Simon

let the funcion id() turn letters into numbers: id(A) = 1, id(B) = 2, ..., id(Z) = 26.

AKHTBN iff the length of the koan is >= id(first letter of the koan).

-- Simon

DUBLIN
DUBBERNATURE
NUDE
BUT
HCLACID