JigsawPuzzles.io

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Change Log (Dates are mm/dd/yyyy format)

11/14/2023

• Error reaching server // Unknown error fixes
  • When creating a custom game, if you get a server error you can now retry without having to refresh the page and upload your image again
  • When begining a new puzzle and receiving an "Error reaching server" clicking Begin again *will* try a different server
  • Resuming a puzzle or starting a new puzzle is much more resilient to server problems, and will auto retry a few times before giving up
  • All regions now fall back to the next best region when full
• Upgraded US East Servers
• Fixed at least two typess of "Unknown errors" that occured when resuming a puzzle
• Speculative fix for a rare bug where a puzzle would load with two puzzle's worth of pieces (previously remedied by exiting for a minute and coming back)

v0.119.0 8/17/2023

• Picking up pieces or dragging the background is now PIXEL PERFECT instead of relying on a grabbable square that was slightly larger than the piece. This may take some getting used to!
• Drastically decreased the CPU/GPU usage of the game in single player or smaller games (basically if nothing on the screen is moving the game will minimize resource usage). Please note that the hardware acceleration browser is preferred for the game to work its best (like 5-40x faster).
• The host may now set the max players that can join a game in the "Players" menu
  • 1 - 10 players allowed (more coming later...)
  • Will display on the homepage if public
  • Resets to 10 players if the game is ever empty for a minute
  • Won't automatically kick players out of the game! Only prevents new ones from joining.
• Bugfix: the "sign-in required" text on the front page for the "no anons allowed" setting is now accurate for users without an account. Please note this setting only ever prevented players without an account from joining your game for the sake of stopping trolls that keep rejoining a game using incognito/private browsing. There also exist players with legitmate accounts that haven't changed them name from 'anon' or have had their name reset to 'anon.'
• Bugfix: a rare bug where the last few pieces of a game could become very big / very small / flipped when alt-tabbing away from the game has been fixed.

7/24/2023

• You can now grab pieces *through* player scores, it no longer blocks the mouse
• The algorithm that balances traffic between servers has been tuned to reduce the chance of overloading a server
  • Players are less likely to end up crammed into an already busy server
  • There are now fallback regions that present a next-best server when primary regions are full (e.g. if US East is full a player will be sent to US West before they are sent to Europe or Asia, and vice-versa)
• Bugfix: Custom games should correctly allow up to 1500 pieces for Supporters now when dragging the slider (previously slider went to 1000, but could still type in 1500)

v0.118.0 7/18/2023

• Custom image puzzles can now be made with any number of pieces from 16-1000
• Custom image puzzles now support 1500 pieces for Supporter subscriptions
• Support was added for smaller numbers of pieces using larger images (previously would fail to load)
• Scores are now calculated in realtime instead of every 5 seconds
• Score UI shows Supporter crowns
• /vacuum and /shuffle commands will have a little more spacing around the puzzle in most cases
• Zoom (magnification) now has a greater range, you can basically zoom out way farther, and even zoom in a little closer, mostly for large images

7/10/2023

• Added resolution descriptions ("medicore, high, ultra high") to puzzle creator
• Enhanced resolutions for images that are less than 4K but greater than 2K are now displayed in the catalog -- this affects 99% of images under 4K and offers a significant improvement for Supporter Subscriptions.
• Added a little crown near the names of Supporters

7/9/2023

• Improved puzzle creation UI
• Defaulted Supporter Subscriptions to choose highest resolution available at puzzle creation
• Made Supporter Subscription available on the frontpage

v0.115.0 7/7/2023

• Released a Supporter Subscription to discord
  • Unlocks 4K images
  • 30 minute AFK timer
  • No ads
  • 1500 pc puzzles

v0.111.0 4/16/2023

• A new long term scoring system has been added
  • Has pieces placed and time (like before!)
  • Tracked per play session (instead of per puzzle)
  • Added up into lifetime, weekly, and monthly stats!
  • Not retroactive (sorry!, though maybe a little bit of old data will be added in later)
  • Visible in a new tab in the profile called "Statistics"
  • Will eventually tell you if you've played a puzzle before (after more data)
  • Will be used to show most played/popular puzzles (after more data)
  • Will be used to show your favorite types of puzzles and related puzzles (after more data)
• Added 50 EU Servers! Sorry for the lag, will keep adding!

