Puzzled Art

Puzzled Art was first launched in January 2026, with an experimental idea that artists can reach new audiences through games. It got significant iterations done in April and June 2026, because the UI/UX never felt like it aligned with the purpose. So, while this app wasn't newly created during the hackathon period, the version live right now (in July 2026) is entirely from a new source code written in June 2026.

What does the app do?

It makes image puzzles. Image puzzles aren't a novel concept. Users upload an image, it gets cropped into tiles, players rearrange the tiles to rebuild the image. Puzzled Art has the same mechanism, except the app is just a tool for what I want to make out of the community. During the development process, I discovered I looked at the small details in artworks more closely when I was solving the puzzle.

What Changed

The main issue with the initial version was that it tried to be 'game-y' in a traditional sense. At first I didn't know what would make the app or community engaging, so I implemented competitive features like timed challenges. The June rewrite was about fixing that mistake. Competition naturally felt misaligned - I wanted people to remember art, and making them solve fast directly contradicted that purpose. In the new iteration, I phased out timed mode completely. Instead, I introduced the gallery. Every puzzle solved by a player gets saved into their personal, in-game gallery. The gallery contains the image along with the artist's name.

Challenges

A major shift was also moving away from daily puzzles to UGC content. I utilized the subreddit's built-in approved-user capability. Implementing this in code was a bit tricky, as Devvit doesn't support the asApprovedUser property for menu actions. I had to use a workaround. Having approved users meant only reliable artists were contributing, so there's practically zero risk of art theft or AI art making it into the puzzles. The UGC shift was the best decision for boosting the subreddit's growth.

Built With

• css
• devvit
• express.js
• html
• typescript
• vite