November Game: Nomo

For my November game, I implemented a Nonogram puzzle (also known as Gridders, Paint-Doku, or Crosspix). I called it “Nomo” as “Nomograms” is a funnier name than “Nonograms”.
I developed it for my new touchscreen laptop, so it has a non-keyboard interface. I even coded part of it on the laptop while riding in a long car journey, which was fun as I had no docs.
Codewise, I’m still using the new framework I made for Mahjong Solitaire, with some minor fixes to handle resizing. I added a neat handler-stack system which nicely handles the switch between the list of puzzles and the puzzle itself. I added it in the last ten minutes of November, so I’m surprised I got it finished in time (“Hmmm, ten minutes to go… I know, I’ll recode half the event handling/drawing!”).

For puzzle sources I had intended to make a simple editor, but instead I just ran some regexes against a GameFAQS guide so I could import the puzzles from Nintendo’s Picross DS. I stuck the puzzles in a SQLite database, which I’ve not done yet for a game. It’s a good idea, it gives me pretty powerful data management for very little work. This would help support things like recording which puzzles are won/unlocked, but I didn’t get around to implementing that.

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