Hello again!

Its a monday, a bit odd that this would be written on a monday, sure, but I was unbelievably tired yesterday and figured that the changeup would be nice, and at that point was sleeping past 2 am for a couple of days in a row, so I toughed it out and slept at 11.

And it worked! Nice morning today :D.

Still, it always feels weird to do that. Like, staying late is fine, comes naturally even, but trying to go back is a whole different thing. The sleep itself also feels really weird, like your forcing yourself into a sluggish coma more than getting a restful good nights sleep, but the aftermath is that I actually feel a bit better, which is weird but im not complaining.

That, or im HEAVILY overthinking it, and just happened to be really tired that day. Both are possible, but given how long it took to fall asleep despite me genuinely not having an ounce of energy left, im inclined to say it was mostly that sleeping earlier than usual is just weird.

Anyways, THE WEEK! A couple of things happened, but how about the main reason my sleep went to shit anyways — the n-queens algorithm. On wednesday, I wanted to make the algorithm, since I’d promised a tutor on tuesday that I’d show him on thursday.

Now if you dont know what the n-queens algorithm is, simply put its an algorithm that can be given any length or width for a board (though at some point this maxes out given, if you give it an 100×100 itll just never stop running like ever forever) and find all the spots a queens can be placed without taking each other.

As its been coded up, it goes through several rounds throughout the board, places the queens, checks whether it beat the current max (that starts at 0), and keeps searching till the end of the board. You can make this lot faster or slower by removing certain options, like just not checking a whole row with a queen on it (skipping a TON of computing time), but I didnt get much done other than what was asked, a mostly brute force approach for every option on the board while moving to the next spot immediately if theres a queen in any of the four cardinal directions, or diagonal of you.

Also, I STARTED SO LATE, WHY DID I START SO LATE GODDAMIT.

It was a fresh day, I had the sun shining, the flowers blooming, the birds chirping, and I didnt decide to start until 1 AT NIGHT.

Im being silly though, I know damn well why, I was in a call with my friends and didnt want to get off bloons td 6 :’).

Still, after getting off of the call I figured id get started, and at first Im just doing the basics, but then I jump into the algorithm headfirst and just start coding without a plan, which I promise you is like building a house from whatever the fuck you can find in the forest, and it takes SO MUCH LONGER than if you have it planned.

One hour lead into the next, and the second and ALMOST the third until I finally, seemingly finish the code, only to find a ton of bugs. So i fix those, find out the output was getting severely screwed up by a +1 that was supposed to be a +2 for a for loop, decide for whatever fucking reason I want the program to be faster so I make it so we skip the row with queens entirely, that DOESNT seem to make the difference and…

Yea, I ended up going to bed at just shy of 7 am. For what its worth, it was really fun, I couldnt get my ass of the seat for my breaks half the time cause it was genuinely really fun building and fixing it, it was enthralling, but man would my body probably not agree at all.

Moral of the story? Well, I dont really know if theres a concrete moral here, I know id definitely like to get off calls earlier and all but im not entirely sure about the code funnily enough.

Should I have written more pseudocode? Probably. Do I need more experience coding in general? Yea, so kind of both. Ill just keep goin gand see how things go, and try planning it out more next time.

To go back to an earlier thing again though, Ive been playing a LOT of bloons in my downtime this week, its pretty fun!

So far I’ve been playing only beginner maps, though not without reason, im getting as many chimps done as possible >:)!

Chimps is the hardest version of the game on any map (aside from maybe half cash), where its just a ton of stuff gets revoked (like all the monkey knowledge points you get to use for extra permanent buffs or discounts in other modes, or the powerups or instamonkeys that cant be used here), you start on 1 hp and gotta survive to 100. Its pretty cool, and once im done getting 15 chimps maps done (ive got like 2 left), ill get a bunch more monkey knowledge points to buy extra buffs, making the later intermediate and advanced maps a lot easier.

Honestly, itll make the whole game a lot easier, and I dont know how to feel about that, cuz id honestly prefer the game just come with all the monkey knowledge buffs unlocked, but my account is old and ive already gotten quite a lot of stuff in the months that id obsess over the game, enough so that theres not THAT much of a benefit in hacking the game now :p.

