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[Hiccup]

Nah, not Slitherlink, that's something else. I've heard it called "Link-a-pix" and various other things, I'm not even sure what its "official" title is, if it even has one.

As for Tappingo, this is a fairly bad game really. There's just no difficulty at all. I solved the first couple of puzzles and then skipped straight to the last one and solved that as well with absolutely no struggle, I didn't even need to stop and think because everything was so obvious. It's basically as difficult as colouring in a picture in a colouring book, or painting-by-numbers. It's not a puzzle.

I can see why some people might enjoy that, because it's kinda relaxing just working through them and colouring them in, but as I say there is just no challenge at all and anyone buying this expecting a puzzle game is going to be massively disappointed when they find that there aren't really any puzzles that require solving.

Add to that the shoddy presentation and terrible "quirks" like having multiple solutions for puzzles and it becomes irritating. Even this instance...

[ ][1]
[1][ ]

... when it's separated from the rest of the puzzle is annoying to me. Both solutions appear to work but a puzzle game should never give the player a situation like this.

So yeah, some people will get something from this but if you want a puzzle game, I'd stay WELL away from it.

Yep. Bought this on GAF hype. Thank goodness it was only 2.99. Love Picross and KenKen and Sudoku. The OP is simply wrong.

 

[zroid]

The puzzles are starting to take me a lot longer now (in the mid-60s). Not a big difficulty spike or anything, but I'm being made to think 1 or 2 moves ahead, which is nice. Last one I did clocked in at 6 minutes.

Yep. Bought this on GAF hype. Thank goodness it was only 2.99. Love Picross and KenKen and Sudoku. The OP is simply wrong.

What's "wrong"?

 

[rjc571]

Nah, not Slitherlink, that's something else. I've heard it called "Link-a-pix" and various other things, I'm not even sure what its "official" title is, if it even has one.

As for Tappingo, this is a fairly bad game really. There's just no difficulty at all. I solved the first couple of puzzles and then skipped straight to the last one and solved that as well with absolutely no struggle, I didn't even need to stop and think because everything was so obvious. It's basically as difficult as colouring in a picture in a colouring book, or painting-by-numbers. It's not a puzzle.

I can see why some people might enjoy that, because it's kinda relaxing just working through them and colouring them in, but as I say there is just no challenge at all and anyone buying this expecting a puzzle game is going to be massively disappointed when they find that there aren't really any puzzles that require solving.

Add to that the shoddy presentation and terrible "quirks" like having multiple solutions for puzzles and it becomes irritating. Even this instance...

[ ][1]
[1][ ]

... when it's separated from the rest of the puzzle is annoying to me. Both solutions appear to work but a puzzle game should never give the player a situation like this.

So yeah, some people will get something from this but if you want a puzzle game, I'd stay WELL away from it.

I have to say, I'm a bit skeptical of your claim that solving the puzzles doesn't require any thinking. While it's true that there's no ambiguity in figuring out where the blocks have to go and which blocks have to be used to stop them MOST of the time, you will often run into situations like this:

[  ][  ][  ][  ][ 1]
[3 ][  ][  ][  ][  ]
[  ][  ][  ][  ][ 1]

where a block can be stopped by another block coming from either side. Often times, it's not easy to figure out which block needs to be used, and choosing the wrong one can lead to an unwinnable situation several moves down the line, as it may be necessary to use one of the possible stopping blocks somewhere else later. In order to figure out the correct move, you need to consider multiple possibilities which may continue to branch out even further, resulting in a large degree of complexity. Maybe you got lucky and guessed which one to use correctly when you ran into situations like this on the final level, but unless you're Rain Man, deducing the correct solution is far from trivial on most levels.

 

[toythatkills]

I have to say, I'm a bit skeptical of your claim that solving the puzzles doesn't require any thinking. While it's true that there's no ambiguity in figuring out where the blocks have to go and which blocks have to be used to stop them MOST of the time, you will often run into situations like this:

[  ][  ][  ][  ][ 1]
[3 ][  ][  ][  ][  ]
[  ][  ][  ][  ][ 1]

where a block can be stopped by another block coming from either side. Often times, it's not easy to figure out which block needs to be used, and choosing the wrong one can lead to an unwinnable situation several moves down the line, as it may be necessary to use one of the possible stopping blocks somewhere else later. In order to figure out the correct move, you need to consider multiple possibilities which may continue to branch out even further, resulting in a large degree of complexity. Maybe you got lucky and guessed which one to use correctly when you ran into situations like this on the final level, but unless you're Rain Man, deducing the correct solution is far from trivial on most levels.

You are overselling that a crazy amount, "a large degree of complexity" is something this game definitely lacks, it's not even an opinion, you can factually see that there is no complexity.

I didn't guess. It's just that those situations you show above, when they occur, can be solved simply by coming back to them later when you've solved the other parts of the picture around them and then they basically solve themselves. Taken on its own as you display it, sure, that requires "solving," but they're never taken on their own like that.

 

[rjc571]

You are overselling that a crazy amount, "a large degree of complexity" is something this game definitely lacks, it's not even an opinion, you can factually see that there is no complexity.

