PiccyPuzzle Type
You can choose either an 8-Puzzle, 15-Puzzle or 24-Puzzle type for your PiccyPuzzle.
The numbers (8,15,24) refer to the number of puzzle pieces that the photo is cut into.
The game-play for all types is the same, it's just that the more pieces there are in the puzzle, the tougher it is to play, and the longer it will take to solve !
- 8-Puzzle is more fun that challenging, although getting the last few pieces in the right place can be tough if you have never done a slider puzzle before.
- 15-Puzzle is a good compromise between having fun and having a bit of a challenge. If this is your first PiccyPuzzle, go for a 15 Puzzle.
- 24-Puzzle is REALLY tough. Good for competitions, or when you want to hide something in the picture. eg. a treasure hunt with the solved picture revealing the next clue. Make sure the solved picture is worth seeing, as it's hugely frustrating to play, but really satisfying to solve ;-)
When choosing a puzzle type, for each type, look at all puzzle pieces and make sure that there are no 2 pieces that look the same. If they do, choose another puzzle type. Or else you'll have some very frustrated players on your hands telling you that that the puzzle is broken, as it's not detecting that they have solved it. Or modify the picture itself, as described below.
Another thing to watch out for is to make sure that the gaps between the puzzle pieces (the grid lines) are not over people's eyes, or any other important parts of the photo. It's also really useful if the bottom right-hand corner of the photo doesn't shown anything useful, as this is the piece that is 'removed' to create the spacer that you slide the other pieces into.
For the above points, you can use Piccyfix.com to crop out one or more of the edges of your photo so that the most important parts of it are central in the picture, and to cut out any areas that look the same. By chopping off one or more edges, you might also move and badly-placed grid-lines to different positions so they don't cut out people's eyes etc. To do this, upload your picture to PiccyFix and choose All Wizard Steps, then use the crop step to make your changes, while skipping all the other wizard steps you don't need.
You can change the puzzle type whenever you want. You might start off with a 15 Puzzle, but find that it's too tough, then turn it into an 8-puzzle. To change the puzzle type, use the Admin link you get at the end of the wizard (no need to upload your photo again).
If you do change the puzzle type from the Admin screen, the update will be immediate. You won't need to replace your puzzle embed links. Just restart your browser to force it to reload the puzzle from PiccyPuzzle.com