Hello all and Happy Devtober!

About the game
Nono Puzzle Museum (working title) has the mechanics of Pokemon Picross with the aesthetics of the museum from Animal Crossing. Work to solve picross/nonogram logic puzzles in order to fill out a charming museum with dino fossils, fish, bugs, and art. Meet special objectives for each stage to add more *pizzazz* to the rooms of the museum. Use fancy tools, solve murals made of multiple puzzles, and uncover hidden secrets.

I've been working on the game for a bit, so I'm starting from a good place

- Working nonogram engine (purchased from the Unity Asset Store and modified to suit my needs) and basic menuing system for selecting puzzles

- Full list of planned puzzles; 70% of which are created and checked for nonogram logic (i.e. is there a single, solvable solution to the puzzle without using guesswork)
- Rudimentary save logic that outputs user file data to JSON, for long-term storage
- In-game timer with ability to save and display best solve time


Left to do
- Remaining puzzles
- Add "tools" for players to use (e.g. reveal some squares in the puzzle or show hints for logic)
- Add handling for mural puzzles in menu
- Add "Gallery" view, to see fish, bugs, dino puzzles put together
- Non-programmer art for UI (buttons, backgrounds, font, title screen)
- SFX and bg music

Oct 1

Finished up puzzle design for mural-style puzzle, "Three Musicians" by Pablo Picasso. The blue squares here represent each of the different puzzles (25 puzzles, each 15x15 pixels/squares). Going for mostly realistic, but each puzzles has to conform to nonogram logic rules in order to be solvable. Each puzzle here has been checked and works!

Oct 2

Doing a test to see what it would look like if, after the puzzle is solved, it shows a colorized version (a la Pokemon Picross). Going to see how much time it takes (answer: a lot!) and if it's worth it (answer: not sure!). My partner thinks the payoff is better to see the color version at the end. I'm drawing from a limited color palette and having to brush up on my color theory haha. I feel like the color's quite off. Is it worth it, will it bring delight? Is the art working here or meh?

Oct 3

Continuing test for colorize-the-puzzle juice. Did a mockup of what it would look like it game. The flow from black and white to high/low saturation colors is not quite right. Probably would be surrounded by bubbly "tada!" effects. I like the effect overall! I think it would take more work to get it quite right. Going to get back to must-haves tomorrow, like menu UI.

Oct 4

Did some mundane menuing work today. Sketched out a general flow to the menus. The core/hub will be a World Map, which will link to a) 5-7 smaller maps with puzzles, and b) the Museum/Gallery. I dashed out some quick map backgrounds for the World Map and Maps 1-3 (likely as placeholders). Then, set up navigation between them all. I've got a placeholder menu for the Museum, but there's not much there yet! I'll probably work on setting up a nicer looking, usable Museum tomorrow. Or maybe draw more pictures instead :D

Oct 5

Worked a little more on a recolor of "The Scream", not looking how I'd like. Determined that I'm trying pixel art at too high a difficulty level, and I may have picked a poor color palette. Decided to put this on pause for now, will come back after working on easier color puzzles (smaller or fewer in color). Sketched out some menus. Remembered I had a copy of Kenney Game Assets 1! Will use some of the building tilemaps, sound effects, and UI elements in the future.

Oct 6

Started working on the Museum View! Did a quick mockup to see how it feels. Will come back later and flesh it out with a tilemap, add interest and clutter. Each of the doors will lead to a collection of puzzles that the user has already completed.

Oct 7

Did more work on menuing. Boring but necessary! Imported the first ~20 dino puzzles for the game, didn't have time to set them all up yet. Started setting them up in the Fossil Room, really liking seeing everything in place :) Need to set up remaining fossil puzzles, show an empty space if the puzzles aren't complete, and resize the puzzles so the relative sizing is correct (10x10 puzzles should be smaller than 30x30 puzzles).

Oct 8

Created some fish puzzles for the aquarium wing of the museum. Not too much work today.

Oct 9

Worked on incorporating a tileset into the museum backdrop. Compared to the mockup, I really like how it's turning out! Still need some tweaking and some UI improvements. Will work on creating backdrops for the other rooms later this week. Drew some sketches of what the other rooms will look like.

Oct 10

Setting up more dinosaur puzzles and trying them out in the scene. The whole puzzles put together look fun. Considering making the outsides of the puzzles transparent so they fit in the scene better. Planning to flesh out more museum rooms tomorrow.

Oct 11

Looks like a lot of my future work on the game is in Fancy User Interfaces. Made a room/level select area for the mosaic Art Puzzles. And (below-below) an interface for looking at specific mosaics and choosing the piece of the puzzle to solve.

Oct 12

Worked on a little mosquito puzzle for the Bug Room.

Oct 13

Worked on a temporary title screen (pixel art museum is temporary and not mine). Figured out how to 9-slice sprites for text backgrounds and buttons! Very pleased with the results so far. Did some sketches of a more top-down version of the museum  to be consistent with the rest of the art style.

Oct 14

Small progress today, made a puzzle for a Mosquito. Part of the trick is that puzzles with symmetry aren't very fun to solve. All the bug puzzles have to be at interesting angles or have interesting features added to make the puzzle fun.

Oct 15

Working on a new title screen with a top-down view of the museum exterior. Pixel art of this scale is hard work! I haven't done much like this before, so I'm following tutorials. Made some progress so far, below:

Oct 16

Dashed out some quick tilemaps for the museum Terrarium/Bug Room and Aquarium/Fish Room.

Oct 17

Skipped today! Feeling sick, will try to get back into it tomorrow.

Oct 18

Feeling under the weather but endeavored to do at least something. Checked the logic on some older puzzles to confirm that they're solvable. Created a few new, tiny puzzles today including a Pill Bug, a Dragonfly, and a Dino Claw Fossil. Of the planned 52 puzzles for the game, 40 of them are ready! The art puzzles take the longest, since it's more like 15-25 puzzles apiece. I'm not crazy about all the designs so far, but now is not the time to be finicky! Editing can come later.