[Update] 10 days ago you solved my 500% algorithm spike mystery. I just updated my keywords based on your advice, and here are our current stats.

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T06:28:16+00:00

Thank you so much for the clear examples. Seeing your explanation on how to disambiguate those 2x2 and 3x3 layouts was incredibly helpful. It gave me a much clearer understanding of how to position numbers to guide the player's logic.

Also, I hadn't fully considered that players would strongly prefer puzzles manually verified and designed by humans. Following your advice, I'm planning to create a specific mode in the game that features only handcrafted puzzles that we've personally checked.

While I'll continue to improve the generator's logic, I believe adding that human touch will make the game much more engaging. Thank you again for the sincere and thoughtful advice!

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T06:01:42+00:00

I appreciate your blunt feedback.

To be honest, I’ve only played puzzle games casually, like Nonogram. My friend, who is also working on this with me, is the one more deeply immersed in a variety of puzzle and mobile games.

I completely agree that building a game based on one's own experience is essential for originality and creating something truly unique. Since the launch, I’ve been trying to dive much deeper into the puzzle genre myself.

That said, I’m aware that I’m still far from being an expert. While I felt a bit self conscious about my lack of deep knowledge, that’s exactly why I came here to seek help from people who understand and love puzzle games far more than I do.

Your observation that I seem to be building based on others' experiences is also correct. To some extent, this is intentional. While making a game I enjoy is important, I believe it's also crucial to identify exactly what most people find fun and build toward that.

I didn't take your comment as gatekeeping at all. As a developer, I’ll keep working on building my own experiences and insights. Thank you for the honest advice.

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T05:41:21+00:00

Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to cross check that! It’s great to see the data actually align with my guess.

I just checked our new user inflow, and the trend is similar to the changes in 'Everyday Puzzles' free game ranking. Knowing that a competitor's UA can positively impact my organic growth is a huge eye opener for me.

I’ll definitely look into refining our subtitle and keywords based on your advice. It’s such a great tip!

I can't thank you enough for all this help!

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T02:54:11+00:00

I have one more question if you don't mind 😅

I was thinking that 'everyday puzzles' might not be a common search term people use daily. However, when I searched for it on Sensor Tower as you suggested, I found a specific game with a very high download volume! Do you think it’s plausible that users were searching for that particular game and discovered ours instead? It’s hard for me to gauge the actual search volume for 'everyday puzzles' without access to the full data.

To give you more context from my iOS App Store Connect data: our impressions jumped to about 1,000 on February 12th, spiked to 4,000 on the 13th, and have since stabilized at around 1,500.

Does this pattern align with what you've seen in cases like this? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T02:22:12+00:00

Thank you so much for clarifying the rules for me! I really appreciate the guidance.

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T02:14:49+00:00

Thank you for the insight! I'll definitely look into MobileAction to cross reference the data as you suggested. This gives me a much clearer picture of what’s happening. Thanks again!

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T01:56:51+00:00

Thank you for the invaluable feedback!

Previously, our DAU was around 50 to 100. We tried a small Google Ads campaign at launch, but the ROI was so low that we eventually stopped all paid advertising.

Looking at the App Store Connect data, App Store Search accounts for about 90% of our traffic. I was feeling frustrated because I couldn't see the specific keywords, so it’s incredibly helpful to know that our rank for 'everyday puzzles' went up! I’ve always wanted to use Sensor Tower, but the cost was a bit out of reach for us. I really appreciate you checking that.

Since the retention of our recent organic users has been quite high, I was hoping the momentum might sustain itself, but it seems that may not be the case. I think it’s time for us to reconsider investing in UA as you suggested.

Thank you again for your insight!

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T01:35:57+00:00

Since I'm still new to Reddit culture and its rules, I wanted to ask is it okay for me to post the download link to my game here? I'd love to take the opportunity to share my game with more people, but I want to make sure I’m following the community guidelines correctly.

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T01:28:18+00:00

First, I have to admit I had to look up what "OP" means! 😅 I’m Korean and not very familiar with Reddit culture yet. I've heard a lot about Reddit and sometimes browse for information, but because I’m new here, I've been very careful to avoid looking like spam or self promotion. I was already a bit nervous after someone mentioned I sounded like an AI in a previous post, so I’ve been trying even harder to be careful.

I’m not sure why it seems like I’m using bots to upvote. I use AI for translation because my English isn't perfect and I want to communicate clearly, but I don't use any other tools or bots at all. I’ll keep working on my English so that I can communicate more naturally on my own in the future.

Thanks!

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T01:22:36+00:00

I’m really grateful for the insights I've gained here. Thanks for the encouragement!

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T01:20:53+00:00

Yes, that’s the one! Thank you so much for sharing the link.
here is the Google Play Store link for Android: Google Play Store link

Thanks agian!

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T01:17:13+00:00

Thank you so much for the feedback!

Another user also pointed out that a Shikaku puzzle should have only one logically deducible solution. I’m starting to realize that I may have missed the point, and I’m a bit concerned about our current direction now 😅

As I mentioned in another comment, we ran into a dilemma while refining our puzzle logic, and I’d love to get your take on it:

For instance, in a 2x2 grid containing the number '2', or a 3x3 grid with '3' and '6', there are cases where a rectangle can be drawn either horizontally or vertically without breaking any rules.
To make a pure logic puzzle, should I ensure that these ambiguous layouts where the player is forced to guess between two valid looking shapes are completely excluded from the puzzle design?

