Figuring out Analytic Snapshots for Puzzles

I did a couple of interesting things for this Nonogram. The first thing was to design through a kind of ‘minimum box’ approach. And the second was to create a snapshot of the solving solution to help analyse it.

That minimum box approach was how I used to go about making 5x5 grid nonograms. I figured out that there was a minimum amount of boxes that there had to be in the grid to make the puzzle both solvable and as difficult as a 5x5 grid could get. This was in and around 10-12 boxes. It, of course, also depended heavily on placement and clues of the boxes for how they led the player around.

For the construction of this 10x10 grid, I applied the same principle to each of the 5x5 corners in this grid. To those much more experienced this of course did not yield an interesting puzzle, because I was just randomly placing boxes in each of the corners to meet a predefined amount. The more interesting thing to come out of this puzzle was how I used it to create a design tool for analysing puzzles under construction.

I decided to create a kind of temporal snapshot of a solving path. The gif above shows a simplified solving path which incrementally analyses solutions methods. For this puzzle I tried to communicate a specific path that tied all the possible solving solutions that could be made at that point, followed by a punctuation stage. I didn’t build off of another solving solution that presented itself in the process but saved it for the next phase as it were. For this reason the above is only one of many different paths through the puzzle.

So I put together this method as a gif to show that pathway. Solving solutions followed by a punctuation phase then repeat. What I wanted to show was the kind of thing displayed below where we could circle a clue and discuss what type of solving solution is being made in that row or column. The purpose being you can see how the puzzle is being solved at each stage and how the other portions of the puzzle lead to that.

The row clue of 3,1,3 will require the solving solution joining because those two separate boxes belong to the 3 clue. On the column clue it’s a matter of simple boxes at the bottom as the 2 clue must extend from the wall.

That principle of using simple boxes can interestingly be extended to the row clue as it would be a stretch to say that it is a joining clue. And funnily enough what this analytical process has revealed is that the whole puzzle could more or less be solved with simple boxes and punctuation steps. That is to say, it’s a disappointingly simple puzzle. But that’s okay, what the process has revealed is that the puzzle cascades too quickly and rather early where the solutions bleed into each other and the overall experience is trivial.

I think the next step going forward is to come up with another puzzle and apply the same analytical process to it with an eye to redrafting the puzzle again and again to make it more interesting.