4/4/2023

• public puzzles on the frontage show their server location
• improved EU servers
• misc infrastructure improvements

v0.110.0 3/7/2023

• inserted a warning for when a puzzle wasn't loading due to the iOS 16 1000 pc puzzle bug (1000 pc puzzles do not work on iOS 16 for an unknown reason, all other sizes still work)
• fixed a bug that was causing frequent disconnections
• fixed a bug that was causing some games to split into multiple sessions
• changed how zooming works on touch devices, to reduce the chance of the UI being zoomed instead of the game

v0.82.0 - v0.107.0 2/25/2023

• `/shuffle` command no longer grabs pieces from within the solution area (/empty and then /shuffle if you want that)
• Using arrowkeys or WASD to scroll around is faster overall and behaves more consistently at different zoom levels
• If the host leaves a game then the player with the highest score may use the `/` commands (vacuum, empty, shuffle), but cannot ban/kick players
• If the host rejoins their game, they regain control of all commands
• `@Jiggy` (the discord bot) now reacts to image suggestions with 🆕 to be less spammy
• `@Jiggy` can now be pasted multiple image suggestions and respond about each (on separate lines)

v0.81.0 11/27/2022

• fixed a bug where enter wasn't work for chat on some computers
• numpad enter now works the same as enter / return
• can now see the location of the server you are connected to in the settings menu
• fixed a bug where the personal timer would keep counting after a game was finished (cosmetic only, actual saved completion time was correct)
• @Jiggy bot (on the discord server) can now be asked for random images, dm the word `random` to the bot

v0.79.0 11/12/2022

• added a unique number to end of all anon names so that they can be more easily "managed" (kicked/banned)
• fixed a bug that had some puzzles looking pixelated / jagged in firefox, opera, and several browsers
• smoothed how images look in *all browsers*
• significantly improved the rendering speed

v0.78.0 11/9/2022

• Site remembers signing in for longer (extended from 36 hours to 7 days, also refreshes each visit)
• Reduced chance of joining a game and not having your score remembered (which was mostly caused by signin expiring)
• `/empty` improvements (this commands moves individual unlocked pieces out of the solution area)
  • can now type `/e` as a shorthand
  • command now works with all directions (n, s, e, w, nw, top, left, etc.)
  • short hand works with directions, e.g. `/e n` or `/e s`
• Game timer is now pausable with Spacebar
  • pausing the timer only affects your timer! other players can still play while you are paused
  • to prevent cheating, when you pause your timer the puzzle is hidden
  • chat and game menus are usable while paused
  • note: your own game timer will stop counting if the game detects that you are afk for over a minute based on mouse movement
• May now add email address to the accounts that normally use a social login (fb, google, etc)
• May now add/update email from the Account tab
• May now resend verification email from the Account tab
• Accounts *MUST* have a verified email before making any purchases [coming soon] (so we can contact and refund you if there's ever a problem!)
• WASD now scrolls the game just like the arrow keys do
• Arrow keys pressed while typing a chat message now correctly let you edit text without also scrolling the game around
• Scrolling with keys is now a littttle faster (12.5%)

v0.77.0 7/25/2022

• game can once more run on computers without hardware acceleration / gpu support -- hoping to keep support for this for at least a year
• increased play area (from +500 pixels around the initial shuffle to +1500 pixels)
• previews of images should now fit without a scrollbar on most screens

v0.76.0 6/7/2022

• speculative fix for a bug where sometimes a piece wouldn't be counted as locked in
• usernames may now be 12 chars (up from 10)
• sending chat message will now prevent a player from being marked as AFK (no longer have to move the mouse to stay connected while chatting)
• chat now allows typing <3 and other uses of the < > characters
• chat messages can be longer (~2x) and sent more frequently before becoming rate-limited
• chat messages now wrap correctly on smaller screens
• added a sound effect for when someone sends a chat message
• fixed a bug where preview wouldn't open on some tiny sreens
• improved game loading speed and download by 10-15%
• improved FPS (performance) on some computers
• the in-game 'View in catalog' link now opens the image in a new tab instead of leaving the game
• solution area is now just an outline instead of a filled rectangle (experimental, so that picking a background color is more effective)
• tall in-game preview images will now show a scroll bar on short screens

v0.73.0 5/17/2022

• added Silicon Valley, New Jersey, Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Singapore datacenters
• matchfinder now prefers nearest dataceneter when creating/resuming games (in other words: major connection improvements for most players!)

