Puzzly

Inspiration

A daily puzzle is a nice little habit, but I don't always want the same kind of challenge. Some days Sudoku sounds good. Other days I'd rather move cars out of a jam or solve a case. Puzzly grew around that choice, with the same daily set for friends to compare.

What it does

Puzzly gives players eight games each day: Path, Five, Mini Sudoku, Crown, Wend, Sequence, Exit, and Case. You can solve one during a break or work through all eight. The games cover words, numbers, routes, sliding blocks, and deduction.

Today's set is free to play. Puzzly saves results and streaks on your iPhone, and each game has a Game Center leaderboard. Puzzly Pro opens previously released archive puzzles and removes ads after games.

How we built it

I built Puzzly in SwiftUI for iPhone. Each game has its own rules and puzzle generator, tied to a shared 365-day calendar. Stable seeds based on the game and date keep the daily boards consistent without a Puzzly account or server. Results stay on the device. Game Center handles rankings, RevenueCat handles Pro purchases, and GrowthCat handles completion ads. Puzzly is available in English and Spanish. The Case cast and Exit cars have original artwork made for the game.

Challenges we ran into

A year of eight daily games means 2,920 puzzles to check. Exit has to be solvable, while Sudoku, Crown, and Case need a single answer. We run checks across the full season rather than trusting a few sample days.

Playing the games exposed trickier problems. In Wend, a player could trace a valid word along a different route than the generator chose. The first hint system could then clash with a correct move. Hints now work around the path the player actually took. In Exit, a long swipe once counted as one move while the equivalent button taps counted several. Both inputs now count a slide as one move.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Puzzly is live on the App Store with a full 365-day season in English and Spanish. I'm proud that the variety is real: Case has its own cast, clue cards, and deduction board; Exit has sliding-car puzzles and original vehicle art. Automated checks confirm that all 365 Exit boards can be solved and that each Case puzzle has one solution. The daily experience also includes onboarding, streaks, an archive, and leaderboards.

What we learned

Full playthroughs taught me more than looking at finished screens. At one point, losing Five still counted as a win and extended a streak. A losing run exposed it, and the result model now keeps losses out of streaks and leaderboards. I learned to test the wrong guess, the hint, the undo, and the way someone plays using accessibility controls. Those are part of the game too.

What's next for Puzzly

I want to hear which games people return to and where they get stuck. That feedback will guide clearer hints, difficulty changes, and the next season. The first season's puzzles will stay fixed so past results still mean the same thing.

Built With

• revenuecat
• swift
• swiftui