202% completion finished, peak game, a suggestion, it would be nice if on larger puzzles, the centre line was a darker colour so it would be easier on the eyes to determine where you need to mark.
Thanks so much for your kind comment! I also wanted to provide some darkened dividing lines, but I was having a tough time managing the tile constraints of GB Studio. 🙂 I wish I had deeper knowledge of the hardware and knew how to do this stuff efficiently! At any rate, thanks for your feedback, and I'm really glad you enjoyed the game.
I'm having so much fun playing this! I'm just a little stuck rn :( I have completed all of the nanograms I can find, and I have 1 fish power rn but all of the fish say i can't swim well enough to get them, does anyone know what i'm missing?
I was stuck in (I assume) the same place. I just figured it out. It's non-obvious, but sometimes you _really_ want to read the signs again after you finish the nonograms. (for example, if you "read" the money bag again after solving it, you actually get the money). In particular, there's one in the museum that gives you the item in the display, and it will help you get to things in "deep" water (like lakes, ponds and soup pots...)
Thanks for helping out a fellow player! Good on you for figuring it out, and sorry if it was a pain to find. I tried to signal the location of the item with a couple of cues: it has the most complex puzzle in the area, and the outline of the sprite on the wall is the darkest color in the palette, unlike the rest of the display items. (In fact, I use the darkest color in the palette throughout the game to signal interactivity, except in underwater areas, where I use the lightest color in the palette.) That clearly hasn't been obvious to everybody, and I will absolutely keep that in mind on my current development project. Thanks so much for the helpful feedback!
I think what might have worked against it was the rest of the similar "placards". There's a number of them around he game, and of course lots of them in the museum, and every one of those when you read them after solving, they just give you a bit of info about the thing that you just solved. So by the time I got to that last one in the museum, and spent a while solving it to see something fairly obvious on the wall, I never even considered that looking at the placard again would provide anything beyond "It's a diving mask", and maybe some commentary.
To be honest, I didn't even think to interact with the money bag the first time after I solved that puzzle because no solved puzzle I'd interacted with up to that point, with the exception of the teleport leaf (which I hit by chance), and the chest (which was obvious) had done anything beyond just providing some flavour text (and I don't even remember if the chest needed a second interaction, or if I got the shovel immediately upon solving it now - which means if I did need to interact with it a second time, that being a game mechanic didn't actually stick in my mind)
I'm really glad you're enjoying the game! clansing has got the answer: you should definitely read signs after you solve puzzles, especially one sign in the museum. 🙂 Thank you so much for your comment, and let me know if you need any more hints!
Had a great time with it! As soon as I started playing, I couldn't stop. I didn't find everything, but i'm satisfied for tonight. This was cute and fun and made me laugh a few times! Great work!
My progress (SPOILERS BELOW) Will update if i get further!
- Missed 4 ducks, but did find their area
- Skipped the lucid area for now
- Skipped the postgame area for now
- Missed one of the 8x8 tiles
- Missed two rows of larger tiles tho maybe that's covered by what I skipped
Let me know if you have trouble finding anything--I am happy to give hints! 🙂 I am so glad you're enjoying the game and I really appreciate your comment!
Do you mind giving me a hint for the single 8x8 tile I am missing? It is 4th from the left, 3rd from the top. I have searched everywhere I can think of!
Great game! I'd never seen a nonogram puzzle before this, but I got hooked. It was a fun and funny game and I enjoyed your pixel art -- it's a real skill to make so many items within the limits of a b&w 12x12 grid. Loved the style of the ending sequence/credits, too. Thank you for making it!
Wow, I'm excited that TaiFab got to be your introduction to nonogram games! If you want to play other nonogram/picross games, I can happily recommend some. 🙂 Thanks so much for your kind comment!
