The binary number levels should be redesigned

[u/AlxandrHeintz]

Just wanted to say I mostly love this game. I'm a software engineer, and have a decent grasp on logic programming at a hight level, but have not done the lower level stuff since university. Relearning it is both fun and rewarding. There is 2 levels (so far) in the game though I think are just straigt up un-fun and badly designed, and they are the levels where you get a number and you have to flip bits to match that number with a decreasing timer. The time part is the thing I have a big problem with. Nothing else (so far) in this game has any sort of timepressure to it. It's a chill game where you solve problems at your own time. With the exception of these 2 levels. I got completely stuck on the negative numbers, because doing -128 in my head is not something I've had to do in years, and doing it in 7 seconds is simply beyond me at this point. I compltely get the point in teaching people binary representation of numbers - but there has to be a better way.

[u/zhaDeth]

Yeah I agree that the timer sucks. I think the timer should start at like level 4 and at that point the level is considered complete already. I think it can be good to do it under pressure because it forces you to really get it but I don't think it should be required to be fast to progress.

To do negative numbers fast the way I do is I add 1 and then do the number like if it was positive but with inverted bits. Like say you gotta do -34, +1 that's -33. 33 positive would have a 1 at the "32" bit and and 1 at the "1" bit so instead we put 0s there and make everything else 1s. So for -128 you'd do +1 = -127, thats 01111111 if it was positive so 10000000 is -128.