Show HN: FuseCells – a handcrafted logic puzzle game with 2,500 levels

apps.apple.com

32 points by keini 12 hours ago

Hi everyone, I built FuseCells, a minimalistic logic puzzle game where every level is handcrafted (no procedural generation). It started as a personal challenge to design a clean rule-set and scale it to thousands of puzzles without losing difficulty balance.

What’s unique: • 2,500 handcrafted levels across multiple grid sizes • Deterministic logic — no guessing required • A rule system inspired by constraint-solving and path-finding concepts • Daily challenges and global progress tracking • Fully built as a solo dev project

Technical notes for those curious: • Level generation tools I wrote validate solvability using a custom constraint solver • Difficulty is estimated via step-count of the solver • The game is optimized to run smoothly on low-end devices • Designed first for iOS, now fully adapted for iPad as well

I’d love feedback from puzzle lovers, game designers, and anyone interested in handcrafted logic design. Here’s the App Store link: [inserați linkul]

Thanks for reading — happy to answer any technical questions!

marc_omorain an hour ago

I just bought it. It’s a really nice game.

I have red/colour blindness and I find that the contrast between the red and green borders on cells is very low (they look quite similar to me).

It doesn’t stop my playing - it just slows me down.

It might be something you address is you find you have many players with colour blindness.

keini 12 hours ago

Happy to share some technical details for anyone curious:

I wrote a custom solver to validate each puzzle and estimate difficulty. It works by applying deterministic constraints until the board reaches a stable state. If anyone is interested, I can share the logic flow or even open-source the validator.

Also curious: does anyone here have experience balancing handcrafted puzzle difficulty at scale?

Goofy_Coyote 11 hours ago

Bought and started playing it, I love it.

One feedback I have is that the instant I get the combination correct and complete a challenge, it suddenly pops up a “congratulations” message with a button to go to the next level, I can’t see my final solution.

I really want to take a few seconds to see my final solution, study, understand and admire it.

  • keini 11 hours ago

    Thank you so much for the feedback really appreciate it! These are still the early versions of the game, and what you’re saying makes complete sense!

    I’ll adjust this behavior in the next release.

    Thanks again! feedback like this really helps!

Waterluvian 10 hours ago

I loved how quickly the app started up and immediately had me at an interactive step.

I think you really need to have 10-20 levels, not 2, before interrupting with the CTA for paying. I had only just learned the basic rules and had no clue if I liked the game or what hints would even be worth to me.

I was going to comment that the frame rate and responsiveness was oddly bad but when I went back to check a few things it was buttery smooth. Dunno if that was just a weird one-off or something that happens on first launch?

Let me hide the timer. I know, it’s silly. But it truly affects my enjoyment of nonogram games.

I like the simple little beeps it makes when toggling. Have you considered picking triads from different keys? This can break the monotony. You could pick a random key each game and different chords from that key!

Overall this is well done. You should feel proud of your accomplishment!

  • keini 4 hours ago

    Thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback — really appreciate it.

    About the initial lag you noticed: that most likely comes from the first-time Game Center initialization. After that first launch, everything runs at full speed, but I’m looking into smoothing out that initial moment.

    The timer toggle is a great suggestion and I’ll add an option to hide it. And the idea about using triads/chords for the sound feedback is surprisingly interesting — I’ll experiment with this.

    Thanks again for taking the time to share this. Feedback like yours really helps me improve the experience.

rbits 11 hours ago

Looks cool. I assume it's iOS only? I'd love to play it otherwise, I love logic puzzle games

  • keini 10 hours ago

    Thanks! Yes, at the moment it’s iOS only (iPhone/iPad). I’m currently working on Android and a Web version as well — the core engine is portable, so those should follow.

    Really glad to hear you enjoy logic puzzle games!

    • sroerick 8 hours ago

      I run Graphene and F-Droid only - but I would happily pay for an APK or web version when it arrives.

      • keini 4 hours ago

        That’s great to hear thank you!

        A Web version is definitely planned, and Android support is in development as well. Since the core engine is fully portable, both should come naturally once I’m done polishing the iOS launch.

        Really appreciate your interest and willingness to support it on other platforms.

jmpavlec 5 hours ago

> Hi everyone, I built FuseCells, a minimalistic logic puzzle game where every level is handcrafted (no procedural generation). It started as a personal challenge to design a clean rule-set and scale it to thousands of puzzles without losing difficulty balance. > > What’s unique: • 2,500 handcrafted levels across multiple grid sizes • Deterministic logic — no guessing required • A rule system inspired by constraint-solving and path-finding concepts • Daily challenges and global progress tracking • Fully built as a solo dev project > > Technical notes for those curious: • Level generation tools I wrote validate solvability using a custom constraint solver • Difficulty is estimated via step-count of the solver • The game is optimized to run smoothly on low-end devices • Designed first for iOS, now fully adapted for iPad as well > > I’d love feedback from puzzle lovers, game designers, and anyone interested in handcrafted logic design. Here’s the App Store link: [inserați linkul] > > Thanks for reading — happy to answer any technical questions!

Sounds like something I would enjoy. Unfortunately I don't have iOS.

I hate to be the guy but your post text here doesn't exactly portray "handcrafted". Seems to be heavily AI with the sentence structure and the "[inserați linkul]" at the end (are you Romanian?). Quite a lot of em dashes and bullet points in the middle of sentences.

Any specific reason you used AI here?

  • keini 4 hours ago

    Hello, yes, my English very bad)

    • stavros 4 hours ago

      That's fine frate, tell the AI to not use lists and em dashes so much.

      • keini 4 hours ago

        noted! thank you frate)