(Just saying though if you’re picking up the game from a fresh level 1 account, doesnt seem like a bad idea, speaking strictly for getting over the grind that is monkey knowledge and hero purchases that push you towards micro transactions, not cheating online btw >:/)

In playing the chimps maps though, and having to beat the two other game modes, alternate bloon rounds and impoppable to get there, I find its quite easy to rely on the same old tricks to get by.

Like, REALLY easy. Once you stick the landing that is the first 10 rounds or so, I tend to just go for a slowdown gluegunner, a top and middle path sniper (I get camo detection from etienne), some helicopters, a sun avatar and a bottom path helicopter, and something along those lines with good support usaully gets you through all the way till round 100 on beginner maps.

You do need good econ to get to that point, so if your playing game modes other than chimps and can therefore make income, the top level banana farms always save the day, but more than that, if theres WATER, HOLY SHIT, ITS FREE.

I mean seriously WHO MADE THE BUCCANEER THIS STRONG??? All you have to do is get like 2 or three bottom routes, they start making cash and before youre even at round 60 you have an army of these guys and theyre all making you enough to start thinking about a sun god, ITS CRAZY AND I LOVE IT.

I’d give you some spiel about “broadening my scope and trying new things and strategies” next, but honestly none of this stuff is even gonna slide once your out of beginner maps anyways, the game really forces you to strategize past this point. For example, take one of the newest maps, mushroom grotto.

It starts off with a middle mushroom lit up, and you quickly realize you cant put anything outside the mushrooms light, and that the rest of the dim map wont work for whatever reason. On top of that, the monkeys cant see past the range of the mushrooms light.

ITS REALLY FUCKING COOL, not to mention how pretty the map is, having to strategize around that. I managed to get myself a top route boomerang monkey, since his attacks chain onto other bloons, and bought some of the other mushrooms to life so my sniper monkey could see near the start of the map, and used a spike factory to take the load off one of the sides of the map from where the bloons come from.

I forgot to mention that too, the maps past beginner maps usually have A LOT of places the bloons come from rather than one, so it really needs you to think about it, and it makes for some stressful ass rounds not knowing where moabs might come from, cool stuff.

Something worth mentioning that ive noticed in myself though, that I think is worth mentioning, is I have a bad habit of leaving the rest of an experience untouched until ive perfectly completed the first set of stuff to do and or consider myself ready for the new set of experiences. Bit of an odd way of phrasing it, but stick with me.

Take minecraft as an example, since I’ve been playing it too. Once you spawn in, you usually get to mining quite soon, and then right back up to make a cool house right? Well, for whatever reason I genuinely cant get myself committed to making a house, or doing much of anything else for that matter, without a full diamond set of armor, you know? It seems, for a lack of a better work, inefficient, like I WANT to but itd be much smoother sailing, much more fun to do if I did all my mining first and THEN did the crafting up top.

Same goes for btd6. I find myself trying to finish ALL the beginner maps to some degree, having to unlock all the heroes and get as much monkey knowledge as possible to get as strong as possible before touching the later stuff. Does it make the advanced maps easier if I clear most if not all of the skill tree out? Yea, but my goodness if it isnt a slog, and a slog OF MY OWN MAKING.

In its defense, its almost done. I have two chimps maps left, and with minecraft I did almost lose all of my stuff but I ran my ass back down there in an adrenaline filled sprint and I DID get my ass that full diamond set, but at what cost? Its a big reason as to why most maps that arent beginner maps are untouched, and I dont remember the last time I finished a minecraft world to the end.

Its not like im even that bad (I think :p), Ive been playing since I was a kid on btd battles, but theres such a visceral need to be in the clear its astounding. For that reason, a lot of ground is still untouched.

I thought that was worth noting. Im trying to combat it, thats why I played mushroom grotto inbetween the chimps maps, but its a work in progress. Interesting that I do that though, and that I probably should just grit my teeth a little and stop trying to be so odd about things.

But hey, at least I have a lot of ground to cover once its over, the game is HUGE. And hopefully, ill just bury this habit in the ground someday, hopefully right after btd6 even :0.

Anywho, I hope you enjoyed the read! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get back to bloon popping >:), and I wanna get my mermonkey and desperado levels, mermonkey ESPECIALLY. Shes a really fun tower.

See you all next week <3.