Show HN: A simple image puzzle generator

55 pointsposted 4 days ago
by lnenad

30 Comments

doodpants

4 days ago

Neat, but the "Diffictulty" slider is a bit of a misnomer, IMHO. Puzzles with more pieces just take longer. I'm not sure what would be a better label, though. (If I were feeling uncharitable, I would propose "Tedium", or perhaps "Carpal Tunnel Risk" :-)

I wonder if there might be a way of changing the difficulty without changing the number of pieces? Like maybe putting gridlines between the pieces, so that you can't actually see the seamless connection between two correctly-oriented pieces?

lnenad

4 days ago

Hmm, I don't know to be honest, usually difficulty translates to spending more time and the pieces being smaller does it make it visually harder to discern right?

carltg_

4 days ago

Not really, time doesn't make something difficult, just tedious. For the cat puzzle, smaller pieces doesn't really make a difference. Once you get a corner it is easy to line up and knock them down. So, just tedious

tobr

4 days ago

This could be a nice distraction, but unfortunately the interaction latency makes it feel so sluggish I can’t get into flow.

arcastroe

4 days ago

I wouldn't call it sluggish. It's just that the tiles only update on mouseup events, rather than on mousedown events. Your own finger's turtle speed is the only source of latency ;)

But I agree that applying different styling to tiles on both hover events and mousedown events would make it feel snappier.

(I've only tried this on desktop. Haven't tried it on mobile)

tobr

4 days ago

That’s not the problem, although it doesn’t make it better.

tartoran

4 days ago

I get no interaction latency, perhaps because I made the tile size a little larger and there are fewer tiles. Give it a try. As someone suggested, the pieces only rotate which make it easier for finishing the puzzle.

lnenad

4 days ago

What browser, OS?

On windows both Firefox and Chrome have no discernible latency for me at least.

tobr

4 days ago

Safari iOS.

manucardoen

4 days ago

really nice. Unfortunately once I spotted the score tells you you've hit the correct rotation, I just looped over all the squares clicking each one until my points went up.

lnenad

4 days ago

Ah, that is why I have added the number of moves and the ideal number of moves :)

yungtriggz

4 days ago

Wild that you've posted this once a year for the last 3 years. Love it

lnenad

4 days ago

Haha, I didn't get any response previously and will be getting laid off soon so extra free time...

Jeremy1026

4 days ago

I'd love to see a button added to show what pieces are wrong. There are a couple of images with heavy vignette so the edges are pretty indistinguishable. It'd be cool if I could get the incorrect pieces bordered or similar.

lnenad

4 days ago

Good idea, thank you!

dankwizard

4 days ago

Have had this bookmarked for a very long time and go back to it semi regularly.

Any chance you can load a bunch of stock photos into the various categories? I think there's only ~8 or so in each.

lnenad

4 days ago

Wait really?? Wow, that's awesome to hear. I'll increase the count.

thomastjeffery

4 days ago

Would be even more satisfying if 180 degree turns were less common.

I also wonder how hard it would be to tile with different shapes. Hexagons or squares and octagons could be really neat.

lnenad

4 days ago

That is my plan, to do a honeycomb structure. :)

b450

4 days ago

Seeing the image come into focus is pretty satisfying, and the half-solved puzzle looks pretty cool. Nice job

clutch89

4 days ago

It's interesting that the pieces don't get moved, only rotated.

causeisunknown

4 days ago

The easiest option is still too hard for my son.

dankwizard

3 days ago

I've got some bad news for you...

knowitnone

4 days ago

this is nice. would also be fun to solve it with computer vision

horsellama

4 days ago

nice app it could be fun to also animate the puzzle solution

lnenad

4 days ago

Thanks for the suggestion :)