v0.70.0 4/20/2022

• vacuum: can now type `/v` as a shorthand, works with all existing options
• added `top` and `bottom` to vacuum (same result as up/n, down/s)
• fixed a bug where non-signed in players would get a "Banned" message when joining a game
• fixed a bug that would make some games stuck on an unreachable server (note: this manifested as being disconnected when joining a specific game, and that game staying stuck for a long time)

v0.67.0 4/7/2022

• overhauled game modes, removed "private, public, hosted" distinctions
  • all games created before this patch will revert to private
  • added new interface inside of the "players" section, visible only to the host, for changing settings
  • host may choose to list the game on the JigsawPuzzles.io front page so that anyone can join (like public and hosted games used to be)
  • host may choose to limit a game to JigsawPuzzles.io members only (no anons may join)
  • settings are changeable at any time, and the game is no longer committed to being in a single mode
  • custom puzzles (aka use your own image) are always private
• host may kick / ban players (prior to this patch only one mode gave a host these powers, now they apply to every game)
• anon players are now bannable! this will temporary ban their IP from rejoining the puzzle from which they were banned
• fixed a bug which was causing infrequent but random connection losses
• updated the rules for when a puzzle gets added to your collection of puzzles
  • any puzzle created by you will be added to your collection
  • any private or custom puzzle you join is also added
  • public puzzles that are joinable from the homepage are not added, unless you are the creator (these are usually played and finish quickly and would clutter up your collection)
• maximum concurrent players per puzzle is now 10 (and actually enforced). there may be a mode in the future with larger player counts, but for now this is needed to stop lag from one game from spilling into another
• player names are now visible next to their cursors (a future patch will assign unique identifiers to anons to make this more useful in public games)

v0.64.0 3/21/2022

• added 50 new servers to US East (global regions coming soon...)
• added new `/shuffle` command - this shuffles pieces like a freshly cut puzzle. It can be used to get pieces near the play area (kinda like vacuum) and it can also undo a mess made by vacuuming all the pieces in one direction or a mess created by stacking all of the pieces in one area. Please note it totally shuffles the pieces and this may be disruptive! This is unlike `/vacuum` which has an algorithm that keeps the scattered pieces near their neighbors as they get pulled inwards.
• bugfix: `/vacuum left` etc. directional commands now behaves more like regular vacuum and no longer also empties the board
• bufix: `/empty` no longer overreaches on the left and top edges of the solution area (it used to grab pieces that overlapped these borders)
• a new test version of an infinitely scrolling and tag-searchable catalog is available at https://jigsawpuzzles.io/browse/search-test
• misc netcode performance changes

v0.62.0 1/24/2022

• bumped maximum pin limit to 30 per account
• fixed a bug where some piece counts couldn't be selected when starting a new game
• in-game timer now pauses correctly when a puzzle is complete (note: saved timers on older games are still accurate, this bug was purely cosmetic)
• clicking outside of the in-game image preview will now close the preview again
• reviews
  • that have no written text no longer require approval (like just rating the difficulty)
  • now display piece count and difficulty along with the review
  • fixed the "5 review(s)" link to show the correct number of written reviews (it no longer counts reviews without text)
• numerous improvements to in-game piece interaction during lag
• made some general improvements to how picking up and dragging pieces behaves with 100+ ms of latency (more to come)
• significantly reduced the chance that the game would misinterpret dragging a piece as dragging the background. going forward this can pretty much only happen if two players grab a piece at the same time, or if the "held a piece too long" troll timer takes the piece away
• reduced numerous occurrences of pieces rubberbanding (~some still remain~)
• fixed a bug where a piece would be stuck for just one player
• fixed a bug where under some network conditions dragging a group of puzzle pieces would have them dancing/jittering around
• fixed a bug where a piece would sometimes be held at a weird offset to the down+right of the hand instead of right where it was grabbed