My favorite nonogram game is Picross DS, which just has a bunch of puzzles to solve. If you want something that mixes nonograms with other gameplay, I heard that Murder by Numbers is good (but I haven't played it myself). I also enjoy Luna Story on mobile. 🙂
Usman from our team was not able to hold back and had to write an article for BrewOtaku #005 :) As we are still busy with #004, will still take a bunch of weeks before we release #005. We will inform you, when the time has come.
hii thank u for this game, it was so cute and cozy !! i've completed it already but would i be able to get some guidance on where to find the rest of the ducks? i've found 4/8
I'm really glad you had a good time, and thank you so much for commenting! As for the ducks, have you visited the Looong Gallery after you beat the game? 🙂
this game is really cute!! i'm kind of stuck getting the last fish power though. i'm missing the 5th one (or the first one on the second row) in the menu... i have the first 3 items on the first row and all the items on the second row. what am i missing? can't wait to get all the ducks to explore the bathtub...
ah, the opening to the north wasn't clear to me... i did see the sign saying "North: ???" but wasn't sure how to get there. got it, been enjoying the game <3 will post when i finish
Thanks so much for your kind comments! Sorry I didn't see them until now. Please let me know if you need help with anything else, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the game! 😄
Thanks so much for your kind comment; I'm so glad you enjoyed the game! As for the puzzle, have you tried talking to the innkeeper behind the counter? 😄
You don't have to feel silly! Another person on Mastodon showed me more or less the same screenshot and asked the same question. 🙂 Sometimes in RPGs, if you go behind a counter and talk to a shopkeeper, they'll have some extra dialogue like, "Can you talk to me in front of the counter? There's no room back here." I just thought it would be fun to reward players who try stuff like that, but you are clearly an upstanding player who respects the innkeeper's personal space. 😄
Sorry about that tool pile! There's just some random construction junk laying around the Dev House because the Dev is not an especially organized person, lol. I tried to make the interactables use the darkest color in the palette to make them pop out more, but maybe that's too hard to see. I will certainly keep your comment in mind on my next development project!
Nonograms should be in more games with structures of play beyond just... loading up and solving nonograms! This looks great, so I've loaded it onto my Miyoo Mini+ and cobbled together a 250x350 OnionOS cover image so it'll look nice in the menus, like so:
That looks great! Hope it works well in your interface, and I hope you're enjoying the game! I'm planning to work on another nonogram exploration game in the future. 😄 I'm so glad other folks have similar tastes as me!
Now that I've solved 202 puzzles, wanted to drop by and communicate what an absolute joy it's been to pick my way through TFMoF slowly over the last month or so!
Since you mentioned you'll be working on a similar project in the future, wanted to sneak in a feature request, assuming the limitations of GBstudio empower you to consider it:
When holding down the Fill or X button and holding a direction to quickly mark a row or column, if the starting space was blank, consider not allowing it to overwrite existing fills or crosses on spaces the player has already marked. (this is especially effective when other info has already Filled the required clues in a row or column, as it lets you quickly X off all the remaining blanks without disrupting Fills!)
Thinking deeply about my preference for "efficiency" behaviors like the one above, and given my relative disdain for some of the more advanced "helper" features that modern mobile nonograms tend to have, (like highlighting clues to tell you which ones are being fulfilled) it occurs to me that almost all such requests are matters of preference that might cause a designer to have to implement tricky options menus and toggles; it's impossible to please everyone! So FWIW, I appreciated the old school functionality of TFMoF, (taking me all the way back to Mario's Picross on the Game Boy!) much MORE than I happened to be frustrated by held fills blizting across my previous deductions.
GG on completing all the puzzles, and I'm so happy to hear that you enjoyed it! 😄
I totally hear you about having the cursor not overwrite existing fills/Xs! It's a feature that I really appreciate in a nonogram game, and I can clearly envision the programming logic for it, but I'm worried about how I would implement it in a resource-efficient way. Sometimes there were things I thought would be really straightforward but ended up taxing the engine, and maybe now I'm kinda wary, lol. (For example, in the first TaiFab, I used to use a while loop to set up all the squares in the puzzle area, but it ended up being a bit slow to load puzzle scenes. I unraveled that loop, and the puzzle scenes loaded almost twice as fast!)
