Posted: 8/12/2007 3:01 AM
Post subject: Picross DS
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Boco
Former player
Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination
As seems to be usual here, I only start topics when I find some aweosme game to pimp out. This time, my Picross addiction finally made international! Picross DS, the latest Picross game, has been released in North America and Europe in addition to the usual Japan. Picross puzzles, also known as Nonograms, are binary-determination logic puzzles; you are given a finite grid with known size and must determine whether each individual cell is "on" or "off" using the given clues. Clues take the form of numbers on each column and row telling how many "on" cells are touching in that column/row before blank spaces or puzzle boundaries surround them - often there will be multiple numbers which refer to multiple groups, separated by one or more "off" cells. Here's an example: 
    1 1
    1 1 1
  5 1 1 1 0
4
1
3
1
4
The solution is 
    1 1
    1 1 1
  5 1 1 1 0
4 XXXXXXXX
1 XX
3 XXXXXX
1 XX
4 XXXXXXXX
Anyway, Picross DS has 300+ of these, mostly 15x15 and 20x20 ones but also some 10x10, and you can make your own puzzles and upload them to the 'net as well. Anyway,,,, I've completed the first 7 puzzle packs in Normal mode (packs are 15 puzzles each) but I had to guess on two of them, puzzles 4-O and 7-A. All the Normal-mode puzzles are supposed to be logically completable without testing theories in advance (a feature allowed in Free mode) but I can't find a way to progress past the first few steps in either puzzle using the given information. Here's puzzle 4-O for you. Solve it if you can, and if you can get more "on" cells filled than the two obvious columns, -please- tell me how you did it! I'll upload 7-A in a few days unless someone beats me to it. It's a 20x20. EDIT: I seem to have gotten better since I last tried 4-O because shortly after posting this I found how to progress. It's a little tricky but it's possible. Now if only I could find the trick for 7-A... If anyone's trying to solve 4-O here and wants a hint, here's the first bit of a solution that gets past the initial "what do I do now?" phase. EDIT 2: OK, so I'm just really bad at picross? Even though I beat Nintendo Power packs like 1-4 a long time ago. Because I played 7-A again, and it took about 53 minutes but I got through with 0 errors. So it's solvable, just hard. Anyway, Picross is a fun time.
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
Posted: 8/12/2007 8:39 AM
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Xkeeper
Banned User
Joined: 12/23/2004
Posts: 1850
One thing I always hated about Picross is the additon of "errors". i.e., I like being able to take my time and figure it out without having some arbitrary limit of "lives". That, and time limits on these games are rather nonsensical too... all you have to do is solve it once and then put it back in right after for a low time.
Perma-banned
Posted: 8/12/2007 11:28 AM
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Kuwaga
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
Wow, yea. That puzzle you posted was pretty hard but solveable without guessing. Maybe because I haven't played a picross game in a while. >_>
Posted: 8/12/2007 2:14 PM
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LagDotCom
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
Argh, took me a while, but I did that 4-O. My process must be wrong, because it got to the point where I just had to try each choice for the last column and see if it worked.
Voted NO for NO reason
Posted: 8/12/2007 2:58 PM
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flagitious
Player (201)
Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511
This was a challenge over at codegolf: http://codegolf.com/paint-by-numbers edit oops this is a topic about a specific puzzle not the this type of puzzle in general
g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}
Posted: 8/12/2007 5:12 PM
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Boco
Former player
Joined: 3/30/2004
Posts: 1354
Location: Heather's imagination
Xkeeper wrote:
One thing I always hated about Picross is the additon of "errors".
Picross DS, like Mario's Picross and other Nintendo Picross games, only increases your time when you make mistakes, and all that affects is if you spend more than an hour on a single puzzle it doesn't count towards unlocking other puzzle packs. And that's only in Normal mode - Free mode doesn't tell you if you make a mistake.
flagitious wrote:
edit oops this is a topic about a specific puzzle not the this type of puzzle in general
Well I made the topic because I couldn't beat those two puzzles but it's really for Picross DS and other Nonogram games so yeah it's about this kind of puzzle in general
someone is out there who will like you. take off your mask so they can find you faster. I support the new Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun.
