Completely prevent cheating by hardcoding passwords

[josephcsible]

elara/elara-lib/src/levels/big_enemy.rs

Lines 16 to 17 in 1e229c1

	// ahead of time. Note it's still possible to cheat but it's a little harder and
	// would require trying all of the possible passwords.

It would be rather easy to completely prevent that sort of cheating. I have two main ideas on how to do so:

Idea 1

Make saying a wrong password to an unlocked password gate cause it to relock, and make it so that if you try to move through a locked password gate, instead of just bumping it, it triggers a failure outcome (maybe say the rover gets stuck somehow).

Idea 2

Make something bad happen before all of the possible passwords can be tried.

A few thoughts for the trigger:

• Some threshold of failed attempts to open the same password gate
• Any attempt to open a password gate with a wrong state's password

And for the consequence:

• The password gate locks out and won't respond to passwords for the rest of the run
• The password gate labels the rover an intruder and somehow disables it, triggering a failure outcome
• The password gate saps some of the rover's energy, with level design being such that trying them all won't leave enough energy to finish
• A different password gate than the intended one opens, releasing a previously-trapped enemy

[albrow]

Thanks for sharing your feedback! This is something that has been on my radar and I have been paying close attention to it during playtesting.

The design of the "Big Trouble" level is working as intended. All I wanted to do was prevent players from hard-coding the first password they see, and the current version of the level accomplishes that. Figuring out all the possible passwords and realizing that you can try them each sequentially is a feat in and of itself, and is one completely valid way to beat the bonus challenge for this level (there are other ways too).

As for the other levels that use password gates-- in my experience, players who are new to programming don't even try to hard-code the passwords. Preventing players from hard-coding passwords in every level where password gates appear would probably be more trouble than it's worth.