Sampler - Picross Stitched Into an Embroidery Hoop, for GameMaker

Picross for your game, stitched. The player fills a chart from the number clues along its rows and columns, one cross-stitch at a time. When the chart is right, the threads go in from the centre out and the finished piece is set in an embroidery hoop, inside a stitched wreath, with a brass plaque naming it. Pure GML, no image files.

Put it in a cottage, a winter inn or a rainy day on the farm. Every chart is generated from a seed you choose, a number or a text such as a place name, so the same seed is always the same puzzle, and the player's stitches save with your game.

my_chart = smp_play_create({ seed: "Hollow Oak cottage", size: 10, work: my_saved.work, done: my_saved.done });
if (smp_play_step(my_chart) == "left") my_saved = smp_play_save(my_chart);                 // Step
smp_play_draw(my_chart, 0, 0, display_get_gui_width(), display_get_gui_height());        // Draw GUI

What your players see

• The chart: woven linen on a walnut sewing table, the grid heavier every fifth line, column clues on a paper tape above and row clues to the left, each dimming as its line matches. A gilt needle-frame cursor, stitches in grey tacking thread, pencil crosses for cells marked empty.
• The pattern card: the pattern's name, its size, its four threads as skeins, and how many lines match.
• The reveal: the grey stitches take their colours from the centre of the chart outward.
• The finished sampler: the motif in its threads on a linen disc, a stitched wreath of beads, garland, rope or twin rings, a beech hoop with a brass clamp, and an engraved plaque.

Everything is generated

• Motifs: star, medallion, lattice and diamond ornaments, four-fold symmetric like real sampler work, in six thread palettes, on charts of 15, 10 or 5 stitches. Over seeds 1 to 40 of each form the generator deals 117 different 15 x 15 charts and 71 different 10 x 10 charts. A 5 x 5 chart has room for only 11 shapes in all, so treat it as a tutorial size.
• Every chart is proven fair. Before the player sees it, a line-logic solver works it from the clues alone, and given stitches are sewn in and locked until the logic closes. One answer, never a guess.
• The wreath is laid round the motif stitch by stitch, and steps round it rather than through it.

Tested

• Igor package build clean on the shipped source.
• 43 in-engine assertions on a real built exe: the puzzle core checked bit for bit against the RPG Maker MZ original's (thirty motifs, the clues, the line solver, twelve whole puzzles), the wreath placement stitch for stitch, and the screen driven key by key and by mouse (stitch, unpick, mark, save and resume, the reveal, the finished hoop).
• 24 more in a blank project that installed the package the way you will and ran the Readme's own code.
• 152 adversarial calls against the documented functions with zero crashes.

Requirements

GameMaker 2024.14 or newer (built and tested against runtime 2024.14.4.268). Pure GML: no extensions, no DLLs, no shaders, no sprites. Import the .yymps, open rm_smp_demo, press Play. Keyboard and mouse built in; hand smp_play_step your own input struct to drive it from a gamepad. Sampler ships no sounds.

One commercial licence, unlimited games, no attribution required. Everything the package draws in your game is yours to ship, including on your store page and in your trailers.

Paid, from the same studio

• Sampler for RPG Maker MZ ($11.99): the same charts and hoops as an MZ plugin.
• Arras ($12.99): the playthrough woven into an embroidered frieze, for GameMaker.
• Pastime ($19.99): a cabinet of minigames for GameMaker, each drawing its own board.

More GameMaker systems at csaf.itch.io.

AI disclosure: the code and the generated artwork in this package were produced with AI assistance. Every store image was rendered by the product itself. Type: IM Fell DW Pica (SIL OFL 1.1) and Open Sans (Apache 2.0), notices included.