Eli Mellen 🕰️ 2025-12-11 19:10:31 Implemented 2 mostly the same versions of picross using a functional programming thing I've been building
📝 Bicross
Picross, but implemented with b.js so it is bicross, nothing to do with bifrost...tries to be cozy.
📝 Bicross
RPG Picross, but implemented with b.js so it is bicross, nothing to do with bifrost...tries to be cozy.
Eli Mellen 2026-01-11 20:35:31 I...can’t stop working on my procedurally generated picross puzzle game. I think I’m getting to the point where I’m willing to call it “done” though, now that I have 3 distinct versions:
I still haven’t written up or recorded a “how to play” thing 😂
📝 Bicross
Picross, but implemented with b.js so it is bicross, nothing to do with bifrost...tries to be cozy.
📝 Bicross RPG
RPG Picross, but implemented with b.js so it is bicross, nothing to do with bifrost...tries to be a cozy adventure.
Tom Larkworthy 2026-01-10 12:43:27 Trying to improve the look of some of my diagrams by minimising the edge crossings. Came up with quite a fast algorithm with chatGPT based on spectral methods.
wrote it up in a literal notebook tomlarkworthy.github.io/lopebooks/notebooks/@tomlarkworthy_spectral-layout.html which includes an interactive playground. It was the playground that convinced me to add a sift step and now its quite good I think at its goal.
Jasmine Otto 2026-01-11 17:38:57 wow, that's a sweet edge bundling! sources (runtime SDK), sinks (roboco-op), and other high-degree nodes with 'long-range' dependencies are popping out nicely.
Joshua Horowitz 2026-01-11 18:30:46 Looks like this is a dependency graph. Have you considered more traditional DAG layout systems (GraphViz)?
Tom Larkworthy 2026-01-11 19:17:49 yeah, I think GraphViz gives mediocre results
- 2D planar doesn't make dimensional sense.
- kinda slow
- nodes are unaligned
- hard work to make pretty
Mike Bostock did a GraphViz one: observablehq.com/@observablehq/notebook-visualizer. Its not very dense.
I think the 2D planar layout is not actually correct for an edge graph. I have gone polar because it symmetrical. In runtime that supports cyclical imports, there is no clear meaning to the 2D plane: top, bottom, left or right. Polar gives everybody the same positional status and there is no boundary. You can cut the circle and unwrap to give a line, if you wanted to vertical layout.
Tom Larkworthy 2026-01-11 20:07:55 sneak peak of the next version that uses the spectral layout but on a vertical layout. Now were talking! Also generated by AI.
