Let players know if better solutions were possible

[dhood]

This is a great game - thanks a lot! I have a suggestion for a feature.

Something I found myself wondering as I was playing it is: am I using the functions efficiently? It'd be great to be able to know how close to optimal my solution was, because I would have preferred to stay on a level to improve my solution than to move to a higher level in some cases.

It's possible that 'optimal' could take on a lot of different meanings once you get into the higher levels - I haven't made it that far yet. But at least for the beginning levels, I imagine it would be tied to the number of functions used.

While I was playing I was looking for an option like 'training mode' or something that would only accept optimal solutions (or at least would alert you about suboptimal solutions).

[sharkdp]

That's a good suggestion, thank you!

There is a (brute-force) solver available, that I use for testing purposes. So this could potentially be utilized (if it's fast enough)..

In the meantime, you can refer to this list, if you want (SPOILERS?):

        Level                | # functions
-----------------------------+-------------
0.1 - Transformation (Easy)  |      1
0.2 - Rejection (Easy)       |      1
0.3 - Composition (Easy)     |      2
0.4 - Spanish flag (Medium)  |      3
1.1 - Mercury (Easy)         |      3
1.2 - Venus (Medium)         |      3
1.3 - Earth (Easy)           |      3
1.4 - Mars (Medium)          |      4
2.1 - Bricklayer (Easy)      |      2
2.2 - Gizeh (Medium)         |      3
2.3 - Poseidon (Hard)        |      4
2.4 - Bowl (Hard)            |      4
2.5 - Stamp (Hard)           |      4
3.1 - Brick (Easy)           |      2
3.2 - Fort (Hard)            |      4
3.3 - Castle (Medium)        |      3
4.1 - 0b0 .. 0b111 (Medium)  |      2
4.2 - Odd.. (Easy)           |      2
4.3 - Zero (Hard)            |      4
4.4 - Don't panic (Hard)     |      4

The numbers refer to the shortest possible solution (sometimes, there are two or three shortest solutions, but only in a few cases).

[dal126]

For the 4.1 it is possible to solve it just with 1 block (the "partition (contains red)" block.
Thanks for the others!

Also, the names don't match the exercises, for example the "don't panic" is the 5.4 and not the 4.4

[sharkdp]

Note that we added new levels in #46, so that table is not up to date anymore.