Show HN: The Setting Sun mobile puzzle game

Since the pandemic started my wife and I had some extra time on our hands and have decided to build a couple of mobile video games. The one posted here is a result of us going to a museum and playing a physical board game that we couldn’t solve after sitting in one spot for close to two hours (almost didn’t check the rest of the museum out).

I searched the App Store for the puzzle but couldn’t find It and that’s when I decided to make a prototype on my phone. Once I built it, it took me a couple of days to solve it. I then showed it to a couple of my friends and they were immediately intrigued as the puzzle looks easily solvable, but they would spend an hour or two playing it on my phone (even though I begged them to return it back to me). This prompted me to go ahead, polish it, add new levels, and make it publicly available.

I need some advice on how I could automatically find am optimal solution for the puzzle. Is the A* my only option? The game was built in Unity. Does anyone know of a way to use Unity ML agents to find a solution to the puzzle? I would like to be able to show users hints as well as maybe even automatically create puzzles (would check if a solution exists and how difficult the solution is). Any other feedback more than welcome.

Nice idea, but way too difficult. Is the first level even possible? It seems like there is no way to get the horizontal blue piece past the red square.

The second level is quite tricky but solvable. I think you need some simpler levels to work up to the first one. At least put the second one first.