1/21/2022

• added prototype of pins feature (limit of 10 pins initially)
• pin an image in the catalog to save it for later
• view your pins in My Puzzles > Pins
• return to the image from the Pins tab to easily start a game, leave a review, or link the image to a friend
• navigation improvements
• generally made it a lot easier to go between the catalog, images, reviews, and the new pins section
• My Puzzles page no longer returns to the Completed tab when refreshed (instead it maintains what was being viewed)
• Tabs within My Puzzles now work with back/forward browser buttons, produce browser history, and can be bookmarked
• reduced the intensity of highlights and shadows on the bevel of puzzle pieces

v0.59.0 1/13/2022

• speculative fix for an incorrectly locked in piece bug
• removed one instance of rubberbanding that could occur as pieces locked in during a lag patch

1/12/2022

• users are now redirected to sign in if they try to access my puzzles or reviews while signed out
• in-progress and complete puzzles now have links to the catalog
• review links added in My Puzzles
• significantly restyled reviews in varying places

v0.58.0, 1/10/2022

• added initial prototype of image reviews!!
• speculative fix for a bug where puzzle pieces could sometimes lock into the solution area without being perfectly aligned. This will not fix any existing puzzles, just hopefully reduce occurences of the bug.
• added command "/fixit" which attempts to perfectly align any locked in pieces. This will fix existing puzzles!
• you can now go from the in-game image preview straight to the catalog page for an image
• increased images per page in the catalog /latest category from 12 to 24
• increased images per page in all other categories from 16 to 24
• increased category image previews from 2 to 4 images
• in-game preview will now offer a scrollbar if the image is too tall

v0.57.0, 1/4/2022 happy new year!

• fixed a bug which made it possible to connect certain edge pieces together on their FLAT SIDE!! OH THE HERESY!!
• completely retuned the distance for pieces attaching to each other and the board
  • in general, pieces snap when the piece is dropped roughly halfway (visually) or more into the correct position
  • for 1000 pc puzzles, this is a significant decrease, probaby shrinking the snap in area by about 45%
  • for 600 pcs, the behavior is similar to before
  • for 300, 150, 70, 35 pcs etc the game is much better and no longer feels like trying to thread a needle.
  • if you're finding any of this too hard or too easy please come stop by the discord and tell the developer so we can retune it
• added prototype "/empty" command that can be typed into the chat
• pulls all unattached pieces from the solution area to the top center above the puzzle
• it's like "/vacuum" but for the inside of the puzzle
• ignores pieces that are already merged into a group
• ignores pieces in a player's hand
• does have a vacuum-like effect on the area above the puzzle, otherwise it would just be piling pieces ontop of other pieces
• shares a cooldown with "/vacuum" of 15 seconds

v0.49.0 - v0.56.0

misc bugs fixes and the custom image feature (forgot to actually takes notes about most of these...)

• custom image feature released! (use your own images to create a puzzle)
• if you're the only player in a game, you may now use the "/vacuum" chat command (even if you didn't create the puzzle)
• significantly improved game performance during traffic spikes (players are spread out across available servers very quickly now, it is much more difficult to end up on a stressed server)

v0.48.0 - 4/20/2021 - 7/27/2021

• added an in-game timer, can be shown via the gear icon
  • timer is just your own time spent within that puzzle and does not show or count other people
  • timer pauses itself after 60 seconds if it thinks you're afk
  • timer is stopped instantly and saved if you exit the puzzle (closing the tab, going to the homepage, etc)
  • timer stops if a puzzle is completed
• made some changes to how sounds load+play (attempted ios+safari sound fix)
• ported large amounts of the in-game interface, hopefully it works the same as before:D
• if a player is alone in a game, they gain access to the /vacuum command even if they aren't the creator

v0.44.0 - v0.47.0, ~ 4/20/2021 - 7/10/2021

• retuned the total pieces / total puzzle statics to reflect reduced players during summertime - as of 7/10/2021 there are 910,000 completed puzzles
• major upgrade to database, reducing the "disconnect" bug that occurs freshly after starting/continuing a puzzle
• new load balancing strategy to keep most games lag free
• improved social media images: pasting the image link from browsing now displays a large thumbnail in discord, facebook, twitter etc

v0.43.0 3/29/2021

• improved performance of setting up a new game
• fixed a bug where sometimes people would end up with a few clones of a puzzle they started

???

