Family Picross

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freem
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Family Picross

Post by freem »

Edit: Demo #1 is now available!

For some reason, I thought working on a picross game for NES would be fun. Turns out I was right, as I've been enjoying developing it so far.

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Title screen, nothing too special for now.

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Main menu

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Normal Mode menu (after beating the first level)

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Random Mode menu

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In-game screenshot (Random mode)

I dread making up to 256 puzzles for Normal mode, though... (among many other things.)
Last edited by freem on Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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thefox
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Re: Family Picross

Post by thefox »

Graphics look nice, the layouts are maybe a little crowded, but still looking good. I like the anti-aliasing on the font.
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
ccovell
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Re: Family Picross

Post by ccovell »

Cool stuff! Every system needs a Picross game. Is white-on-black the most relaxing to the eyes, though? Maybe having pastels surrounding the play grid would be better on the eyes after long playing sessions.

You can always borrow some puzzles from my game here: http://www.chrismcovell.com/TMLogic.html
Though I'm not sure what data format you are using. Anyway, the puzzles I made up (or took from game icons) are not all "Picross-perfect", ie: solvable without random X-Y guesswork on the rare occasion, like Nintendo's creations are, but hey...

Maxim's Picross on the SMS had lots of puzzles that may be able to be borrowed: http://www.smspower.org/maxim/SMSSoftware/Picross
80sFREAK
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Re: Family Picross

Post by 80sFREAK »

+1 for the font :)
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freem
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Re: Family Picross

Post by freem »

thefox wrote:the layouts are maybe a little crowded
Could you give specifics? I've been fighting myself on the title screen and main menu for a while now, as these pics of older versions should demonstrate:
Image
Image
(Excuse the scanlines in the second pic :))
thefox wrote:I like the anti-aliasing on the font.
Thanks. I'm hoping it'll work well on TVs.
(I already know it's going to make various "2x" algorithms look like crap, which is intentional :D Comparison shots here for those interested.)
I'm still not sure on some of the letters, though. The "V" in particular feels off to me.
ccovell wrote:Is white-on-black the most relaxing to the eyes, though? Maybe having pastels surrounding the play grid would be better on the eyes after long playing sessions.
This is something else I was thinking about. Originally, I wanted to make the game similar to the earlier Famicom/NES games, but even some of those used colorful backgrounds. I'd also have to check how well the anti-aliased text works on non-black backgrounds.
ccovell wrote:You can always borrow some puzzles from my game
Are you sure you're ok with that? I mean, I already stole "borrowed" the X Protection option from Tongueman's Logic...
ccovell wrote:Maxim's Picross on the SMS
This is new to me, time to check it out :)
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thefox
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Re: Family Picross

Post by thefox »

freem wrote:
thefox wrote:the layouts are maybe a little crowded
Could you give specifics?
Sorry, but it's mostly a "feel" thing (hard for me to pinpoint a solution, similar to how everybody can say that a song is good or bad even if they have no idea how it was made or how to fix it if it is indeed bad), and with the NES as platform with all its limitations maybe a solution doesn't even exist.

But it's not a big problem anyways, so...
Download STREEMERZ for NES from fauxgame.com! — Some other stuff I've done: fo.aspekt.fi
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qbradq
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Re: Family Picross

Post by qbradq »

This looks pimp! I like how there are increasing levels of difficulty. Do you intend on releasing a ROM?

Also, have you thought about randomly generating the level set?
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Re: Family Picross

Post by rainwarrior »

I would consider writing a tool to verify that every puzzle is properly solvable. It could be used to help you make puzzles as well, and possibly rank their difficulty.
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freem
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Re: Family Picross

Post by freem »

qbradq wrote:Do you intend on releasing a ROM?
Yes, I plan on releasing a demo rom with 9 easy 5x5 puzzles and Random/Easy mode once I figure out some control issues I'm having.
qbradq wrote:Also, have you thought about randomly generating the level set?
The game randomly generates the levels for Random mode. (I have some issues to work out with the level generation at the moment, though.)
rainwarrior wrote:I would consider writing a tool to verify that every puzzle is properly solvable. It could be used to help you make puzzles as well, and possibly rank their difficulty.
That's a very good idea, I will look into that.
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Re: Family Picross

Post by ccovell »

Oh, and Family is written as "ファミリー" in Japanese, with the dash there.
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Re: Family Picross

Post by lidnariq »

freem wrote:
rainwarrior wrote:I would consider writing a tool to verify that every puzzle is properly solvable. It could be used to help you make puzzles as well, and possibly rank their difficulty.
That's a very good idea, I will look into that.
Simon Tatham (of PuTTY) wrote a paint-by-numbers program with generator and solver. Might be useful reference?
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Re: Family Picross

Post by tepples »

Hey, is that LAN Master under the "Net" picture, two cells left of "Pattern"?
Sik
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Re: Family Picross

Post by Sik »

Another picross game? As if I didn't waste enough time on Mario no Super Picross already x_x; (went through all the Mario boards... yeah, I need a life)
freem wrote:I dread making up to 256 puzzles for Normal mode, though... (among many other things.)
Maybe you could take a look at Mario no Super Picross to get some ideas?

Which reminds me, that thing had pretty large boards (25×20 being the limit)... but the resolution is the same as for the NES. They used 8×8 squares, but you seem to be using 16×16 spaces for them? Wouldn't it be better to make them 8×8 too?
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freem
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Re: Family Picross

Post by freem »

ccovell wrote:Though I'm not sure what data format you are using.
Going back and answering this... it's the simplest possible format you can think of. :) (using bitfields since I'm only doing binary puzzles; no coloring involved)
ccovell wrote:Oh, and Family is written as "ファミリー" in Japanese, with the dash there.
Thanks for that; fixed.
lidnariq wrote:Simon Tatham (of PuTTY) wrote a paint-by-numbers program with generator and solver. Might be useful reference?
Very useful; I used the solver to determine that one of the random puzzles in the game isn't perfectly solvable... back to the drawing board.
Sik wrote:They used 8×8 squares, but you seem to be using 16×16 spaces for them? Wouldn't it be better to make them 8×8 too?
I use the 16x16 tiles for puzzles from 5x5 to 8x8. Once you reach 9x9 and above, I start to use 8x8 tiles:
Image

(Currently, I only plan on having up to 16x16 with this ROM. Maybe when I re-code the game to use MMC1, I'll add bigger puzzles.)
lidnariq
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Re: Family Picross

Post by lidnariq »

freem wrote:I use the 16x16 tiles for puzzles from 5x5 to 8x8. Once you reach 9x9 and above, I start to use 8x8 tiles:
Is it at all desirable to make other intermediate grid sizes? I guess the easy one (12x12px) only gets you 9x9 and 10x10 puzzles.
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