Show HN: A simple image puzzle generator

(puzzlip.com)

55 points | by lnenad 4 days ago ago

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.

    • paulirish 4 days ago

      Yeah I get 100-250ms of latency between input and presentation. https://trace.cafe/t/UFXm7ASLQg

    • 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.

      • dankwizard 3 days ago

        Best news I've heard all day!

  • 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 :)