I didn't guess. It's just that those situations you show above, when they occur, can be solved simply by coming back to them later when you've solved the other parts of the picture around them and then they basically solve themselves. Taken on its own as you display it, sure, that requires "solving," but they're never taken on their own like that.

And you're underselling the difficulty by a crazy amount. You make it sound like the correct location for every block is obvious from the moment you start the puzzle, when in reality you have to think about how the majority of the pieces need to be moved (since most of them can be extended to the appropriate length in more than one direction), and to find the pieces whose correct location can be ascertained without solving another part of the puzzle first. Sure it becomes easy to solve once you've assembled a large chunk of the puzzle, but I don't see how it differs from Picross, or jigasw puzzles, in that regard.

 

[Amazeballs]

Great game. You get a lot for only a few bucks.

I do have a few criticisms:

This game could use an undo function. One miss-tap and progress unravels.

It's difficult to differentiate the the stationary grey tiles from the puzzle tiles. They should be drawn with a different texture, distinct border or maybe a transparency.

The top screen is wasted screen economy. I'm not even looking at it most of the time, and even when I do it's not much help since the challenge of the puzzles comes from observing tiles within the immediate area. It might help those that have issues with the tile size if the puzzles are zoomed in more and if the puzzle display extended to the top screen.

There are one or two puzzles with multiple solutions that obviously aren't intended. The black pixels on the left handle of the N64 controller puzzle can be extended outside of its intended border. The game counts these solutions as though they are correct.

There seems to be one or two rote strategies that works most all the time.

Spoiler

Using up the tiles with higher number first and then filling in the rest. This works so well because there are often only one or two possible directions for extending those tiles at the beginning of each puzzle, and it only takes a few learned techniques to be able to fill in smaller spaces created.

Spoiler

Puzzles get longer but not necessarily more challenging or interesting. I believe this is due to the simplicity of the mechanics and the lack of a fail state or mechanical skill requirement. The game could use some advanced tools to force players to rethink the economy of their tiles. like fixed tiles that change the direction of a tile's extension, or tiles that increase the value of other tiles when the extended tangentially to them. Feel free to steal those ideas.

Well that's is obviously more than a few, so I'll stop there.

 

[dose]

Is this the Nintendo DS game?

Yep, that's the one. Very addictive

 

[zroid]

Spoiler

Puzzles get longer but not necessarily more challenging or interesting. I believe this is due to the simplicity of the mechanics and the lack of a fail state or mechanical skill requirement. The game could use some advanced tools to force players to rethink the economy of their tiles. like fixed tiles that change the direction of a tile's extension, or tiles that increase the value of other tiles when the extended tangentially to them. Feel free to steal those ideas.

Yeah, exactly, the difference between this and something like, say, Picross, is the latter's difficulty basically scales with size, whereas Tappingo does not. As you said though, there is room for improvement. The developer mentioned if this one sells well he will make a sequel which takes customer feedback into consideration, and I'd definitely like to see that happen.

 

[toythatkills]

And you're underselling the difficulty by a crazy amount.

I'm really not, that's the sad thing. Trust me, I wanted to love this game, I've been excited about it since someone posted it on GAF about a month ago or something. I'm not being a dick or anything, I'm just really disappointed. There is no difficulty. At all. That's not underselling it, that's just what it is.

You make it sound like the correct location for every block is obvious from the moment you start the puzzle, when in reality you have to think about how the majority of the pieces need to be moved (since most of them can be extended to the appropriate length in more than one direction), and to find the pieces whose correct location can be ascertained without solving another part of the puzzle first. Sure it becomes easy to solve once you've assembled a large chunk of the puzzle, but I don't see how it differs from Picross, or jigasw puzzles, in that regard.

The thing is, again, that there's nothing to solve. There's always a few seconds where you have to look around the puzzle finding the next move, but the next move is always there and it never needs you to think about it because there's always something with only one possible solution, and you just keep doing that until it's done. It's just massively unsatisfying as "puzzle" gameplay. I like Slitherlink, Hashi, Nurikabe, puzzles that require you to develop techniques and strategies, that let you learn tricks from puzzles and use them elsewhere, that require you to think a bunch of moves ahead to solve one. Puzzles that you solve and feel a sense of achievement because you actually feel like you did something that not just anyone could do. That kind of difficulty just doesn't exist here, not even close to it. I could give the hardest puzzle in Tappingo to someone who had never seen it before, explain the rules in thirty seconds, and they'd solve it in about ten minutes. The hardest puzzle in the game. I don't see how you can claim I'm in any way overstating how easy this game is when that's the case.

I don't like Picross that much, but your jigsaw comparison is probably fair, as well. It's just one of those things that anyone can solve without having to think about it. You just put all the bits together until it's done and it barely requires you to be conscious. I see why you and other people would get something from that because it's pretty cathartic, but I didn't want that, I wanted a puzzle, and I think it's fair to warn anyone else going into it in the same mindset as me that a puzzle is not what this is. You complete the levels, you fill them in, but you never solve them.

