Hello everyone,

Some of you may remember that many years ago I tried making puzzles that reveal a picture on completion, but the client was clunky and an .exe file. Recently I've gone to html5 and javascript for your in-browser pleasure.

So these are large picture puzzles in a variety of patterns. They are huge and initially quite difficult, but can be made easier. If you've got some time, try it out and let me know what you think of the interface and the puzzles, etc.

Picture Slitherlink

Thanks, Ryan

P.S. I hope you don't find this rude, foilman, me posting this here. I'm not competing, just enriching the community. My web page is much less polished and not going to get much more polish, much different (not everyone has appetites for puzzles this large and empty), and I link back here as a favorite puzzle site. But you can remove the post if you want.

I've no problem with you posting here - picture Slitherlinks is a great idea! Thanks for letting us know.

I do remember you mentioning that, and I love the idea of seeing something beyond a completed puzzle. My only complaint is the interface but that's just because I'm used to the interface on this site.

Good job!

Thanks, foilman!

Zyntax, what about the interface could be improved?

After playing it more (finally solved the Dopefish one) I have some more feedback.

What I like about the interface on this site is that there is no visible lines, just numbers and corners only, and I can fill in the line segments as I go. Plus I can do it while holding the mouse button down and dragging vs having to click each segment.

What I did find interesting is the automatic shading of the puzzle as I started playing. I never really got the hang of using shading to assist my puzzle solving, but because it was automatically doing it for me, I actually started using it towards the very end to finish out the lines as the bigger picture started to form. It really helps to see internal loops that shouldn't be connected.

Thanks Zyntax!
You say there are no visible lines here, but there are. Or is that something you can turn off? When I play KwonTomLoop, there are light gray lines.
I will be adding click and hold functionality soon. That should speed things up nicely.
Glad you like the shading, it can be very helpful, plus is kind of necessary for the pictures.
Did you happen to add clues to the puzzle to make it a little easier? If you didn't your score upon completion would have been 100, if you did, do you remember your score? I tend to need to click it at least a few times, or more if I'm not interested in really deep guessing, and score in the 70s or 80s.

On the Slitherlink Standard I see no lines, but in Variations I do see them. I definitely prefer them off. I believe this is a setting buried somewhere.

I don't recall my score. If by clues you mean putting X's where lines shouldn't be, then I probably got 100 as I don't do that on this site when solving. But I'll take note of my score on the next puzzle.

At the very bottom of the Home page of the Variations site, there's at least the setting "Hide background line when a cross is placed?", which I like a lot.

I do use that setting, but if you look at the "Slitherlink Standard" puzzles, all I see are numbers and corners with no shades of lines between them, which I prefer for the normal square Slitherlink puzzles (and would prefer for the picture slitherlink, if possible). For the Slitherlink variations though, I definitely prefer the starter shaded lines since there's a mix of shapes and trying to place lines without a guide would be very difficult.

Clicking and dragging for faster solving is a thing now. I probably won't be hiding the lines though, as some of the patterns that would get very confusing for.

I'd been doing a bit of these every now and then, but I got into a mood and ended up clearing all I had left (most of them) in the last couple days. Being able to drag makes it much smoother. It'd be nice if the alert every hundred marks were less intrusive (i.e. not a modal), but otherwise solving them is pleasant.

Didn't ever add clues; you can get lots of mileage out of highlander deductions in these anyway. Didn't use the guessing mode much either but it's a nice implementation.

The automatic shading is fun, though it'd be nice if it were a *bit* smarter - like, say, knowing that when there are already two lines filled at a vertex the others have to be crosses. Or that isolated areas can't have lines in them.

For a while I was bothered by it being hard to see if you've drawn a line on the border between a light and dark area, but then I realized that the solver doesn't actually check for that - as long as you have the shaded areas right it'll recognize a complete puzzle without making you draw every single line manually. That's nice! It changed how I solved them a bit after that - focusing more on the colors for a change was refreshing.

Thanks for making this, RyTracer! Giant puzzles like these are pretty rare, but I love solving them every now and then. And I like the fancy bits like the autoshading and having them form pictures; those elements make it something more than just another plain slitherlink implementation.

Hey Darklady!
Sorry I kind of fell off the planet there for awhile and didn't check back here. I just saw your last post and I'm so pleased you played all of them! And no extra clues? Amazing! I can't do that, but maybe I don't recognize highlanders readily enough. And there are certainly more of them present in less "busy" puzzles like mine are where there are large sections of the same color.
Thanks again!