• added prototype "/vacuum" command that can be typed into chat
  • pulls all pieces towards the center of the puzzle
  • will mildly shuffle pieces, but tries to keep them mostly together
  • ignores pieces that are already merged into a group
  • ignores pieces in a player's hand
  • this command only works for the puzzle's creator or the host

v0.40.0 2/22/2021

• made some upgrades to hosted mode x2
• made it so that slower connections have a better chance of making it into the game
• put some length limits on player names
• fixed a vulnerability that let someone create a 10,000 piece puzzle *ahem*

v0.37.0 2/9/2021

• improved frontpage performance by ~12x
• hosted games now tell you that you're not signed in before trying to join
• fixed a bug in hosted mode where the host sometimes couldn't ban/kick a player
• generally improved performance of images, sign in, and puzzles being saved or loaded
• lots of little fixes to the catalog
• background color is now saved (local on your computer/browse, not cloud)

v0.34.0 11/12/2020

• chat box is now clickable
• chat now works on touch/mobile devices
• old chat functionality of pressing 'enter' to start typing still works btw

v0.33.0 10/21/2020

• improved game loading speeds
• fixed two bugs that would at random cause pieces to be stuck after starting a game

v0.32.0 8/27/2020

An entirely new design for browsing our image catalog!

• Latest Images page - shows the newest stuff
• Category/By tag pages - shows all images with a certain tag
• Individual image pages
  • Linkable! You can now link an image to your friends for some pre-puzzle discussion!
  • Credits the photographer (in the case of photography put into the public domain)
  • Shows related images
• Shows portait and landscape images (previous catalog cropped all previews to a misleading square shape)
• Mobile/Tablet/Desktop compatible - the catalog has been made for a variety of screen sizes
• No longer requires sign-in just to browse (though sign-in is still required to actually create a puzzle)
• Requires drastically less bandwidth to browse (various image and pagination optimizations)
• Coming later: better tags, image descriptions

v0.30.0 6/10/2020

• Can now interact with pieces *through* the chat interface
• Pasting a link to another puzzle in-game produces a clickable link for the other players
• Chat occupies less screen space, and can be hidden entirely
• 'Hosted' games are now marked on the front page

v0.29.0 6/6/2020

Chat system and a new anti-troll mode initially rolled out to user-created games (not the themed or chaos lobbies).

• New chat system
  • Press enter to start typing, and enter again to send
  • Colorized usernames
  • Text lasts much longer before fading away
  • Pressing enter after text has faded away shows the chat again
  • Per-person mute feature removes a username and all their messages from the chat
  • People joining the game are announced by the server in the chat, among other things
• Hosted mode
  • A new *public* game mode where the person who starts a puzzle gains the power to kick/ban players. This is like the current public games but with some ability to fend off trolls.
  • This mode is member-only (everyone must be signed-in to play).
  • Kick: disconnects a player from a game, but allows them to rejoin
  • Ban: disconnects a player from a game, and prevents them from rejoining
• Player List
  • A new button has been added to the interface that shows the player list
  • Everyone currently connected can be seen in the player list
  • Various moderation opions exist in the player list
• Scores for members are now saved long-term along with the puzzles, instead of being session only (only for the game modes receiing this patch, for now)
• Scoring has been removed for anon players (no deliberate reason for this... just a side effect of how things work now).

v0.28.0 5/4/2020

• private puzzles are limited to 10 players
• fixed a bug where the wrong private game could be joined via create/resume/reconnect (is this is the last of this bug? we shall see)

v0.27.0 4/29/2020

• user-initiated public games are back!
• fixed two bugs where players attempting to continue or start a new private game could be placed into an existing private game

v0.26.0 4/21/2020

• improved sign in, all devices should now stay signed in properly
• decreased the chance of puzzles getting lost/bugged during traffic spikes
• fixed an intermittent bug where players were all being sent to the same server when trying to create a new puzzle

v0.24.0 4/18/2020

Mostly bug fixes for problems found by players (thank you!), and server improvements.

