Any questions?

[luckydonut]

Hey there! I'm one of the developers of the game and to say we're getting a kick out of watching the trophies get awarded would be an understatement. I mean, we were hoping one of us would be the first to get the plat, and there's no chance of that now (even though we could be using the solutions... and chose not to!) but it's still pretty cool to watch.  It's our first PlayStation title and I'm geeking out reloading the trophy page.

 

Anyway, if there are any questions about the game I'm happy to answer them here. I'd also like to hear whether you think we got the trophy set right for this or any way we could improve it for future games.  We have other picture puzzles in the pipeline for PS4 and Vita

 

Chris Newman

Lightwood Games

(Email our support address or tweet @lightwoodgames if you want to verify it's me, by the way)

[mako-heart]

i love picross, but these solve under x amount of time kind of suck (but maybe cause im used to b&w picross)

 

edit: i also turned off the music before clearing the first page due to how repetitive it was

Edited April 27, 2018 by mako-heart

[FielVeredus]

Yeah, imo Picross is about taking sweet time to solve not rushing and worry about getting the trophy. and that's why people will use the solution just to get the trophy.

 

Congrats on launch though.

[Kishnabe]

How long was the Vita and PS4 port in the works?

 

Hope to see your other 3DS games follow to PSN.

 

Is Pic a Pix Color, PSTV compatible?

[WavesOfActivity]

I am really glad to have a picross game on PSN.  I agree with some of the others as far as trophies go that speed runs are not the trophies I prefer.  Breaking out the trophies by number of puzzles completed as you progress would be fine for me.  It is cool that you were able to add a platinum trophy.

 

Beyond that, I'm just looking for more puzzles.  It would be cool if someone came up with a game play concept to wrap around picross, in the same way Puzzle Quest did with match-3s, but I am not sure what that would look like or whether it has been done in other games.

Edited April 27, 2018 by WavesOfActivity

[DaivRules]

10 hours ago, luckydonut said:

Hey there! I'm one of the developers of the game and to say we're getting a kick out of watching the trophies get awarded would be an understatement. I mean, we were hoping one of us would be the first to get the plat, and there's no chance of that now (even though we could be using the solutions... and chose not to!) but it's still pretty cool to watch.  It's our first PlayStation title and I'm geeking out reloading the trophy page.

 

Anyway, if there are any questions about the game I'm happy to answer them here. I'd also like to hear whether you think we got the trophy set right for this or any way we could improve it for future games.  We have other picture puzzles in the pipeline for PS4 and Vita

 

Chris Newman

Lightwood Games

(Email our support address or tweet @lightwoodgames if you want to verify it's me, by the way)

 

Would you be able to shed any light on actual Sony guidelines for developers when it comes to implementing trophies?

[charlijaen]

9 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

 

Would you be able to shed any light on actual Sony guidelines for developers when it comes to implementing trophies?

Yes please!

I'd like to know if there is a point limit/trophy limit

Or what are the requirements to make a game have a platinum. (Well, looking at "Slyde" game makes me think there is no such restriction).

[AlchemistWer]

Wow, developers come here to help trophy hunters with their games. ?

[luckydonut]

18 hours ago, mako-heart said:

i love picross, but these solve under x amount of time kind of suck (but maybe cause im used to b&w picross)

 

edit: i also turned off the music before clearing the first page due to how repetitive it was

 

We found the speed trophies mostly came naturally, and definitely without using a solution even if it needed a couple of goes.  It's very puzzle dependent.  The 10x10 sushi puzzle, for example, is MUCH quicker than the watermelon slice (which appears early on as it makes you think a little harder about the cross-color logic). However, I get that it could be off-putting seeing a time requirement for a type of puzzle you're not up to speed with yet, forcing you to replay or refer to the solution.

 

Sorry you don't like the music. It's a love/hate thing, from what we hear. Some people really can't get enough - I've seen twitch streams of people singing along, and we've had requests for the MP3. Either you find repetition soothing or annoying. At least there's an option to turn it off, right?

[luckydonut]

16 hours ago, Kishnabe said:

How long was the Vita and PS4 port in the works?

 

Hope to see your other 3DS games follow to PSN.

 

Is Pic a Pix Color, PSTV compatible?

 

Yes, it's PSTV compatible. We don't see any reason to exclude that hardware - it just runs from the Vita build.

