H.T.I Forum

Tails' Picross is a fangame inspired by the Picross game series and other Mega Drive puzzle games.

In this game, you will need to clear puzzles using the clues on each row and each collumn of the grid.
This year's demo polishes the game and also adds a new gamemode!

Features:

* 2 Modes, with 12 Puzzles each
* Tails!
* Eggman!

Note:
Things may change later on. Feel free to give feedback so the game can be improved upon!

Tutorial can be found in the PDF included with the game.

Download: Credits
Screenshots

Great demo! I was super excited when I saw this in the sizzle reel and went out to try the 2023 demo right away. I'm a huge fan of Jupiter's Picross games and having more to sink my teeth into was wonderful.

The puzzles are perfect, as is the aesthetic. This really does feel like it stepped out of a parallel timeline where Jupiter did Picross games for the Genesis alongside the SNES. And an added plus over those games is that the puzzles are all within the series' theme, which is a great improvement over the generic puzzles in the Mario's Picross games.

I'd like to give some feedback, if I may:

• This seems to be a major oversight: in Eggman's puzzles, you can remove incorrect tiles, but you can't remove correct tiles. That means you can distinguish between correct and incorrect tiles, which is unlike how "free mode" works in Jupiter Picross games. You should be able to remove any tile; I assume this is an unintended leftover from Tails's puzzles, where correct tiles can't be removed.

• Control mapping would be nice, though the layout is familiar to me. There are also some tweaks that I'd like to see made consistent with the Jupiter Picross games. I'd like the ability to erase tiles using the erase button, rather than just X marks. In addition, the place button should also function as the erase button while hovering over a placed tile. (In other words, if you've set down a tile, you should be able to remove it by pressing the button again. You can do this in Eggman's puzzles, but only on incorrect tiles.) I'd also like the ability to quickly scroll between tiles by holding down a direction, rather than having to press the button each time.

• The cursor on the puzzle select menu acts strangely, since it seems to prioritize horizontal movement over vertical movement. If you scroll from the first puzzle to the last, it'll move back and forth on the top row for a while before eventually moving down to the last row. I think it might be preferable to just not have smooth movement and instead have the cursor "snap" to the puzzle, as Jupiter's Picross games do.

• Once you beat the demo, you're permanently locked out of the puzzles unless you delete your save data, since it always takes you to the completion screen. Not a huge deal, but I'm not sure if this is a glitch or not.

• Displayed clear times and multiple BGM options would be nice; I know the 2023 demo had alternate BGM, so I assume it's being considered.

• I think there should be a bit more "weight" to completing a puzzle? Having a bit of delay between placing the last tile and the fanfare would help a lot; it feels jarring at the moment.

• I'm colorblind, and I found it difficult to distinguish the red divider lines from the green background on Eggman's puzzles.

• This is probably the strangest of my thoughts, but I feel like Eggman's puzzle BGM is a bit too "overbearing"? It was distracting. It's a really good theme and I do get that it's intentionally more dramatic than Tails's puzzle BGM, but I think it could be scaled back a bit? Picross BGM is at its best when it's a bit pensive and contemplative. That's just my opinion, though!

Those were my main takeaways... I hope that isn't too much, haha. I'm a Picross fiend and I'm so happy to see such love for the series in a whole new form. I can't wait to see what's next!