• now running 650+ game lobbies
• added ~40 more images, many picked by players
• tweaked ad frequency (less, overall)
• created some new themed puzzle playlists for the front page
• fixed a bug where a player who refreshes the page right as they join could enter the game twice and would not be able to move any pieces
• fixed a bug where a game server would fail to clear the board before loading a new puzzle, and then would present the players with two (or more) puzzles worth of a pieces
• fixed a whole bunch of very weird ghost piece / can't move piece / extra piece / extra player hand bugs related to the above
• fixed a bug related to traffic spikes where certain servers were not being returned to the pool of available lobbies
• bug found: during traffic spikes a small (less than 1%) number of puzzles were failing to save. Game lobbies will now repeatedly try to save puzzles if they ever encounter a failure (we won't know if this works until more time has passed).
• bug found: during traffic spikes there is a very small chance that a newly created puzzle will not be added to the "My Puzzles" page. There is no fix for this yet -- but if it happens to you, the puzzle can be recovered by going into your browser history and rejoining it.

4/10/2020

• login now lasts 36 hours (instead of instantly ending when closing the browser)
• improved image loading speed
• added more private game lobbies

4/6/2020

• added 300+ more game lobbies
• created new playlists for the themed lobbies
• added scoring to chaos and themed games
• added video preroll advertisements at a maximum rate of one per 15 minutes
• NOTE: we'd like to offer an ad-free premium version JigsawPuzzles.io in the future with some additional gameplay value (for now we just need to pay some server bills!)

v0.19.0 3/24/2020

• "username has joined" appears when someone joins a game
• player hand-cursors are now visible immediately when they join (previous only visible after touching a piece)
• Scoring: scores are now visible in the top right
• Scoring: players get a point when they lock a piece to the board
• Scoring: hide the scores by clicking the 'Scores' button
• NOTE: this patch will role out gradually and will not be on all servers immediately
• Infrastrucutre: added 200+ private lobbies over the previous few days
• Catalog: added 400+ images over the the previous few months (so many that we need to make a new catalog / interface in the near future)

v0.18.0 4/5/2019

• users can create public games (not just admins)
• public games: auto save every 20 seconds, remain active so long as they have players
• homepage: shows user-created public games
• homepage: autorefreshes servers
• homepage: shows puzzle progress percentage and sorts games by population
• my puzzles: saves in-progress public games, can continue a public game that was stopped

v0.17.0 3/25/2019

• added 600 piece option for new puzzles
• added 1000 piece option for certain high quality images (search for 'Chaos')
• began including public domain classic artwork
• added a 5 minute afk timer
• fixed a rare stuck piece bug

v0.16.0 3/13/2019

• fixed the most common stuck piece bug
• fixed a few rare crashes
• fixed one of the bugs that had fused pieces looking strange
• made the final few puzzle pieces easier to find
• improved game consistency during packet loss

v0.15.0 3/10/2019

• added 52 new images, many animals and birds-eye-view
• improved server performance (especially chaos)
• tripled total server capacity

v0.14.2 3/8/2019

• added 21 new images
• fixed a bug that was causing completed puzzles to stay visible after the next puzzle loaded

v0.14.0 3/5/2019

• added touch support for tablets
• increased puzzle loading speed (3x)
• numerous performance and stability fixes

2/9/2019

• Like/Follow on Facebook and Twitter
• New puzzle page shows most recently added images
• Added many images w/ tags: Seattle, Mount Rainer, Arches National Park, Moab
• Created Chaos3 playlist with 16 new 4k resolution puzzles

v0.12.0 - 1/23/2019

• mousewheel zoom now works in many more browsers
• fixed a bug that had puzzles stuck at 99% loaded
• fixed a very rare bug where a piece would disappear

v0.11.0 - 1/22/2019

• new chat system
• choose nicknames and cursor colors
• fixed a bug that caused public puzzles to sometimes get stuck after being finished

1/21/2019

• enabled facebook login
• added many new puzzle images
• added a second chaos server, with new images

v0.10.0 - 1/20/2019

• pieces can now only be held for a limited time
• fixed a rare "stuck piece" bug (losing internet while moving a piece)
• added more private game servers

v0.9.0 - 1/18/2019

• misc quality of life fixes for those who normally play with packet loss
• fixed a visual bug where locked pieces would be misaligned
• fixed numerous visual bugs relating to moving fused pieces

v0.8.0 - 1/17/2019

• mousewheel zoom now works when playing the game on a third party site via iframe

v0.7.0 - 1/15/2019

• public puzzles on the front page save progress
• puzzles now show loading progress