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amichail

18,844 karma · joined February 20, 2007

I'm an indie game developer.

My previous games include DropZap and DropZap 2 for iOS.

My latest game is DropZap World. Check it out: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1072858930

https://bsky.app/profile/dropzapworld.bsky.social https://x.com/DropZapWorld https://www.threads.net/@dropzapworld

a.michail@me.com

submissionscomments
amichail··on Tile Wipeout – a new kind of slider puzzle [beta]
You play on a 7×7 grid of colored tiles. Each row and column has two edge colors, one for each side of the grid.

On each move, you rotate a row or column by one step (with wraparound).

The twist is what happens at the edges:

* If a tile wraps around and matches the edge color → it disappears

* If it doesn’t match → it wraps normally

* If an empty space wraps → it becomes a new tile with the color of the edge it enters

You’re trying to remove tiles, but sometimes you have to create new ones to make progress.

Goal: end with as many empty spaces in the grid as you can within the move limit.

Check it out:

https://testflight.apple.com/join/3sstMjRK [iPhone/iPad]

Any feedback would be appreciated. Have fun!

amichail··on Ask HN: Why don’t laptops beep loudly like cars when locking and unlocking?
Why do you need to be standing meters away from your car when you lock or unlock it?
amichail··on I just released PluriSnake, a new kind of snake puzzle game. [macOS/iOS/iPadOS]
PluriSnake is a daily puzzle game where you create and move colored snakes to clear tiles.

The idea is simple:

* You use color matching in two distinct ways: matching circles create snakes, and matching a snake’s color with the squares beneath it destroys them.

* Only snakes can move, and you move them in a worm-like fashion across the grid to new positions.

* Your goal is to destroy as many squares as you can. Note that destroying all of them may not be possible.

App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/plurisnake/id6756577045 [macOS/iOS/iPadOS]

Features:

* A new daily puzzle that is the same for everyone

* iCloud sync across devices

I'd love to hear what people think and how far you can get on today’s puzzle.

--

P.S. Here are the game rules:

Goal

* Destroy colored squares on a 7×7 grid using snakes made of same-colored circles. Your score is based on how many squares you destroy.

* Clearing all 49 squares is not required, and may not always be possible.

Board Setup

* Each cell contains one square and one circle, both randomly colored.

* There are 7 colors total, with each color appearing 7 times among squares and 7 times among circles.

Energy

* Energy is a shared pool for all snakes and is initially 0 units.

* Moving a snake costs 1 energy unit, regardless of how far you move it.

* You can form a snake to gain energy and spend it to move any snake on the board.

Forming Snakes

* Link 2 or more adjacent circles of the same color (orthogonal or diagonal) to form a snake.

* A snake with n circles has n – 1 links. Forming a snake immediately adds n – 1 energy units to your energy pool.

* Squares under a newly formed snake of the same color are destroyed immediately.

Moving Snakes

* Snakes move in a worm-like fashion (both orthogonal and diagonal steps are allowed), following a continuous path of isolated circles.

* Snakes cannot move onto cells occupied by other snakes. Moving a snake can pass over isolated circles (circles not part of a snake). When this happens, each circle you pass over is teleported to the cell the snake just vacated.

Square Destruction

* When a snake finishes its move, it destroys any squares of its color under its final positions.

* Moving a snake past a matching square without stopping over it does not destroy the square.

Ending the Game

* The game ends automatically if all 49 squares are destroyed, or you can end it manually at any time by triple-tapping anywhere.

* Your score counts toward the global leaderboard regardless of whether you clear all squares.

amichail··on Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans.
You shouldn't have to write in another language to get the benefits of flawless English writing via AI.
amichail··on Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
AI is a great equalizer when it comes to communication in English.

And despite what people say, the way you write is very much judged as an indication of your education and intelligence.

People who don't like the use of AI to help you write really don't want those signals to go away.

They want to be able to continue to judge others based on their English grammar instead of on the content of their writing.

amichail··on Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans
This policy will not age well.
amichail··on GNU Texmacs
The main person behind TeXmacs, Joris van der Hoeven, is also a coauthor on this paper:

"Integer multiplication in time n(log n)" https://annals.math.princeton.edu/2021/193-2/p04

amichail··on Ask HN: Is the CoCo 3 the best 8 bit computer ever made?
I had no idea the CoCo 3 was good until I watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Tq8jdS6mY
amichail··on Ask HN: Why not have a subreddit where all voting is done by a single AI?
The AI would assign a score for each post/comment that looks like a vote count in the reddit UI and would be treated as a vote count when performing the various kinds of rankings that Reddit supports.
amichail··on Ask HN: Why not make English computational, just like LaTeX, to ensure lock-in?
Like LaTeX, Typst is Turing-complete, which prevents flawless imports in other tools.

