FigurePic

How To ...

Play

Create Your Own Puzzles

Order

Install

Commands

Game Menu

Puzzle Menu

Options Menu

Buttons and Keys

Tips and Techniques


Game

Next Puzzle(F2)	Goes to the next puzzle.
Restore	Retrieve a set of puzzles.
Save As	Save a set of puzzles under a new name.
Save Current	Save one puzzle to a file.
Exit	Leave and save.


Puzzle

Select	Select a puzzle.
Modify	Allows creation or editing of puzzles.
Animate	Color or do something when the puzzle is solved.
Correct So Far?	Checks to see if your solution is correct up to this point.
Hint	Fills in a column correctly on the current puzzle.
Erase All	Erases all the puzzles.
Erase	Erase the current puzzle.


Modify

New	Create new puzzle.
Edit	Edit existing puzzle.
Color	Change colors while creating or editing a puzzle.
Cheat	Look at the answer.
Author	Comment Field
Difficulty	How hard is it to work.
Sound File	Attach a sound file.


New

Adds a puzzle to the end of the set with a default size of 20 rows by 20 columns.  Click on the number in the Row or Col box to change the size of the puzzle.  A maximum of 30 columns and rows is allowed.  When you have completed creating the puzzle press the Done button.  A maximum of 64 puzzles is allowed per set so if you want more use one of the Save As commands to start a new set.


Edit

Allows you to edit the current puzzle.  Press Done when you are finished.  This changes the definition of the puzzle.


Color

For multi-colored puzzles.  Choose the color in the dialog box and then OK.


Cheat

Lets you view the solution to the current puzzle.


Author

Record who created this puzzle or use for a comment.


Difficulty

Record how hard you think this puzzle is to solve.  A value from 1 to 4 is displayed as asterisks.


Sound File

Enter the name of a .wav file to be played when the current puzzle is worked.


Erase All

Erases all the puzzles so they can be solved again.


Erase

Erase the current puzzle so it can solved again.  Doing this command while you are editing the puzzle will delete the puzzle (data).


Edit

Allows you to edit the current puzzle.  Press Done when you are finished.


Animate

Animations occur when the user has worked the puzzle or selects the Play command.  They consist of from 1 to 4 frames which are just sets of colored or erased grid squares.  A frame can be moved and erased, etc.  There is a limit of 300 to the size of the animation.

Create	Create new animation.
Next Frame	Go to and display the next frame.
New Frame	Create a new frame.
Play	Replay all frames.
Repeat All Frames	Number of times to repeat all frames.
Repeat Frame	Number of times to repeat the current frame.
Color	Change colors while creating or editing a puzzle.


Create

Starts  a new animation sequence wiping out any that were there.


Next Frame

Displays the next frame.


Install

1.	Install FigurePic in the default directory (sgc).

2.	If you get a message when trying to run FigurePic to the effect you are missing a file or one of its components you are probably missing vbrun200.dll.  This file needs to be in your windows\system directory.  This is not included with Net versions of some of our games to keep the file sizes manageable.  It can be found at:

ftp.stargraphics.com/vendors/sgc

This file can also be found on all the online services, just search for vbrun


Play

Plays the animation just as if the puzzle was just solved.


New Frame

Starts a new frame in the animation sequence.  There is a maximum of four frames.


How to Play

·	Use the left mouse button to color a square and the right to erase.

·	The object is to paint a picture based on the information given by the numbers at the top and side of the grid. The numbers indicate the number of consecutive colored squares in a group and the relative order of each group.

·	Groups of the same color have at least one space between them and there may be spaces at the ends.  If one color, say red, is next to a another color,  then there may or may not be empty spaces  between them.

·	In the worked example the columns were started first and the result is shown in the second picture.  For example, the 11th column over has to have the middle two squares colored black no matter whether we start at the top or bottom.

·	In the next part of the example the dots are placed in some of the squares that we know will not be colored.  This allows us to complete the second row and start filling in some more of the columns.

·	Then it was worked  back and forth between rows and columns to Figure the rest of  the picture.

More Tips and Techniques


Repeat All Frames

Iterate through all the frames this many times when the animation is played.