Surely, if I were writing these games in C and ASM, I would happily be able to fulfill your request. Maybe someday I'll get good enough to dig into the guts of the GB Studio engine and optimize it for my particular games' needs. 🙂 (I have definitely made improvements to puzzle architecture in the second game, but most of that is useful for me as the developer. The major QOL update for players is larger puzzle sizes and the ability to cross out numbers.) At any rate, I really appreciate your feedback and thoughts. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for playing my game!
Thanks so much for your kind words and your helpful feedback! I definitely learned a lot about GB Studio over the course of this development and I think I know how I could implement a save-anywhere system now. Maybe I can take a look at that soon when I'm a little less swamped! As for running, I can help with that right now! At the dock at the beginning of the game, go to the large rock on the right side of the beach. Hold B and press A while facing the rock, and its collision will disappear. Walk through the rock into the Debug Room and you can pick up a pair of "Deboots" (Debug Boots) that allow you to hold B to run. I was afraid to put that feature in the full game because it makes the sprites jitter a lot, but if you don't mind that, you can totally use it!
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Anyone get Sanji vibes?
Hmm, like Sanji from One Piece, or a different one?
great game! had a blast 202% it.
wish there was more!
Thanks so much, I'm really glad you enjoyed my game! There may be more in the future. 😉
202% completion finished, peak game, a suggestion, it would be nice if on larger puzzles, the centre line was a darker colour so it would be easier on the eyes to determine where you need to mark.
Thanks so much for your kind comment! I also wanted to provide some darkened dividing lines, but I was having a tough time managing the tile constraints of GB Studio. 🙂 I wish I had deeper knowledge of the hardware and knew how to do this stuff efficiently! At any rate, thanks for your feedback, and I'm really glad you enjoyed the game.
I'm having so much fun playing this! I'm just a little stuck rn :( I have completed all of the nanograms I can find, and I have 1 fish power rn but all of the fish say i can't swim well enough to get them, does anyone know what i'm missing?
I was stuck in (I assume) the same place. I just figured it out. It's non-obvious, but sometimes you _really_ want to read the signs again after you finish the nonograms. (for example, if you "read" the money bag again after solving it, you actually get the money). In particular, there's one in the museum that gives you the item in the display, and it will help you get to things in "deep" water (like lakes, ponds and soup pots...)
Thanks for helping out a fellow player! Good on you for figuring it out, and sorry if it was a pain to find.
I tried to signal the location of the item with a couple of cues: it has the most complex puzzle in the area, and the outline of the sprite on the wall is the darkest color in the palette, unlike the rest of the display items. (In fact, I use the darkest color in the palette throughout the game to signal interactivity, except in underwater areas, where I use the lightest color in the palette.)
That clearly hasn't been obvious to everybody, and I will absolutely keep that in mind on my current development project. Thanks so much for the helpful feedback!
I think what might have worked against it was the rest of the similar "placards". There's a number of them around he game, and of course lots of them in the museum, and every one of those when you read them after solving, they just give you a bit of info about the thing that you just solved. So by the time I got to that last one in the museum, and spent a while solving it to see something fairly obvious on the wall, I never even considered that looking at the placard again would provide anything beyond "It's a diving mask", and maybe some commentary.
To be honest, I didn't even think to interact with the money bag the first time after I solved that puzzle because no solved puzzle I'd interacted with up to that point, with the exception of the teleport leaf (which I hit by chance), and the chest (which was obvious) had done anything beyond just providing some flavour text (and I don't even remember if the chest needed a second interaction, or if I got the shovel immediately upon solving it now - which means if I did need to interact with it a second time, that being a game mechanic didn't actually stick in my mind)
That's legit. 🙂 Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I'm really glad you're enjoying the game! clansing has got the answer: you should definitely read signs after you solve puzzles, especially one sign in the museum. 🙂 Thank you so much for your comment, and let me know if you need any more hints!
Had a great time with it! As soon as I started playing, I couldn't stop.
I didn't find everything, but i'm satisfied for tonight. This was cute and fun and made me laugh a few times! Great work!
