Gaming Nonograms

Answer #126:

Q from Zero Time Dilemma

Puzzle #127:

I have a story related to the origin of puzzle #126. There was once this fan campaign called Operation Bluebird, which formed after the third instalment in the Zero Escape series was cancelled. Fans of the series drew bunch of fan art, composed music and wrote letters, alongside other things, and it was then sent to the series director, Kotaro Uchikoshi, and the development team. After a short while, development on the third game resumed, thanks to fan support.

Puzzle #126 is one of the 50 puzzles I made for the project. I also programmed software that could be used to solve them. The problem was that the time period between submissions opening and closing was a mere month or two. I went a bit overboard and the quality suffered from it. The software had bad UI and input handling. I didn't have time to solve the puzzles myself. I'd only check programmatically that they technically have one solution, and leave it at that. Vast majority of the puzzles were unsolvable my human. The puzzle I shared is one of the five or so puzzles that were line solvable. It also has the lowest cell count.

It was fun going down the memory lane. It's been over 10 years since it all happened. I remember it being stressful and I was disappointed with my own output but the game got made and that's the important part. The game unfortunately didn't quite meet the expectations though. It had some great ideas but as an ending to a trilogy, it was lacking. Budget was also still a problem and it shows.

Check out my Gaming Nonograms thread here on Nintendo Life if you are into Picross or other similar games.