 

The PS4/Vita versions use the same codebase as Nintendo Switch, which was released in January. We've been working with Nintendo platforms for a few years and knew Switch was a good fit for this kind of game. Moving to PlayStation was a little daunting (we figured it would be great on Vita, but weren't convinced PS4 players would go for it), but the port ended up being fairly straightforward. Because the Switch version was patched to fix some bugs with clue marking and to add color blind mode after that was requested, we waited to make sure there were no other issues after that before porting to PS4/Vita.  The game content is from the 3DS game, and you may have noticed that Switch has different puzzles, so there's potential to bring those to PlayStation too, if it proves popular!

 

We've already got the go ahead for Fill-a-Pix on PlayStation, so that will be next

10 hours ago, WavesOfActivity said:

Beyond that, I'm just looking for more puzzles.  It would be cool if someone came up with a game play concept to wrap around picross, in the same way Puzzle Quest did with match-3s, but I am not sure what that would look like or whether it has been done in other games.

 

We've been toying with a few ideas on how to wrap puzzles in a broader game, but I mostly feel like this is superfluous and more than likely wouldn't make the game any more appealing. Our style has always been what we call "no-nonsense".  Others call it, slightly less flatteringly, "no-frills".  But basically just getting you into a puzzle as quickly as possible without fluff getting in the way.  If we did this, it would probably be a mash-up of different picture logic puzzles, not just picross, Would that still appeal?

9 hours ago, charlijaen said:

Yes please!

I'd like to know if there is a point limit/trophy limit

Or what are the requirements to make a game have a platinum. (Well, looking at "Slyde" game makes me think there is no such restriction).

 

I can't talk about Sony policy I'm afraid, but we decided we wanted Pic-a-Pix to have a Platinum based on our estimate of play time being 20-30 hours and had no problems making that happen. I see this time has already been smashed by some trophy hunters... interested to know how long it's taking people in general though.

[mako-heart]

9 hours ago, luckydonut said:

 

We've already got the go ahead for Fill-a-Pix on PlayStation, so that will be next

 

 

 

I can't talk about Sony policy I'm afraid, but we decided we wanted Pic-a-Pix to have a Platinum based on our estimate of play time being 20-30 hours and had no problems making that happen. I see this time has already been smashed by some trophy hunters... interested to know how long it's taking people in general though.

 

if you release it the same as this (affordable + cross buy + cross plat) ill day 1 (ish) buy again. 

 

also everyone platting fast is just using the solutions found online, so dont take it to heart

[FielVeredus]

Yeah, while im not picking up it yet but i planned to (playing gow atm) I love puzzle game and if you keep the price affordable, cross buy, separate trophy list. I will definitely buy future game provided they have reasonable trophy set or completion based not too tedious or require luck/too much skillset. you know this site are trophy whore so it's fair to ask for. 

 

Im glad that finally chilled puzzle game is on PS.

Edited April 28, 2018 by FielVeredus

[WavesOfActivity]

On 4/27/2018 at 6:27 PM, luckydonut said:

We've been toying with a few ideas on how to wrap puzzles in a broader game, but I mostly feel like this is superfluous and more than likely wouldn't make the game any more appealing. Our style has always been what we call "no-nonsense".  Others call it, slightly less flatteringly, "no-frills".  But basically just getting you into a puzzle as quickly as possible without fluff getting in the way.  If we did this, it would probably be a mash-up of different picture logic puzzles, not just picross, Would that still appeal?

I would be interested in adding some different types of puzzles, as long as they were all around the similar picture concept.  I picked up a Conceptis book yesterday to have something to do at work when I have breaks.  Larger puzzle sizes would be fun.

 

The only other idea I have around a game hook is to have the individual pictures be a part of a broader mosaic that you uncover.  Or perhaps scenes that you bring to life and then play out in a story.  Not sure how feasible any of that is.

[turniplord]

Hi Chris, Rob from SquareXO here (My review went up today - really love the game!)

Can't wait for Phil's Epic Fill-a-Pix Adventure - it looks very minesweeper-like + I love Minesweeper almost as much as Soduku and Picross!