My progress (SPOILERS BELOW) Will update if i get further!
- Missed 4 ducks, but did find their area
- Skipped the lucid area for now
- Skipped the postgame area for now
- Missed one of the 8x8 tiles
- Missed two rows of larger tiles tho maybe that's covered by what I skipped
Let me know if you have trouble finding anything--I am happy to give hints! 🙂 I am so glad you're enjoying the game and I really appreciate your comment!
Thanks so much!
Do you mind giving me a hint for the single 8x8 tile I am missing? It is 4th from the left, 3rd from the top. I have searched everywhere I can think of!
Sure! Do you remember meeting anyone who was thirsty? 🙂
That's exactly what I needed! Thank you!
I found 4 ducks but I don't know where to look for the other ducks - how can you find them?
Sorry I got to this post so late. Have you been to the Looong Gallery yet? :)
Yeah, I finished all the puzzles. Loved your game and will play your sequel too as soon as that comes out (:
Thank you so much! I'm really happy that you had a good time with TaiFab! 😄
Great game! I'd never seen a nonogram puzzle before this, but I got hooked. It was a fun and funny game and I enjoyed your pixel art -- it's a real skill to make so many items within the limits of a b&w 12x12 grid. Loved the style of the ending sequence/credits, too. Thank you for making it!
Wow, I'm excited that TaiFab got to be your introduction to nonogram games! If you want to play other nonogram/picross games, I can happily recommend some. 🙂 Thanks so much for your kind comment!
Yes, recommendations for a few of your favorites would be awesome, thank you
My favorite nonogram game is Picross DS, which just has a bunch of puzzles to solve. If you want something that mixes nonograms with other gameplay, I heard that Murder by Numbers is good (but I haven't played it myself). I also enjoy Luna Story on mobile. 🙂
The graphics are 10/10 within your chosen style! The gameplay pace takes some patience, but also has a relaxing effect.
Thanks for your kind comment! I hope you enjoyed your time with the game.
Usman from our team was not able to hold back and had to write an article for BrewOtaku #005 :) As we are still busy with #004, will still take a bunch of weeks before we release #005. We will inform you, when the time has come.
Hey, thanks so much to Usman and all of you! I'll look forward to reading your thoughts on the game! 😄
hii thank u for this game, it was so cute and cozy !! i've completed it already but would i be able to get some guidance on where to find the rest of the ducks? i've found 4/8
I'm really glad you had a good time, and thank you so much for commenting! As for the ducks, have you visited the Looong Gallery after you beat the game? 🙂
Just wanted you to know you made a fantastic game. Absolutely loved my time with it.
Thank you so much! Your comment means a lot to me and I'm so pleased that you enjoyed the game.
this game is really cute!! i'm kind of stuck getting the last fish power though. i'm missing the 5th one (or the first one on the second row) in the menu... i have the first 3 items on the first row and all the items on the second row. what am i missing? can't wait to get all the ducks to explore the bathtub...
ah, the opening to the north wasn't clear to me... i did see the sign saying "North: ???" but wasn't sure how to get there. got it, been enjoying the game <3 will post when i finish
Thanks so much for your kind comments! Sorry I didn't see them until now. Please let me know if you need help with anything else, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the game! 😄
Loved the game.
Managed to get to 200/202 puzzles, but I can't find this 8x8
Any hints?
Thanks so much for your kind comment; I'm so glad you enjoyed the game! As for the puzzle, have you tried talking to the innkeeper behind the counter? 😄
Well now I feel silly for not trying that. I must have talked to everyone else in the game *except* the innkeeper.
What was the deal with the hammer and spanner in the Northern area? I spent a long time trying to interact with those... 😅
You don't have to feel silly! Another person on Mastodon showed me more or less the same screenshot and asked the same question. 🙂 Sometimes in RPGs, if you go behind a counter and talk to a shopkeeper, they'll have some extra dialogue like, "Can you talk to me in front of the counter? There's no room back here." I just thought it would be fun to reward players who try stuff like that, but you are clearly an upstanding player who respects the innkeeper's personal space. 😄
Sorry about that tool pile! There's just some random construction junk laying around the Dev House because the Dev is not an especially organized person, lol. I tried to make the interactables use the darkest color in the palette to make them pop out more, but maybe that's too hard to see. I will certainly keep your comment in mind on my next development project!
