Show HN: A simple image puzzle generator

56 pointsposted a year ago
by lnenad

31 Comments

doodpants

a year 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

a year 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_

a year 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

a year ago

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

arcastroe

a year 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

a year ago

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

tartoran

a year 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

a year ago

What browser, OS?

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

tobr

a year ago

Safari iOS.

manucardoen

a year 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

a year ago

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

yungtriggz

a year ago

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

lnenad

a year ago

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

Jeremy1026

a year 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

a year ago

Good idea, thank you!

dankwizard

a year 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

a year ago

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

thomastjeffery

a year 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

a year ago

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

b450

a year ago

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

clutch89

a year ago

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

causeisunknown

a year ago

The easiest option is still too hard for my son.

dankwizard

a year ago

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

knowitnone

a year ago

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

horsellama

a year ago

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

lnenad

a year ago

Thanks for the suggestion :)