Designer Diary: Puzzling an 8-Bit Star Battle

Hey Puzzle Bomb Family!

As is my monthly tradition, it's time to dive into the design of this month's puzzle, Nebular Skirmish!




A Different Process than Usual

This diary is a tad tricky to write, as unlike almost every other puzzle, I created this one entirely digitally rather than hand-drawing it. Due to everything being straight lines or tiny circles, and most of the connectors being identical, it just made a lot more sense using the exacting nature of digital tools than my pencil. While I prefer drawing by hand, using the right tool for the right job makes everything easier!

So, why does that make it tricky to write a diary? When I hand-sketch, I scan in my work once in a while. The process is highly iterative, as I start with a rough design, scan it, throw it on my light table to trace over it and make tweaks, scan it again, etc.

Designing digitally, iterations are just a matter of scooting lines around on a computer screen, and I was too focused on designing to remember to save some versions along the way!  :D So, I'll recreate some of the process here to show how I went about things.


The 8-Bit Creatures

These are the star of the show here! Given my color scheme, and knowing that I wanted a purple background, it became easy to know I wanted five distinct shapes here; one for each of the Bumfuzzled-brand colors. This would also be the right amount of shape variety to make their section of the puzzle function well.

My main design goals here were:

1) Make each character have a fairly unique personality vs. the other characters.
2) Ensure the connecting elements of each character are distinct from one another. I already knew false fits were going to be part of the challenge here (more on that later), and I wanted to ensure the puzzle wasn't too hard in this regard.

As for the design process, I simply set up a grid of appropriately sized pixels for the piece size I wanted, and filled in pixels until I had a character I liked:

Side note: Most folks will have no idea, but I figured this screenshot would be funny to any graphic designers/digital artists out there. Yes, this is Photoshop CS3 that I'm still running, from approximately 20 years ago. Remember the days when you could just buy and install software? No monthly Adobe fees here, as I own the software outright! I'm praying this computer never dies, as you can no longer install the software on a new machine!  :D

I repeated this process until I had a solid cast of characters:




The Right Combos

I now had my own little puzzle to figure out! With 5 piece shapes that each appear more than once, I had to lay out the shapes in a way that made the puzzle doable, given the potential for false fits.

This section of the puzzle plays almost like a Sudoku puzzle, where if you jump to a conclusion too quickly, you can connect sections of puzzles together that aren't meant to go together, causing headaches for you down the line. Usually, I try to avoid false fits, but for this puzzle, it's the main focus of the challenge!


The Star Field

Wanting the alien characters to be the visual start of the show, I needed the rest of the puzzle to be both visually interesting and a puzzle challenge, while not drawing the eye too much. I decided to do this would copious star voids that provide nice visual texture to the puzzle, while also being the guiding force of the assembly.

This brought back an idea I initially implemented in Vertex Ruse, where the connectors are identical, with voids being the only clue as to correct assembly.



However, in Nebular Skirmish, this design trick is implemented quite a bit differently. While the unique challenge of void-solving defined the entire design of Vertex Ruse, here it was informed first by the theme/visuals, and got to double as a unique solve challenge.

Funny side note. Since the rectangular pieces can also false-fit rotationally, it allowed me to see into the challenges of manufacturing a bit more. I'm fairly removed from that process, as I let them do their thing as the experts. It must be fairly common that a piece falls out during production, and has to be put back in, as several of my production samples arrived with a piece like this:



Not a problem, really, as all the pieces are there, but it did give me a moment of wondering how they managed to put the wrong piece in the puzzle!


Puzzle Tricks

As I design more and more puzzles (I'm currently designing Bumfuzzled 48, which will be the December 2027 Bumfuzzled, so I've got a lot of designs under my belt!), it gets challenging to come up with new tricks. There are only so many ways for puzzle pieces to connect, and to design challenges around that activity.

As this puzzle illustrates, while I'm still stumbling upon brand new ideas, I'm also sometimes revisiting old tricks, and implementing them in new ways. Or, I'm combining multiple tricks in ways that bounce off each other in fun ways. It's amazing how each puzzle can feel like it's own unique experience just based on a couple of twists and tweaks!


Putting it All Together

As is often the case with my puzzles, when smashing these concepts together, you end up with essentially two puzzles in one:

1) The top section with its combinatorial challenge of getting the correct arrangement of aliens, supported by a bit of void-solving to help assure you.

2) The bottom void-solving challenge.

I hope y'all enjoy it, and for some of you, it triggers some nostalgia! I'm just a tad on the young side for Atari, as my first system was a Nintendo, but I do have some fun memories of playing my uncle's Atari, and being absolutely amazed that you could play video games on a TV!

Love and blessings,
Chad aka The Puzzle Bomb Puzzle Designer Guy

P.S. I didn't want this to be the focus of anything, but if you've read this far, you're probably someone who cares about us. I was let go of my job of 19 years a couple of days ago, which has left us in a tough spot, as Puzzle Bomb is not yet able to replace my full-time income.

We would greatly appreciate anything you can do to help get the word out about Puzzle Bomb. Whether you're an individual that knows someone who likes puzzles, or a business that would be willing to leverage your mailing list to tell your fanbase about this neat family that makes wonderful puzzles, our family would be deeply grateful!