“There are a lot of pieces in this puzzle.”

February 8, 2016 11:25 AM

In the Fractal Jigsaw Puzzle, each piece of the jigsaw (subsequent to the first) is made of a smaller, constituent puzzle. Confused? Watch the video, or just give it a whirl. Don’t worry about finishing it all in one go: the game saves your progress. [via mefi projects]
posted by Going To Maine (37 comments total)

Nice! I was thrown by the way you can't connect pieces together, they need to be attached to the "frame" or attached to pieces already attached to the frame. Once I got that, it was pretty fun.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:39 AM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Neat. It does what I expected to when you complete a puzzle.
posted by boo_radley at 11:53 AM on February 8, 2016

Neat. It does what I expected to when you complete a puzzle.

Create a shoggoth?
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:54 AM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

I somehow got into an infinite regress of yellow.
posted by jeather at 12:04 PM on February 8, 2016

How do you stop the sound?
posted by adept256 at 12:09 PM on February 8, 2016

I somehow got into an infinite regress of yellow.

I've restarted twice, and I can't not get an infinite path of yellow after finishing the first puzzle. Is that the joke?
posted by DynamiteToast at 12:11 PM on February 8, 2016

Infinite path of yellow? Can you send me a screenshot, please?
posted by mpark at 12:19 PM on February 8, 2016

Nevermind, so the infinite regress of yellow are all solved puzzles outside the fractal, hit escape til you find more of a pinkish color. Those are the puzzles to solve.
posted by DynamiteToast at 12:21 PM on February 8, 2016

I did the first one (fun!) but when it took me to the next one, none of the puzzle pieces were colored in ??
posted by Uncle Grumpy at 12:32 PM on February 8, 2016

A puzzle piece is either blank or textured (or temporarily red, which means it's going to be colored in as soon as the computer finishes its Mandelbrot calculations).

Double-click on the blank pieces to solve them. Only textured pieces will click into place.

If you happen to double-click on a textured piece, you can hit Escape to back out.
posted by mpark at 1:15 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

Ohhhhhh. That is so cool!
posted by rewil at 1:22 PM on February 8, 2016

Finished 11 pieces. Pity I have things to do this year.
posted by adept256 at 1:23 PM on February 8, 2016

Yeah, the yellow is a bit unclear, but once I realised it was a finished piece I could escape all the way out.

I am almost finished this level, but I'm not sure if I finish it whether I will just go to a zillion more pieces.
posted by jeather at 1:45 PM on February 8, 2016

Oh. Oh my. I am far too employed to give this the time it deserves, but I've cleared my weekend plans (including Valentine's Day, sorry Mr. Motion).
posted by sparklemotion at 2:17 PM on February 8, 2016

Oh, now I understand about the yellow. Sometimes a finished piece ends up with a texture that's a solid color, so it might appear to be "blank". Actual unsolved pieces are blank and pinkish.
posted by mpark at 2:25 PM on February 8, 2016

Well, I beat the first puzzle, and guess what, it just gets bigger.
posted by adept256 at 4:34 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is neat. Fiendish, but neat.
posted by carter at 6:20 PM on February 8, 2016

I've been going through a really difficult time the last four months or so, with a marked increase in stress and tension this last month to what feels like intolerable levels.

This may sound very strange, but this hits that sweet spot in my brain where it can be semi-engaged and busy but relaxed. Almost like yoga but without the really difficult part of getting the energy to get on the mat.

I might actually be able to sleep tonight. Thanks for this.
posted by pallas14 at 6:21 PM on February 8, 2016 [2 favorites]

I cheated with javascript, made the pieces automatically go to the right place when you click them. For anyone wondering if you're almost done after whatever level of fractal jigsawing you're currently on without cheating or starting years ago: No. No, this will take some time.
posted by sfenders at 6:29 PM on February 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Pressing escape! Wouldn't have thought of that. Would be great to have a "zoom out (press escape)" button / text somewhere.
posted by Phredward at 7:00 PM on February 8, 2016

"This is level 0, and that's level 1? Which way do you think the levels go?"

"Well, I would say because of fractals, both ways? Forever?"
posted by Phredward at 7:06 PM on February 8, 2016

pallas14 -- hope you find peace.

sfenders -- I'd like to hear more about your cheat.

Everyone -- thanks for trying out the puzzle. I'm curious if the instructions in the first link were unclear, or if most people clicked the third link and skipped the instructions completely.
posted by mpark at 7:17 PM on February 8, 2016

I read the instructions and still found the yellow pieces unclear.
posted by jeather at 7:22 PM on February 8, 2016

sfenders -- I'd like to hear more about your cheat.

Okay, potential spoilers. First, I just replaced mouseupHandler, changing 13 to a much larger number. That was okay, but it still wasn't a quick enough route to the end game, so I went and changed the same function from checking to see if a piece was done to marking it as done. In the end there was one piece missing in the top left... not sure if that's deliberate, a bug, something I accidentally broke, or divine retribution for cheating.
posted by sfenders at 7:41 PM on February 8, 2016

this is eating my life
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:59 PM on February 8, 2016

jeather -- thanks. I've changed the starting point to not have so much featureless area. I've also prevented double-clicking on the lowest-level pieces; hopefully these changes will prevent the infinite regress of yellow.

(Confidential to sfenders -- I actually left my own solver cheat in there, just commented out.)
posted by mpark at 9:56 PM on February 8, 2016

I keep (3 times) hitting this bug where there's a piece missing - I have tried full screen and scrolling but no luck finding the extra piece.

Which is a shame because this game is exactly perfect for me right now.
posted by hfnuala at 12:34 AM on February 9, 2016

Same thing happened to me. Zoom out (ctrl + mousewheel in chrome), it's hiding offscreen.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:55 AM on February 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is my new favorite thing.
posted by chaoticgood at 6:18 AM on February 9, 2016

Thanks, I eventually worked out I'd set zoom out to only change text, sorted now.
posted by hfnuala at 6:28 AM on February 9, 2016

Just got the the 3rd level puzzle, I'm glad you have to go back down 2 levels, and it doesn't just make you do one level down each time, you have to go all the way back to the beginning. My only annoyance is when you get a puzzle thats practically all black or all yellow. Those are just a bit annoying.
posted by DynamiteToast at 7:24 AM on February 9, 2016

I've been matching based on shape not pattern. "So I need one with a stucky uppy bit with three sticky outy bits on the upper oh there it is."
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:37 AM on February 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

stucky uppy bit

I think of them as little men. To the left with my head down! To the right with my head down! Head and arms out!
posted by Going To Maine at 8:40 AM on February 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just found this today and now it might be the only thing I do all weekend. This is fantastic, mpark, thank you!
posted by jessypie at 1:39 PM on February 12, 2016

By the way, I just managed to get pieces to adhere to each other outside the frame. Not sure what I was doing wrong before....
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:57 PM on February 12, 2016

G&P, it wasn't you; I just added that feature.

Jessypie, you are welcome!
posted by mpark at 6:05 PM on February 12, 2016 [1 favorite]

So I solved all the 29 pieces of a larger piece - is that as far as it goes? I can't escape up to any further levels ...
posted by carter at 6:55 PM on February 16, 2016