What you want is a document format that is not Turing complete, such as the TeXmacs document format.

amichail··on Ask HN: Why not make English computational, just like LaTeX, to ensure lock-in?
I mean it would be rude to use a natural language that cannot be translated accurately to other languages. So why isn't it rude to use LaTeX to write documents given that LaTeX is Turing complete and cannot be translated flawlessly to other document formats?
amichail··on Ask HN: Why not make English computational, just like LaTeX, to ensure lock-in?
Why should it be acceptable to make flawless translation to other formats impossible for LaTeX if you wouldn't want to do the same for English?
amichail··on Ask HN: Why not make English computational, just like LaTeX, to ensure lock-in?
LaTeX being a programming language makes it a bad idea for typesetting documents.
amichail··on Ask HN: Why not make English computational, just like LaTeX, to ensure lock-in?
Because it is good enough, widely used, and would make communication easier worldwide.
amichail··on Ask HN: Why not make English computational, just like LaTeX, to ensure lock-in?
Professional jargon isn't Turing-complete like LaTeX is.
amichail··on Ask HN: Why not make English computational, just like LaTeX, to ensure lock-in?
If it's a good idea to use a computational typesetting language — namely TeX/LaTeX, then maybe it is a good idea to make English computational also.
amichail··on [dead]
Maybe they should stop giving advice that appears to be racial profiling to some people.
amichail··on Ask HN: Make cemeteries in cities less offensive by using virtual headstones?
Do those religious traditions that prescribe burial also require physical headstones instead of virtual ones?
amichail··on Ask HN: Make cemeteries in cities less offensive by using virtual headstones?
In some cities, they might be hard to avoid seeing.
amichail··on Ask HN: Make cemeteries in cities less offensive by using virtual headstones?
Why should you impose your philosophy of death on other people?
amichail··on PluriSnake gameplay [Sun Jan 11, 2026 puzzle] – Beta available [video]
PluriSnake is a snake-based color matching daily puzzle game.

Color matching is used in two ways: (1) matching circles creates snakes, and (2) matching a snake’s color with the squares beneath it destroys them.

Snakes, but not individual circles, can be moved by snaking to squares of matching color.

The goal is to score as highly as you can. Destroying all the squares is not required for your score to count.

The more links there are currently in the grid, the more points you get when you destroy a square.

Of course, there is more to it than that as you will see.

Try it out: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mJXdJavG

Any feedback would be appreciated! Have fun!

amichail··on Spherical Snake
The iPhone has built-in color filters. Have you tried using one of them?
amichail··on Spherical Snake
For a new kind of snake game, check out PluriSnake.

PluriSnake is a snake-based color matching daily puzzle game.

Color matching is used in two ways: (1) matching circles creates snakes, and (2) matching a snake’s color with the squares beneath it destroys them.

Snakes, but not individual circles, can be moved by snaking to squares of matching color, as long as their paths are not blocked by other snakes.

The goal is to score as highly as you can. Destroying all the squares is not required for your score to count.

Of course, there is more to it than that as you will see.

Try it out:

https://testflight.apple.com/join/mJXdJavG

Any feedback would be appreciated. Have fun!

amichail··on PluriSnake: A new kind of snake puzzle game. [TestFlight beta]
PluriSnake is a snake-based color matching daily puzzle game.

Color matching is used in two ways: (1) matching circles creates snakes, and (2) matching a snake’s color with the squares beneath it destroys them.

Snakes, but not individual circles, can be moved by snaking to squares of matching color, as long as their paths are not blocked by other snakes.

The goal is to score as highly as you can. Destroying all the squares is not required for your score to count.

Of course, there is more to it than that as you will see.

Try it out:

https://testflight.apple.com/join/mJXdJavG

Any feedback would be appreciated. Have fun!

amichail··on Ask HN: Could identical twins better optimize career discovery?
See https://www.psypost.org/groundbreaking-study-reveals-the-imp...
amichail··on Ask HN: Why are modern AIs ignorant or reluctant to talk about "vibe coding"?
See: https://chatgpt.com/share/69402508-e654-800c-8de2-7fea4c39b2...
amichail··on Ask HN: Why are modern AIs ignorant or reluctant to talk about "vibe coding"?
It didn't know what it was at the beginning of the conversation.
amichail··on Ask HN: Why are modern AIs ignorant or reluctant to talk about "vibe coding"?
See: https://chatgpt.com/share/69402508-e654-800c-8de2-7fea4c39b2...
amichail··on Ask HN: Why are modern AIs ignorant or reluctant to talk about "vibe coding"?
ChatGPT for one.
amichail··on Ask HN: Why are modern AIs ignorant or reluctant to talk about "vibe coding"?
If you submit a prompt with "vibe coding" in it, they will reply in a way that seems to imply they have no idea what the term means and are just faking a reply based on surrounding context in the prompt.
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