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Puzzle Programmer
Solve logic puzzles by hand, then build routines to solve them for you. Nineteen puzzle types, a daily puzzle, par scores to beat, and a Workshop for inventing puzzle types of your own.

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Features
Languages:
Interface Full Audio Subtitles
English ✔

Coming Soon To Early Access

The developers of this game intend to release as a work in progress, developing with the feedback of players.

Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“I want to get community feedback about the routine editor. It is a huge part of gameplay and it is currently designed around not needing to input any text and having all structure defined visually. I'd like to hear if the community would prefer a more standard text-based programming interface, or would want a more simplified or more visual interface.

I also want to see which puzzle types the community is most interested in, because I want to invest more in creating hard puzzles for certain types, and I want to spend that effort in areas that the community is most interested in.

One other main thing I'd like input from the community on is whether the current sandbox design is liked or whether people want some more structure or direction, or even a fully guided campaign.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“6 months.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“In the full version, we plan to add:
* A higher quantity of puzzles of the types that the community finds the most fun.
* Editor usability improvements, including: levels of detail for the routine builder (simplified routine builder vs full text editing with autocomplete), deeper integration of the help system into the routine editor.
* If the community indicates that puzzle variety is the most interesting part of the game, we plan to add more puzzle types.
* Par scores tuned based on actual player statistics.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Main features:
*19 puzzle types and more than 250 puzzles, all open from the start
*A routine editor you build phrase by phrase, with a live preview on the board
*Cycle scores, par targets, medals and under-par stars
*A daily puzzle shared by every player, with an archive of earlier days
*A Workshop for your own puzzles and puzzle types
*Hints, notes, highlights, undo and full keyboard play
*A 56-song soundtrack
See our About page for details.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“I’m not planning on raising the price when leaving early access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“I'd like to get community feedback on how the routine editor feels and iterate on it until it is accessible enough that it feels like a useful tool rather than feeling clunky.

Also interested to hear feedback about MCP support, and whether players feel that making it easier to use an LLM to create routines is something that improves vs detracts from the experience.

Also interested in feedback about specific puzzles and whether the puzzles feel fun. They were machine-generated so if people really don't like them I'll iterate on them.

Excited to see if people make puzzles and share them via the workshop. This could also help inform which puzzle types people find the most fun.

Please leave feedback in the Steam forum and feel free to email bug reports or other feedback to the contact email listed on the Store page.”
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This game is not yet available on Steam

Planned Release Date: Q4 2026

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About This Game

Puzzle Programmer is a logic puzzle game where your best ideas become tools. When solving a puzzle by hand, your brain is constantly matching patterns and making logical deductions based on those patterns. Puzzle Programmer encourages you to encode your deductions into routines: repeatable actions that the game can run for you when a given pattern appears in the puzzle. Then you can sit back and watch your routines work through new puzzles automatically, using the patterns that you described, and tune them to solve each board as efficiently as possible.

Solve by hand

Nineteen puzzle types and more than 250 puzzles, from gentle introductions to expert boards. Every puzzle type is open from the start, and hints, notes, highlights, undo and full keyboard play are there when you want them.

Automate

Spotted a pattern? Build it as a routine, and watch as the puzzle solves itself using your automation rules!

Using the routine editor, describe what pattern to match, and what to do when the pattern appears. Various debugging tools are included for your convenience. For example, the board lights up the moves your routine would make before you save it. Every routine you write works on every puzzle of that type.

Make it efficient

Every check a routine makes costs cycles, and each puzzle has a par to beat. The run report shows where your cycles went, so you can reorder, refine or rewrite your routines in pursuit of gold medals and under-par stars. Each puzzle type's page shows which of its puzzles your routines can already solve on their own.

Harder puzzles, sharper ideas

Later puzzles call for cleverer techniques. Build more complex routines to beat the par score on these, or make use of the "assumptions" mechanic: assume a value, keep running your routines, and eliminate the assumed value as a possibility if the assumption leads to an invalid board state.

A new puzzle every day

The daily puzzle is the same for every player and rotates between Number Grid, Binary Grid and Inequality Grid. Keep a streak going, or catch up on earlier days in the Daily Vault. Compete on the Daily Leaderboard to see whose routines are the most efficient!

Make your own

In the Workshop, you can design puzzles of your own and share them with the community! You can even create new puzzle types with unique rulesets. Tooling is included to check whether a puzzle has exactly one solution.

Features

  • 19 puzzle types and more than 250 puzzles, all open from the start
  • A routine editor you build phrase by phrase, with a live preview on the board
  • Cycle scores, par targets, medals and under-par stars
  • A daily puzzle shared by every player, with an archive of earlier days
  • A Workshop for your own puzzles and puzzle types
  • Hints, notes, highlights, undo and full keyboard play
  • A 56-song soundtrack

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

The game code itself is entirely machine-generated -- I used LLMs to generate all of the code for the game. I have 12 years of industry experience as a software engineer but no experience as a game developer, and I've always wanted to make a game in my free time but have never been able to until now :). I have spent months prompting and playtesting the game, so I do not think of it as slop.

The soundtrack was also completely AI-generated (Lyria 3.5). I have listened to every song in the soundtrack with my human ears and rejected ones that I didn't like.

All image assets were completely AI-generated as well.

The game does not run an instance of an LLM at runtime, and does not connect to any AI service provider at runtime. However, it does provide an optional MCP harness (disabled by default) for players who want to use their own LLM to build routines. Leaderboards do not distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated solutions. I'd prefer if the game could have separate AI vs human-made solution leaderboards but I think it would be infeasible to detect AI-generated routines from players who ask an LLM to write them a solution and then have the player manually input that solution into the game.

The core game concept came directly from my human mind :)

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 64-bit
    • Processor: 64-bit dual-core, 2 GHz
    • Memory: 4096 MB RAM
    • Graphics: Any DirectX 11 compatible GPU
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 1024 MB available space
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system