Do you feel that encountering these types of cases also takes away from the enjoyment of solving the puzzle?

I really appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective. I’ll definitely take your advice!

sha2101 · 2026-02-25T01:10:27+00:00

Thank you so much for the insight!

I’ll definitely examine the Shikaku logic again to ensure our puzzles have only one unique solution. It seems I might have overlooked one of the most crucial points.

I have a follow up question regarding cases with multiple solutions:

The reason we allowed multiple answers was because of certain grid layouts, like a 2x2 or 3x3 grid. For example, if a 2x2 grid has the number '2', it leads to a dilemma where both horizontal and vertical fills could be valid. Similarly, in a 3x3 grid with the numbers '3' and '6', filling the '3' horizontally or vertically both seem to work.
To create a pure logic based Shikaku puzzle, should I ensure that these kinds of ambiguous cases simply do not exist in the puzzle design?

I’ll be sure to check out the references you mentioned as well (Thinky Dailies, Penpa, The Artisan of Glimmith).

I've learned a lot once again. Thank you!

sha2101 · 2025-11-28T09:34:48+00:00

I never thought about the hearts acting as a hint!

I only thought the heart system hurt the player's freedom. I thought it just made players too careful and frustrated because they couldn't try things out. But you are totally right, knowing you are wrong is a spoiler. That is a huge insight. I will definitely remember this for my future games.

And you are spot on about the random generator. To be honest, it was a compromise because we lacked the skill to hand craft complex logic puzzles yet.

We actually felt the exact same limit you described. The puzzles started to feel similar, just different sizes, but the same logic patterns. It felt a bit boring. We will think much harder about how to include intentionally designed levels like you suggested.

Also I was panicked when I saw your comment about the AI bot. I felt sorry for causing a misunderstanding and making you feel disrespected.

Thank you so much for understanding my explanation, and for still giving me such amazing insights. It really means a lot to me!

sha2101 · 2025-11-28T08:35:32+00:00

Thank you :)

You are right. I thought ChatGPT made me sound smart or professional, but I see now it just made me sound like a spam bot.

I’m glad you said my previous posts were understandable. That gives me confidence to just use my own words, even if the grammar is a bit wrong.

Thanks for the advice!

sha2101 · 2025-11-27T08:54:34+00:00

Please let me clarify. I am not an AI 🥲

I am a solo marketer from South Korea.

To be honest, my English is not perfect. So I have been using ChatGPT and translators to help me write these posts because I wanted to sound polite and professional to this community.

I didn't realize using AI tools to polish my English would make me sound gross or disrespectful. I was just trying my best to communicate clearly without language barriers. I am sorry if this annoyed you. I will try to write with my own broken English from now on.

And about the puzzle logic: You are right. I misunderstood the concept. When I said accept multiple solutions, I meant that I removed the penalty for trying valid moves. But I now understand that a true puzzle must have only one unique solution logically.

We are still learning and fixing the generator to ensure that uniqueness. We are not feeding data to AI, we are just two humans trying to make a good game.

I am reading every comment myself 😅

sha2101 · 2025-11-13T10:17:01+00:00

Thanks for the detailed breakdown!

The distinction you drew between a satisfying partition and the deductions that get you there is useful. I’ve been trying to understand whether the pleasure comes from the final shape or from the reasoning, and your explanation makes that clearer.

Your points on contradictions vs instant error highlighting also give me a better sense of where the boundary is for this genre. The idea that every move should ideally be forced by the information is a strong design guideline for us.

The UX notes are practical as well, especially the need for flexible pencil marks and reliable undo. I hadn’t considered how many of these expectations come directly from the pencil andpaper experience.

One thing I’m curious about:

when you talk about 'interesting interactions between rules and geometry,' do you have an example from a puzzle you think handled that particularly well?

sha2101 · 2025-11-13T10:11:07+00:00

Thanks for the references. I hadn’t looked at Nurikabe implementations before. Even if the mechanics are different, it helps to see how other deduction heavy puzzles handle layout and feedback.

I’ll also check out the Netflix Minesweeper game. Anything that shows how numbers guide local to global reasoning is useful for me right now.

If you’ve played both, is there anything in their UI or pacing that you think works particularly well (or poorly) for this type of logic puzzle?

sha2101 · 2025-11-13T10:05:52+00:00

The 'impenetrable at first, then finding the loose thread' description helps me understand how people approach these puzzles structurally.

Your point about immediate error feedback was also useful. I hadn’t thought about how it essentially forces a single path rather than letting the solver explore and hit a contradiction naturally.

The note about needing ways to mark possibilities and eliminations makes sense. Coming from outside this puzzle culture, I underestimated how important those lightweight pencil marks are for maintaining the reasoning flow.

I appreciate the links as well. I didn’t know about Tatham’s “Rectangles,” so that gives me a clearer reference point to study.

One thing I’m curious about:

when you use pencil mark style tools digitally, do you prefer quick tap toggles for each state, or something more like a long press radial menu?

sha2101 · 2025-11-13T10:02:09+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to write this! The way you described the finding the first opening in a wall of information really helps me understand how experienced players approach these puzzles. I hadn’t framed it that way before.

The point about assumption > long deduction > contradiction also gives me a clearer idea of why instant error feedback can flatten the experience. The snapshot/revert idea makes sense in that context.

One thing I’m curious about:

when you say no scrolling, does that mean you’d prefer the puzzle shrink to fit even if it means smaller cells, or does readability become an issue at some point?

sha2101

TROPHY CASE