Repeat Frame

Iterate through the current frame this many times when the animation is played.


Color


k Next Puzzle
Next Puzzle

Go to the next puzzle.  If you are at the end of the puzzle set this command goes to the first puzzle in the set.


Restore

Reads in a set of puzzles.   The top of the Select screen tells you the file name of set you are working with.  There are from 1 to 64 puzzles per set.  A set of puzzles has an extension of fpc.


Save As

Saves the current set of puzzles under the name you supply (with extension fpc).


Save Current As

This saves the current puzzle using the filename you supply.  This fpc file will contain just this one puzzle.


Duplicate Solutions

There can be more than one solution to certain puzzles, i.e. more than one picture will satisfy the numbers at the side and top.  FigurePic will detect these alternate solutions if the Green Circles option is on.  See the example below.


Exit

Thanks for playing.


Options

Display Counts	Display size of groups.
Sounds	Toggle sound effects on or off.
Green Circles	Toggle the green circles on or off.
Messages	Messages on/off.


Display Counts

These two numbers tell the puzzler how many consecutive squares are colored in the row and column of the mouse click.  If the right mouse button is pressed then the count is of the empty squares in that row and column.


Sounds


Green Circles

These indicate when the proper number of squares are colored in a column or row.  The green circle does not necessarily mean the correct squares are colored unless all the circles are green.


Get
Select

Brings up a list of puzzles in the current set.  Click the mouse on a puzzle to work.  Shows green if the puzzle has been solved and the entry is red if the puzzle is multi-colored.


Messages


Buttons and Keys

Exclude Square -  When the box with a . is clicked with the mouse the cursor changes to a small cross.   Click on squares you know are not colored.  Click on one of the colored boxes to paint squares with that color.  The right mouse button will erase a square.  Use the space bar to cycle from Exclude Square to color mode.  The tab key will cycle between the colors.

Undo - (Ctrl -Z) - Backs up one grid at a time.  Only goes back to last time the puzzle was saved.


Hint

Only three hints allowed per puzzle.  This is slightly better than cheating.


Correct So Far?

Dont use this if you are looking for duplicate solutions.


To Order

To place your order by mail or FAX, print and fill out this form and sign

it.   Mail it to the address below or fax to (503) 557-1607.

By Phone:   800 831-7611

The use fee for the shareware version is $14.95 total which can be applied to the full purchase price.

Please send me:

FigurePic with 64 puzzles for $34.95

FigurePic #2 with 64 all new and challenging puzzles for $34.95

Add $3.00 for shipping and handling in the U.S., $7.00 for all foreign orders.

Disk size   3.5" 1.44 MB

Address:	Name ____________________________________________

Address __________________________________________

City __________________ State  ____________ Zip _________

Phone ________________________

email ____________________________

American Express - Discover - Visa -  MasterCard -  Check - Money Order

Card type ________________

Credit Card Number ______________________________

Expiration Date _________

Cardholder's Signature __________________________________________

Star Graphics Corp

10943 S Forest Ridge

Oregon City  OR  97045

support@stargraphics.com

http://www.stargraphics.com/~sgc


Create Your Own Puzzles

Use one of the save as commands to create a new puzzle set and then you can modify existing puzzles or create new ones.  There can only be 64 puzzles in a set.  Some people find it easier to sketch their drawings on graph paper first.

If you want the puzzle to move or change colors when it is solved use the animate commands.


Tips and Techniques

Start with the larger groups of squares.  Pick rows or columns where the number of colored squares adds up to over half the size of the row or column.  In this example we start with the columns first and if we count from the top and bottom the middle is filled in where there is overlap.

Use the dots to mark squares you know are not colored.  In row 7 the first group has 1 darkened square so we can put dots on either side.

In column 7 we used dots to exclude the top 3 squares.

In column 8 we put a dot and we could have put a couple of more dots

in that same row.

In row 2 we have a starting point in the 2nd column and we can fill in two more squares.

We have enough information to complete column 4 and we finish the example.  When a green circle is lit the correct number of squares have been colored.

Sometimes there is not one larger group but two or more groups of squares that add up to over half the size of a row or column.