One thing I mentioned to Katherine before was maybe having the PS4 controller light up in the colour you have selected  I've seen other colour-based games like de Blob do this. It doesn't really impact the game itself but it's a nice cosmetic extra

Also, I know the Wii U and 3DS got a few DLC packs for this version - are we getting those? If not, have you thought about coding in a 'daily' or 'weekly' puzzle? It doesn't need any leaderboards of anything, just a rotational puzzle which gives people a reason to dip back in daily or weekly to attempt it - maybe a 10x10, 15x15 and 20x20 puzzle to play each week? Based on time, it takes me about 10-20 mins to do a 15x15 and about 20-30 mins for a 20x20 - so that's like an extra hour of gameplay every rotation

Anyway, I've rambled enough - Many thanks for bringing a real logical puzzle to Sony's platform which isn't a cash-grab for an easy platinum (like many of them out there are) and also giving us the game as cross-buy with two platinums to earn! I sincerely hope you sell enough copies to warrant bringing more of your games over to the platform as well - it's a niche part of the market which is well catered on the Vita but not quite on the PS4.

Thanks again for the great game! Now, back to this puzzle...

[DrakeHellsing]

Been playing this, but I am wondering when the Vita version comes out over here in NZ.  I mean, this is a rather nice game, granted, I'm not the best at these, so it takes me longer to complete them the first time, especially with the different colours starting to confuse me

[luckydonut]

5 hours ago, WavesOfActivity said:

The only other idea I have around a game hook is to have the individual pictures be a part of a broader mosaic that you uncover.  Or perhaps scenes that you bring to life and then play out in a story.  Not sure how feasible any of that is.

Conceptis are actually working on something mosaic-like that we're going to prototype later in the year. I'm not sure it's quite what you're thinking, but it's a different twist on picross

4 hours ago, turniplord said:

One thing I mentioned to Katherine before was maybe having the PS4 controller light up in the colour you have selected  I've seen other colour-based games like de Blob do this. It doesn't really impact the game itself but it's a nice cosmetic extra

Also, I know the Wii U and 3DS got a few DLC packs for this version - are we getting those? If not, have you thought about coding in a 'daily' or 'weekly' puzzle? It doesn't need any leaderboards of anything, just a rotational puzzle which gives people a reason to dip back in daily or weekly to attempt it - maybe a 10x10, 15x15 and 20x20 puzzle to play each week? Based on time, it takes me about 10-20 mins to do a 15x15 and about 20-30 mins for a 20x20 - so that's like an extra hour of gameplay every rotation

 

Hi Rob

 

Thanks for the review and your kind comments here 

 

The DualShock 4 Light Bar only has a fixed range of LED colors so it wouldn't always match up with puzzle colors. I'll have a think about how well it could work.

 

We kept everything simple for the first PlayStation release. It helped to get the game through certification quickly! However, there's no DLC capability in the game as it stands. We're not sure yet whether to add this in through a patch, or just release another game.  DLC can only come with a few trophies, whereas a new game can come with a new platinum, so I think I know what would be preferred on this forum

 

1 hour ago, DrakeHellsing said:

Been playing this, but I am wondering when the Vita version comes out over here in NZ.  I mean, this is a rather nice game, granted, I'm not the best at these, so it takes me longer to complete them the first time, especially with the different colours starting to confuse me

 

Here's the link for NZ: https://store.playstation.com/en-nz/product/EP3597-CUSA09956_00-PICAPIXCROSSBUY0

 

There's some kind of issue with visibility in SCEE regions. You can find the game with a name search and in the Puzzles category, but it's not appearing under New Releases.  On the Vita store, because there is no category search, I don't think you can find it at all.

 

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by luckydonut

[c3044692]

Thanks for finally bringing Picross to the Vita and PS4

 

My only thought is keep the Vita support coming (especially with Cross Buy).

[mako-heart]

On Mario Picross, and probably others it's just all I've played, they split the puzzle into quadrants.

 

So like

1 - 2

3 - 4

 

And you solve each one separate grid to make an image with them all. That might help allow for larger/more detailed puzzles. I'm still on 15x15 and already finding it cluttered (Vita ver).

[c3044692]

On 4/29/2018 at 5:19 PM, mako-heart said:

On Mario Picross, and probably others it's just all I've played, they split the puzzle into quadrants.

 

So like

1 - 2

3 - 4

 

And you solve each one separate grid to make an image with them all. That might help allow for larger/more detailed puzzles. I'm still on 15x15 and already finding it cluttered (Vita ver).

 

I'm finding that the Vita screen is a pretty good size, even with the big puzzles. I always struggle when you have to scroll or zoom in to areas.