Nonograms should be in more games with structures of play beyond just... loading up and solving nonograms! This looks great, so I've loaded it onto my Miyoo Mini+ and cobbled together a 250x350 OnionOS cover image so it'll look nice in the menus, like so:
https://bsky.app/profile/xeneth.bsky.social/post/3l5ya4j6a3y2v
That looks great! Hope it works well in your interface, and I hope you're enjoying the game! I'm planning to work on another nonogram exploration game in the future. 😄 I'm so glad other folks have similar tastes as me!
Now that I've solved 202 puzzles, wanted to drop by and communicate what an absolute joy it's been to pick my way through TFMoF slowly over the last month or so!
Since you mentioned you'll be working on a similar project in the future, wanted to sneak in a feature request, assuming the limitations of GBstudio empower you to consider it:
When holding down the Fill or X button and holding a direction to quickly mark a row or column, if the starting space was blank, consider not allowing it to overwrite existing fills or crosses on spaces the player has already marked. (this is especially effective when other info has already Filled the required clues in a row or column, as it lets you quickly X off all the remaining blanks without disrupting Fills!)
Thinking deeply about my preference for "efficiency" behaviors like the one above, and given my relative disdain for some of the more advanced "helper" features that modern mobile nonograms tend to have, (like highlighting clues to tell you which ones are being fulfilled) it occurs to me that almost all such requests are matters of preference that might cause a designer to have to implement tricky options menus and toggles; it's impossible to please everyone! So FWIW, I appreciated the old school functionality of TFMoF, (taking me all the way back to Mario's Picross on the Game Boy!) much MORE than I happened to be frustrated by held fills blizting across my previous deductions.
GG on completing all the puzzles, and I'm so happy to hear that you enjoyed it! 😄
I totally hear you about having the cursor not overwrite existing fills/Xs! It's a feature that I really appreciate in a nonogram game, and I can clearly envision the programming logic for it, but I'm worried about how I would implement it in a resource-efficient way. Sometimes there were things I thought would be really straightforward but ended up taxing the engine, and maybe now I'm kinda wary, lol. (For example, in the first TaiFab, I used to use a while loop to set up all the squares in the puzzle area, but it ended up being a bit slow to load puzzle scenes. I unraveled that loop, and the puzzle scenes loaded almost twice as fast!)
Surely, if I were writing these games in C and ASM, I would happily be able to fulfill your request. Maybe someday I'll get good enough to dig into the guts of the GB Studio engine and optimize it for my particular games' needs. 🙂 (I have definitely made improvements to puzzle architecture in the second game, but most of that is useful for me as the developer. The major QOL update for players is larger puzzle sizes and the ability to cross out numbers.) At any rate, I really appreciate your feedback and thoughts. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for playing my game!
That looks neat. We have to try!
Thanks, I really hope you have a good time with the game!
I've been having fun with it so far and it's very charming. There are two things I wish were possible though: Running and Saving at any time.
Thanks so much for your kind words and your helpful feedback!
I definitely learned a lot about GB Studio over the course of this development and I think I know how I could implement a save-anywhere system now. Maybe I can take a look at that soon when I'm a little less swamped!
As for running, I can help with that right now! At the dock at the beginning of the game, go to the large rock on the right side of the beach. Hold B and press A while facing the rock, and its collision will disappear. Walk through the rock into the Debug Room and you can pick up a pair of "Deboots" (Debug Boots) that allow you to hold B to run. I was afraid to put that feature in the full game because it makes the sprites jitter a lot, but if you don't mind that, you can totally use it!
Oh neat, thanks! I'm curious about the other things I saw but I think I'll ignore those for my own sake.