Peg City Parks Jigsaw - Progress on Choose Puzzle Screen

I've spent a good chunk of February working on the actual content for my upcoming web-based Peg City Parks Jigsaw game. I scoured through my library of park photos searching for good jigsaw puzzle candidates, developed a process for generating thumbnails for the game, and put together an extensive playlist of music from Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com to listen to while I work on the game.

Latest Milestone - Choose Puzzle Screen

The above screenshot shows the current state of my "Choose Puzzle" screen, with glimpses of some of the puzzles that will be included when the game first releases. The three medallions you see attached to each thumbnail represent the three difficulty levels.

The user interface is coming along nicely I think... The thumbnail grid adjusts itself when resizing the window, and even works well on my mobile device in both landscape and portrait orientation.

I'm in a place where I'm not too far away from being able to tackle the actual gameplay. So I'm hopeful that I'm on track to release the first version of the game somewhere around the second half of May... 🤞

What Makes a Good Jigsaw Puzzle?

I'm certainly not a professional puzzle manufacturer, but here are a few guidelines I'm trying to follow while choosing between jigsaw puzzle photos.

• The photo must have some kind of interesting feature or focal point.
• Avoid photos where the edges are primarily just a solid color or gradient. A skyline with some clouds is better than a solid blue sky. Grass with some dandelion patches or marks is better than solid green.
• Photos with several distinct color zones make excellent candidates.
• For privacy concerns, avoid photos with people, cars, houses, or any personal property.

Kevin MacLeod is an International Treasure!

For people like myself, just trying to put their creativity and passion out into the world for others to enjoy, a royalty-free music library like incompetech.com is an absolute treasure trove. I think talent like Kevin MacLeod should be appreciated and supported. Check out his website and enjoy! 🎵 🎧

I plan to include a bundle of his tracks in the game, some of it tailored to specific puzzles or themes. Since my game will be web-based, I wanted to avoid the website effectively becoming a jukebox for his music. So not only do I plan to provide appropriate attribution, but I also developed some simple security guards to make sure visitors can only access the music by actually playing the game.