Posted: 8/12/2007 6:15 PM
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SXL
Joined: 2/7/2005
Posts: 571
with the program you wrote flagitious, one could easily write a bot that could perform a decent TAS for the picross games already emulated. it would be a much more interesting challenge than just filling the grids row by row, "by heart". would anyone be interested in seeing such a TAS ? it'd need some additional tools, either storing the puzzle in the same format the posted site proposed (lots of work !), or OCR.
I never sleep, 'cause sleep is the cousin of death - NAS
Posted: 8/12/2007 6:36 PM
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LagDotCom
Joined: 3/7/2006
Posts: 720
Location: UK
I just wrote a program to solve these. It only works if it does not have to do guesswork - i.e. all the rules can be applied until the picture is resolved. It managed 4-O in about 6 seconds (while my PC is doing other stuff, of course). It's very brute-forcy, though. :) Note: My program is too large for code golf, hehe.
Voted NO for NO reason
Posted: 8/12/2007 11:37 PM
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Kuwaga
Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
A bot which solves these puzzles in a quick way, but like somebody who does them for the first time, would be cool, but also pointless because it wouldn't be aiming for the fastest time. I'd be interested in a program which finds the fastest solution for Super Picross in 2 player mode though. Anything that uses lots of brute force won't work on that matter. I still think it would be cool if somebody continued my old WIP [URL=http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4565]here[/URL]. I just watched it again and I think it would be entertaining to me on larger levels. Somewhat entertaining in a way like watching chain reactions like falling dominoes.
Posted: 8/13/2007 3:50 AM
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Twelvepack
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
http://www.thetimmys.com/flash/picross/ Sorry if someone else linked it already, but it is a pretty smooth operating puzzle game of this type. Unfortunatly, after you do a few of them they get to be as tedious as sudoku.
Has never colored a dinosaur.
Posted: 8/13/2007 4:47 AM
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Gorash
Joined: 4/16/2005
Posts: 251
flagitious wrote:
This was a challenge over at codegolf: http://codegolf.com/paint-by-numbers edit oops this is a topic about a specific puzzle not the this type of puzzle in general
Speaking of codegolf, is the community over there dead or something?
Posted: 8/13/2007 2:08 PM
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flagitious
Player (201)
Joined: 7/6/2004
Posts: 511
Yes, I don't think there was been much activity there in a while, but people are active at http://golf.shinh.org/
g,o,p,i=1e4,a[10001];main(x){for(;p?g=g/x*p+a[p]*i+2*!o: 53^(printf("%.4d",o+g/i),p=i,o=g%i);a[p--]=g%x)x=p*2-1;}
Posted: 8/13/2007 3:35 PM
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anubis
Joined: 5/29/2006
Posts: 138
www.griddlers.net if you are looking for a bunch of paint by number puzzles - literally more than you could ever do.
Posted: 8/14/2007 3:06 PM
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nesrocks
He/Him
Player (247)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
Xkeeper wrote:
One thing I always hated about Picross is the additon of "errors".
Add me to that group too, this is very annoying. In Brain Age's sudoku mode you can make as many mistakes as you want, and then you have to fix them yourself, but it doesn't tell you that you've made a mistake. You're on your own. I hate not being able to turn that hint off on picross ds... Yes, it's a hint.
aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios
Posted: 8/14/2007 4:11 PM
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CtrlAltDestroy
Active player (328)
Joined: 2/23/2005
Posts: 786
FODA wrote:
Xkeeper wrote:
One thing I always hated about Picross is the additon of "errors".
Add me to that group too, this is very annoying. In Brain Age's sudoku mode you can make as many mistakes as you want, and then you have to fix them yourself, but it doesn't tell you that you've made a mistake. You're on your own. I hate not being able to turn that hint off on picross ds... Yes, it's a hint.
You do know, don't you, that the harder half of the game is "Free mode" which doesn't tell you when you make a mistake and expects you to figure it all out yourself?
Posted: 8/14/2007 4:56 PM
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nesrocks
He/Him
Player (247)
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
That's better.
aka Nesrocks http://www.youtube.com/user/UoBtExFODA https://nesrocks.com https://twitter.com/bitinkstudios