Pixel Puzzles Ultimate

Pixel Puzzles Ultimate

30 ratings
Challenge 5 - The Secret Edge
By shattered fractal
A few short pictures to illustrate the method I found most useful from start to finish.
   
Award
Favorite
Favorited
Unfavorite
just the facts, bub
tldr: more pics below, the spoiler is a huge help, but you can't un-see it.

This is my first challenge taken seriously (I looked at chal 4 and... just didn't...) and despite the square pieces, compared to the others it seemed pretty easy; everything is nice and consistent in color, pattern, and shape. This means that the mad-click-and-drag method works well, if you have the angle correct. I put in about 8 hours or so of actual work (more idle, ofc).

For anyone who hasn't seen the puzzle yet, every piece is the same square shape, no physical pattern at all:


The horizontal-shingle pieces are pretty easy; pick a single color and follow the straight lines. I used a total of about 100 hint tokens on this puzzle - my first and only hints used (so far!) - and all but 6 were for location (Ghost and Angle achis...).

An observation regarding angle clues: don't bother. Use the tokens, get the location, click a couple times to rotate, and move on. Angle clues are only for achievements, imo.

Most of my hints were for pieces with shingle angles and a border with two colors, to have an idea of where to expect patterns and edges. All of this was done before I knew about The Awesome Secret Edge...
The Awesome Secret Edge
If you look very closely at the pieces, you can see that there is a heavy, dark border on one side, and a secondary dark border, smaller, on the side left of the heavy one. The heavy dark side always goes on the left and the thinner dark edge is always down. This is certain from the dark green shingles up to the gray, but I had the gray, yellow, and brown sections complete before this, so didn't notice earlier.

Unfortunately, the graphic is rather small to illustrate well; just look closely at any given piece (yellow or white are best) to identify the marked sides.
my pictorial progression
(In the first shot I've obviously changed the background.)

Gray and brown were easiest for me because the brown pieces had a really obvious heavy top edge where the shingles change from brown to green; the horizontal pieces are impossible to miss, when you see them:


The yellow pattern was easy to spot in the tray, and turned out to be very easy to follow:


It was from this point onward that I realized Secret Edge and the rapid click-drag became an obvious winner, and shortened my time actually working the puzzle from an expected 12-15 hours to a very manageable 7 or 8.



Note how almost all of the pieces are the exact same color & pattern:


...and a very satisfying sight:
my brain thing
Sometimes I forget to mention relevant information. If someone has other clues or observations, I will gladly add them to the guide with screencap proof and give proper credit.

Thank you for reading my little guide! Have a great day! :D

6 Comments
shattered fractal  [author] 10 Apr, 2020 @ 9:57am 
My guide was rated only 3 stars... and here I thought I had done a pretty good job... on a puzzle no one will ever see again... in a galaxy far, far away... :csdmeh:
shattered fractal  [author] 23 Apr, 2017 @ 3:26pm 
Well, it's possible this aspect has been changed (I'm not willing to dump my completed puzzle to find out ;)

However, my finished puzzle still looks the same, edges and all, as it does in the shots above. If you haven't yet done so, take a couple of pieces that are pretty solid colors (not transitional corner pieces; you want as little pattern or shape as possible) and rotate them over different colored templates. Just holding and rotating them, if the edge is still there, should make it visible moreso than just looking at a bunch of pieces, even in the tray or in the work area.

Good luck! :goldyinyang:
ACW 23 Apr, 2017 @ 8:10am 
I don't see the edge anywhere. The pieces all look identical :(
Taskmaster 10 Apr, 2017 @ 5:30pm 
The black top section is easy to get in place. Then look for the "bend" piece on each line as it only orients one way and is obvious. Once that is in place it makes the lines easier.
shattered fractal  [author] 3 Apr, 2017 @ 11:59pm 
Glad to help, good hunting! :enlightenedone:
Miss Luny 3 Apr, 2017 @ 3:48pm 
Thank you! the tip with the light and dark edges is pure gold! Also the first challenge I'm going for. :)