Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection

[GerReader]

Update 02.04.2022. V 0.7.10

Hi,

I used the corona lockdown time to port the famous Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection to my Pocketbook Touch HD 3.

This week I finally implemented the last missing element needed for a beta relase, and like to share it now:

https://github.com/SteffenBauer/PocketPuzzles

Ready compiled binary apps (installation of course on own risk) can be found here:

https://github.com/SteffenBauer/Pock...ease/README.md

I ported a total of 50 puzzles, including a sudoku with many variations, minesweeper, slitherlink, and dozens of other less known logic puzzles.

Released under the MIT license, so completely free and open source, I have no commercial interest at all, only personal enthusiasm.

If anybody finds bugs or has ideas for improvement, please comment here, or open an issue at GitHub.

I'm especially interested in reports how the app is working on devices other than the Touch HD 3, like if the screen layout is still ok etc.

So far, I received reports that the app works with these devices:

PB632 - Touch HD 3
PB631 - Touch HD / Touch HD 2
PB740 - InkPad 3
PB633 - Pocketbook Color
PB1040 - InkPad X
PB626 - Touch Lux 3
PB628 - Touch Lux 5

Optimized for a Touch HD 3 with screen resolution of 1072x1448 pixels. The app works on devices with a different screen resolution, but some UI elements might look slightly different.

Thanks a lot to the mobileread forum members nhedgehog, EastEriq, ezdiy, and rkomar for helping me with my questions regarding PocketBook app development in the Developer's corner!

[slkissinger]

Although I didn't play every single game, I can confirm the ones I tried worked on PB633 - Pocketbook Color

[wirti]

Thank you for your efforts. It's nice to have some logic puzzles available when you're on the road.

I can confirm that the app works on Pocketbook InkPad X - PB1040 and on Pocketbook Color - PB633 (the puzzles are in greyscale tough).

[GerReader]

Originally Posted by wirti

Thank you for your efforts. It's nice to have some logic puzzles available when you're on the road.

I can confirm that the app works on Pocketbook InkPad X - PB1040 and on Pocketbook Color - PB633 (the puzzles are in greyscale tough).

Hi, thanks for testing the app!

I converted all colors in the games to greyscale, focusing that it looks good with highest possible contrast on the eInk screen. I have planned for the far future to include a setting to switch between greyscale and color.

I'm especially glad that it works on the InkPad X, as this device has a higher screen resolution than my Touch HD 3. I was concerned about scaling of the screen layout, button sizes, etc.

In case it is not too much effort, could you make a screenshot of a game screen on the InkPad X and post it here? It would help me to check if screen coordinates are converted correctly.

[wirti]

Hi,

I have attached screenshots of the app's menu and two game screens from my Inkpad X. If you need more screenshots, just let me know.

[GerReader]

Originally Posted by wirti

Hi,

I have attached screenshots of the app's menu and two game screens from my Inkpad X. If you need more screenshots, just let me know.

Thats quite helpful, thanks a lot!

The game screens layouts turned out as good as I hoped for. I use the height of the panel bar as the basis to scale the menu and button bars, and button sizes, this looks like it works quite nicely.

The main thing I am worried about is the game chooser screens. Compared to my device, on the higher resolution screen there is more additional space between the game buttons and the lower button bar. That means that on devices with lower resolution some game buttons could vanish beneath the bottom.

The game chooser screen is something that I am planning to refactor anyway, and it is more clear now where I have to take screen resolution into account.

(edit) A screenshot of a custom game configuration screen, and one of especially the 'Undead' game could also be helpful. The monster icons themselves were tricky to port to eInk and I have optimized line thickness to the Touch HD 3. On a different screen resolution the drawing lines might be either too faint or too thick.

[wirti]

Hi,

Here are some more screenshots from 'Undead' and its configuration screen. I hope that helps.

[Kleki]

I've been using the app for a few weeks now and I love it. I have one feature request, though: Could you make the game chooser screen configurable so that one can either sort the games by personal priority or hide games one doesn't want to play?

I have a few favorites I regularly play but finding them among the abundance of other games is a bit tedious.

[GerReader]

Originally Posted by Kleki

I've been using the app for a few weeks now and I love it. I have one feature request, though: Could you make the game chooser screen configurable so that one can either sort the games by personal priority or hide games one doesn't want to play?

I have a few favorites I regularly play but finding them among the abundance of other games is a bit tedious.

Hi, sure, that feature is on top of my priority list.

I'm planning to implement it similiar to the Android app: Long-pressing a puzzle icon in the chooser will mark it with a little star and put it to the front of the puzzle list. Long-pressing again will remove the star and put the puzzle back into the original position.

Now I need to find some time to code this. Hopefully in the next weeks. I will announce any major updates here.

[GerReader]

Originally Posted by Kleki

I've been using the app for a few weeks now and I love it. I have one feature request, though: Could you make the game chooser screen configurable so that one can either sort the games by personal priority or hide games one doesn't want to play?

I have a few favorites I regularly play but finding them among the abundance of other games is a bit tedious.

Hi, I spend some hours today on this, wasn't too much effort to implement.

I put the next version on the GitHub repo. You can now long-press game icons in the game chooser. It marks it then with a little star and puts it to the front of the game icon list. All favorite games are sorted alphabetically.

Long-pressing again a favorite game removes the star and puts it back to the original position.

I hope this is useful and solves your feature request. I tested it, looks good to me so far. Please report here if you find any bugs.

[Kleki]

Originally Posted by GerReader

I spend some hours today on this.

Works like a charm. Thanks again for the effort.

[ibat]

I always thought sgt would be be nice on the pocketBooks and it works fine on my Touch HD 2.
This is great! kudos GerReader!

[Lykke]

Hey, thanks for this, I've already played some Minesweeper on it. Found it a good way to calm down before going to bed.

One bug that appears on Touch Lux 3 is that titles are missing for the games at the bottom of the main menu.

[GerReader]

Originally Posted by Lykke

One bug that appears on Touch Lux 3 is that titles are missing for the games at the bottom of the main menu.

Thanks, thats very important to know. Most probably caused by the lower screen resolution of your device (the Touch Lux 3 has 758 x 1024 px resolution). I see also that the font size seems to be too big, and some game names are cut short ("BlackBox" -> "BlackB").

I think I need to replace some hard-coded values in the game chooser optimized to my device (a Touch HD 3 with 1072 x 1448 px screen resolution) with calculated values.

Perhaps I find some time over the holidays to implement this, I opened a bug issue at GitHub so this isn't getting forgotten.

By the way, can you make a screenshot of a minesweeper screen and post it here? As there is also a problem with the font size, I'm interested how the buttom status message bar looks like; the message bar where minesweeper reports "Marked: 4/22" or "COMPLETED!"

[Lykke]

Here you go.