 

[rjc571]

Fair enough. I like challenging puzzles as much as the next guy, but I still found it pretty satisfying to figure out which direction the blocks have to go when there were multiple possibilities to consider. I still don't think completing the puzzles is as completely trivial as you're making it out to be -- if you're not paying attention, it's very easy to fail to notice a possibly valid move and send a block in what ends up being the wrong direction. Happened to me a handful of times over the course of the game even though I usually paid careful attention to what I was doing.

 

[panama chief]

played the first two puzzles, beat them. went to the last one...beat it. i feel like i have no reason to go back now.

 

[Maedhros]

Ohh, looks fun!

EDIT: Oh, no difficult... I take back what I said. Picross have some hard as fuck puzzles, if this is easier, I have no interest.

 

[liger05]

I'm in on Euro release date.

 

[epmode]

If you guys are interested in a Picross-style game that is actually fuckawesome, I highly recommend Hexcells and Hexcells Plus for PC. They're super-cheap and any PC on Earth can run them.

It's basically a Picross/Minesweeper hybrid with hexes instead of squares. No guessing is required and the puzzles get pretty crazy in Hexcells Plus.

 

[zroid]

This is out in Europe now.

If you've been following the thread at all, you'll probably know it's not a perfect game, but a pretty fun way to kill time, and a unique concept for sure. Definitely worth checking out at the low price of entry, imo.

Enjoy, PALanders!

 

[n64coder]

I was a big fan of the drawing game in Pic Pic which is similar in gameplay and that showed squares with the correct numbers for the ones you joined up, like this...

Thanks for the recommendation. I just tried it out and it looks fun. It looks like it never came out in the US. Damn, it's not cheap. It'll set me back $50+ or so but it does seem to have a lot of content. About 1200 puzzles, wow! The other thing that sucks is that it's hard to search for it on amazon/ebay because you get a lot of unrelated content in the search results.

While looking around, I discovered Colour Cross. I do have the Animal Colour Cross that came out on the DSi shop but I'll try this as well. Fortunately it's much cheaper than Pic Pic.

If you guys are interested in a Picross-style game that is actually fuckawesome, I highly recommend Hexcells and Hexcells Plus for PC. They're super-cheap and any PC on Earth can run them.

It's basically a Picross/Minesweeper hybrid with hexes instead of squares. No guessing is required and the puzzles get pretty crazy in Hexcells Plus.

So it's $3 each? Awesome. Thanks!

 

[toythatkills]

Thanks for the recommendation. I just tried it out and it looks fun. It looks like it never came out in the US. Damn, it's not cheap. It'll set me back $50+ or so but it does seem to have a lot of content. About 1200 puzzles, wow! The other thing that sucks is that it's hard to search for it on amazon/ebay because you get a lot of unrelated content in the search results.

Do you have an iThing? If so, there are loads of games like this on the App Store. PathPix and its various versions, Piczle Lines, Conceptis Fill-a-Pix, and probably more I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

[n64coder]

Do you have an iThing? If so, there are loads of games like this on the App Store. PathPix and its various versions, Piczle Lines, Conceptis Fill-a-Pix, and probably more I can't remember off the top of my head.

I do have an iPad so thanks for the suggestion. I'll check them out. Initially I thought that these type of games would work better on the DS because of the stylus precision but I should try them out first. Thanks!

 

[jblank83]

So I've been playing this the last couple of days.

It's good. Nice graphics, nice music, solid gameplay. Def scratches that "Picross" itch. Thank you for the info, TC!

 

[toythatkills]

I do have an iPad so thanks for the suggestion. I'll check them out. Initially I thought that these type of games would work better on the DS because of the stylus precision but I should try them out first. Thanks!

Actually, Conceptis Link-a-pix rather than Fill-a-pix, which is something else.

As an aside, anyone with an iThing should just search the App Store for "Conceptis" and download everything. It's logic puzzle heaven.

 

[n64coder]

As an aside, anyone with an iThing should just search the App Store for "Conceptis" and download everything. It's logic puzzle heaven.

I just did that and wow, there are a lot of good looking puzzles. It seems that you get a bunch of free puzzles and with IAP, you can buy more. Seems reasonable. I guess I'll be keeping busy this weekend when I'm not skiing.

 

[nny]

I'm enjoying the game very much.

 

[Iceberg]

The game summary in the Euro Spanish eShop looks as if it was written using Google translate. It really puts me off buying the game

Like "el amor de mi amante" in YouTube.

 

[Least100Seraphs]

OK, so call me crazy, but I can't find this anywhere on the Australian store. Not listed in new releases, not searchable, not by category... did AU simply not get this game?

 

[Fewr]

Finished today. 7hrs 20mins total time.

Considering the price it's alright. I got bored after about #40 or so, but decided to go on in case it got harder. It didn't, it just got smaller with no zoom function. Towards the end I was pushing myself and not really having fun anymore. Also, I wasn't expecting so many

Spoiler

seafood

themed puzzles, especially towards the end.

 

[Salsa]

Heads up: Game is getting a 30% off discount for 2 weeks starting May 1st (leaves it at $1.99)