This is a port of the KDE game "knetwalk", by Andi Peredri, Thomas Nagy, and Reinhold Kainhofer. Ported to Android by Ian Cameron Smith (headstay); released under GPL. Includes MTRandom by David Beaumont, released under LGPL.

The player is given a network diagram with the parts of the network randomly rotated; he/she must rotate them to connect all the terminals to the server.

December 2: Version 2.8 now available on the Android Market!

Features

• Portrait and landscape modes are handled.

• Tile rotation is smoothly animated; highlighted tiles show the user's progress.

• The game is designed to be usable with 12-key keypad or QWERTY keypad, or by tapping the screen.

• The game has 5 difficulty levels; the first 3 use different board sizes; then wrap-around is introduced for "Master" level; then "Insane" level adds invisible cells. In case you're wondering, yes, I can solve "Insane" puzzles, usually in 10-12 minutes.

What People are Saying

• "Best game ever"... thanks to everyone who gives me nice comments like this!
• "Tiles are too small for big thumbs": yes, sorry, but this is is tricky one. If I make the tiles bigger there's fewer of them, and then it gets too easy. (Play it for a while, so you figure out all the inferences you can make, and you'll see it get a lot easier.) Remember, you can use the trackball to pick and rotate tiles.
• "Nicer colours please": well you may have guessed I'm not a graphic designer. On the other hand I don't like bright garish colours. Still, I'll try to cheer it up a bit at some point.
• "Rankings would be nice": yup, it's on the to-do list, see below.
• "Make it a full campaign-style game with progressive level difficulties etc.": sorry folks, not going to happen. I just don't have the time to put in that kind of effort... not when other projects beckon.

Please bear in mind I'm just one guy doing all this in my spare time. But I'll try to get around to some of these updates some time.

How to Play

Use the menu to start a new game, or select a difficulty level (which starts a new game). The difficulty levels are:

You are shown a network consisting of a server, some terminals, and a load of wiring, arranged into a grid of tiles. The problem is, the tiles have been rotated at random. You have to rotate them to connect all the terminals to the server. Counters at the top of the screen show how many tiles you have clicked, and how much time you have taken.

You can select tiles with the arrow buttons or trackball; the currently-selected tile is shown with a red border. Press Z, N or 4 to rotate it left; M, X or 6 to rotate right. You can tap the screen to rotate a cell right if your device supports it. Tiles which are connected to the server are shown highlighted.

When you think you have a tile in the right orientation, you can press space or 0 to lock it. You can pause the game at any time using the menu, or by switching to another application. When the network is all connected, the game will tell you your winning time and click count.

In games which wrap around, connections going off the right-hand edge connect to the corresponding point on the left edge, and vice versa; same for the top and bottom edges. This makes the game a lot harder.

In "Insane" mode, it gets worse -- tiles with 3 or 4 connections have invisible wires. You have to experiment to figure out which way they're connected.

Hints

In Novice mode you can play by the seat of your pants -- just make the connections from the terminals to the server and you'll get there. At the higher levels, though, you'll need a bit more strategy.

Basically you have to figure out all the inferences you can make based on the information you have. For example, a straight piece of cable at the side of the board -- up to Expert level -- has to be parallel to the wall, since it can't connect off the side. Another straight piece of cable beside this one has to be parallel to it.

From Master level on, this is no longer true, but think about which connections do and do not make sense. For example, a terminal always has to have a connection into the wider network; it can't just go to another terminal without a branch.

It is sometimes possible to connect all of the terminals without using all the tiles. However, it is always possible to make a connected network which does use all the tiles. So if you proceed on the assumption that every tile must be connected, you should get to a solution.

In Insane mode, you really have to know all of the inferences that can be made. Figure out which way the visible tiles have to be rotated as far as you can, then think about the invisible tiles -- remember only certain tiles are invisible, which tells you something.

Use the lock feature to lock down tiles you're sure of. But be careful -- lock in a wrong choice and you're in trouble.

And good luck!

Status

Version 2.8 released 1 December 2008. Sound is back and seems to be working; the "no credit" bug is fixed; we now have nice screen transitions and menu icons; there's a better "about" box. Released to the market December 2.

Version 2.6 released 30 November 2008. This version fixes the "no credit" bug -- previously, you only got credit if you connected every cell; but you could sometimes get a layout where the terminals could all be connected without using all the cable. Now, credit is awarded for connecting the terminals. Also sound is added. This version hasn't been tested much yet.

Version 2.5 released 23 November 2008. This version now handles screen rotation (sliding the keyboard open and closed). A few remaining bugs have been fixed. Sound is gone, sorry; it crashes now and then, and I don't know why. This has been tested on the TMobile G1 phone and published on the market.

Version 1.2 released 30 August 2007. Obsidianx stepped up and ported it to Android version 0.9.

Version 1.1 released 31 December 2007. Again on version 0.5 of the SDK.

Version 1.0 released 28 December 2007. This version ran in the emulator on version 0.5 of the SDK.

You can always download installers and source code from the download links on the right.

Future

• One day I'd like to use the accelerometer to control cell rotation.
• There is no high-score tracking as yet.
• Nicer colours / multiple themes.

License

Scrambled Net (package package org.hermit.netscramble) is released (by the original authors) under GPL v. 2:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Scrambled Net includes MTRandom by David Beaumont (package net.goui.util), which is released under Lesser General Public License v. 2.1:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html