https://jigsawplanet.app/

Choose your visual journey in our narrative-driven Story Mode. A modern, ad-free start.
A clean, distraction-free UI with silky smooth drag-and-drop mechanics for any device.
Enjoy a purely relaxing zen state as you snap pieces together to reveal the story.
DIY Custom Puzzles: Upload your own favorite images to instantly generate a playable game.
Puzzle completed! View your final time, celebrate your victory, and claim your rewards.
Unlock unique achievements and track your progress as you complete more puzzles.
Speedrun the puzzles to climb the global leaderboard and compete with other players!

Inspiration

As a huge fan of classic jigsaw puzzles, I always felt that existing puzzle websites were stuck in the past—clunky interfaces, intrusive ads, and a purely solitary experience. I wanted to build something different: a modern, sleek puzzle platform that not only provides a relaxing, ad-free environment but also introduces a sense of progression, narrative, and friendly competition. That’s how JigsawPlanet.app was born.

What it does

JigsawPlanet.app is a modernized web-based jigsaw puzzle platform offering four core features: Story Mode: We currently feature two unique narrative-driven puzzles. As players piece the image together, they unlock visual stories.

Custom Puzzles (DIY): Users can upload their own favorite images and instantly generate a playable jigsaw puzzle to solve or share.

Achievement System: To keep users engaged, the app includes a rewarding achievement system that unlocks as players complete specific tasks and milestones.

Global Leaderboard: For the competitive souls, logged-in users can speedrun the Story Mode puzzles. The faster you complete the puzzle, the higher you rank on our real-time leaderboard!

How I built it

I focused on creating a lightning-fast and responsive web application. The core puzzle mechanics (dragging, dropping, and snapping pieces) were built using modern front-end technologies to ensure it feels silky smooth on both desktop and mobile devices. For the backend, I integrated a secure database to handle user authentication, store custom image uploads, and update the real-time global leaderboard and achievement logic.

Challenges I ran into

The biggest challenge was perfecting the puzzle piece "snap" logic and touch interactions. Making sure the drag-and-drop felt intuitive and natural across different screen sizes and devices (mouse vs. touch) required a lot of mathematical tweaking. Additionally, building a secure and fair timer for the Leaderboard meant I had to ensure the completion times couldn't be easily manipulated on the client side.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I am incredibly proud of the clean, 100% ad-free UI. Achieving a distraction-free "zen" state for the Custom Puzzles, while simultaneously building a highly competitive environment for the Story Mode leaderboard, was a tricky balance to strike. Watching the leaderboard dynamically update as test users competed for the fastest time was an amazing feeling!

What I learned

This project deeply enhanced my understanding of complex state management in the frontend, particularly tracking the coordinates and states of dozens of individual puzzle pieces at once. I also learned a lot about optimizing image processing for user uploads so the site remains fast and lightweight.