 

I feel that it's actually harder to play on a TV with the PS4 as the field of view is so big and you can't see everything at once.

[luckydonut]

7 hours ago, c3044692 said:

 

I'm finding that the Vita screen is a pretty good size, even with the big puzzles. I always struggle when you have to scroll or zoom in to areas.

 

I feel that it's actually harder to play on a TV with the PS4 as the field of view is so big and you can't see everything at once.

 

Thanks for the feedback.  Everyone has different preferences - we also have players on Switch complaining that it's too small in handheld mode!  Our office PS4 is connected to a small monitor, but I can imagine the issue if you're playing on a big screen.

 

Scrolling and zooming isn't good with Pic-a-Pix.  You really need to see all the clues and the whole grid at the same time.  We tried a few things but none of them gave a good experience.  Games where the clues are inside the grid, like Fill-a-Pix or Link-a-Pix, can scroll without issue though.  I almost wish we'd got a way to show how bad zooming is, when people suggest it as an amazing feature we missed...

[mako-heart]

Ew, no, scrolling would suck lol.

 

Here's a YT video showing the kind of things I mean from Picross 2. It's basically multiple smaller puzzles to make one giant image.

 

[c3044692]

Another thing that I forgot to mention above, was a big thanks for putting in a colour blind mode. I have a slight R/G colour blindness which makes it hard to be to decipher some colours, but being able to set them to whatever we want makes it super easy.

 

I also like how you don't have an immediate penalty (e.g. time or no medal) if you put in the wrong colour or cross the wrong square. A lot of the time it is a misclick, so it's good to not have to worry about restarting the level (plus it ruins the solving if you instantly get told you did it wrong).

5 hours ago, mako-heart said:

Ew, no, scrolling would suck lol.

 

Here's a YT video showing the kind of things I mean from Picross 2. It's basically multiple smaller puzzles to make one giant image.

 

I see what you mean. The picross games on 3DS do the same thing (I think they call them micross or something like that).

[luckydonut]

13 minutes ago, c3044692 said:

I see what you mean. The picross games on 3DS do the same thing (I think they call them micross or something like that).

 

Yes, in Picross E there are a couple of puzzles called Micross which are 80x80 puzzles divided into 64 10x10 grids.  It means you can reveal a large picture fairly quickly. These typically take me about 30 minutes - roughly the same time as a single 20x20.

 

This is basically the mosaic puzzle I mentioned above. I don't think a whole game built around 10x10 puzzle grids would be very interesting, so it's going to be a mix of sizes, but the same concept.  We're obviously intending to use color puzzles too!  The thing with these is that the time to construct the puzzles is disproportionate to the time taken to solve them, so it will come down to the cost of having them made but I'm hopeful we can get there!

[Lightsp33d1987]

On 27/04/2018 at 3:13 AM, luckydonut said:

Hey there! I'm one of the developers of the game and to say we're getting a kick out of watching the trophies get awarded would be an understatement. I mean, we were hoping one of us would be the first to get the plat, and there's no chance of that now (even though we could be using the solutions... and chose not to!) but it's still pretty cool to watch.  It's our first PlayStation title and I'm geeking out reloading the trophy page.

 

Anyway, if there are any questions about the game I'm happy to answer them here. I'd also like to hear whether you think we got the trophy set right for this or any way we could improve it for future games.  We have other picture puzzles in the pipeline for PS4 and Vita

 

Chris Newman

Lightwood Games

(Email our support address or tweet @lightwoodgames if you want to verify it's me, by the way)

I have completed all 10 x 10 puzzles on Vita with gold medal but the 2 silver trophies did not pop solve all 10 x 10 or earn a medal for all 10 x 10?

 

EDIT: Don't matter I tried 2 more still nothing so closed the app reloaded complete 1 again and they popped.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Lightsp33d1987

[Xemik]

On 27/04/2018 at 11:15 PM, luckydonut said:

Sorry you don't like the music. It's a love/hate thing, from what we hear. Some people really can't get enough - I've seen twitch streams of people singing along, and we've had requests for the MP3. Either you find repetition soothing or annoying. At least there's an option to turn it off, right?

 

I turned off the music, because after a few hours it started to grind, but there's worse. I often play games at night when the rest of the household has gone to bed. My wife came down to complain about the very loud ping the game makes every time I changed colour. In the end I had to turn the TV sound off.

So could you tone it down or have a a softer sound for this?