Now I know why everyone here gave this 5 stars, the 81 is so cool and feels like it shouldn't work and it feels like it should have taken me 50 minutes to find not 5.
*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Okay got to 83 super fast thinking “oh maybe ill get this PhD fast!” An hour later… Still at 83.
Edit: 1/6/25. Finally. Even *****************************************************************
pretty sure I know what the trick is because it's the only difference from the other one but I can't optimize it
edit-i still have no idea what I did differently
Awesome solution! Didn't realize how close I was getting when I was trying this a few weeks ago, it was just one final trick that I was missing to cut the last 2. Very neat level.
Was stuck 2 off and took a break of several months. Today I'm back and solve the 2 off. Soooo happy me!
It was a bit like Reach for me: I saw the key trick pretty rapidly but needed ages for the 2 off and that was for me a matter of ordering. LOL
It's a great level but tbh the "Trick" didn't work on me. I saw it right away but it took me quite a bit of time to optimize it (was just missing a pipelining trick)
TBH This feels a lot like the origins of "Shove" as well. Major shove vibes. Come at me.
Even after figuring out how the variation could potentially lend itself to a faster path, optimizing that path is still an interesting puzzle. While it does kind of make sense why the path is shorter, the fact that a level was deliberately designed with this path in mind is crazy.
