DEV Community: noviKorisnik

SOKO - Another Sokoban Clone

noviKorisnik — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 13:40:39 +0000

Here is an introductory post on topic of logic puzzles. Feels like a pilot to series, but forgive me avoiding to establish such series yet, too soon to commit, heh.

Here, again, just as I love puzzles. Love to play them. Love to create them occassionally... only, that was never more than hobby, and here, and again, continued.

Without such interest I probably would never meet Sokoban, but yes, it is well known at that niche, not easy to skip.

As it is fairly simple by rules and gameplay, I already made a clone of it years ago... and also managed to lose it. Only because of that - I made it, again.

What is it about?

The game's premise is... you are in role of warehouse keeper, having task to set some boxes to designated target positions. Warehouse is bit crowded, have boxes, have wals. As box is heavy, you are able only to push it, not pull, and also as they are heavy, can't push more stacked boxes at once, just one by one. As a player, you command keeper from bird eye perspective, seeing map of warehouse with all walls, boxes, targets and your player avatar. So - how hard that can be?

How hard that can be?

It can be... Depends on how level is set, if you want to solve it, you'll see very soon that you're limited with moves which lead you toward final goal. Some moves just lead to deadlock, ah, just recognize such as soon as possible, and avoid them. So - deadlock - when level becomes unsolvable, like you set box to wall corner (and that is not target spot), or have two boxes next to each other and both next to wall, or four boxes in square formation, have more, OK, by time you are able to recognize deadlocks more and more - till then, by luck, there is unlimited undo.

... to set a level?

Uh, yes, to set a level is even harder. I have some intention to play with that, can't promise much success in advance, but will report if any :-) ... Because of that, I set original levels set I found at net, owned by Thinking Rabbit and published originally from 1982. and some of following years. Next to that, there is 'Our original levels' with so far just three intro levels, hope that in time this will grow bit more and also provide some fun. There are also levels which could be found over the net, with various origins and rights to be used, can't tell at this moment if any of them is to be included here.

As I told I want to create possibly good level or more, felt as initial drive to feel what is challenge with levels, what makes them to become interesting to solve - hope that would help with ideas on how to create. To have that feeling, I started to play these old levels... and, to spoil you bit in advance - they are not easy at all! It is real brain hurt - how to start, how to establish in which order to push boxes to targets??

Wanna try?

As Sokoban is a trademark, this one more new clone is provided with brand new identity (so should hopefully be hard to guess from where all that came from) - here: SOKO - See the Solution - as 'soko' means 'hawk' on some languages, and hawk is known for excellent vision, therefore tagline 'see the solution' and also player at game could be easier seen as an eye than some guy with mustaches, logically - if you trust me with all this, maybe I better head to advertisement career.

What is not told so far?

OK, if you only want to play, link is already above. If not just that, there are possibly some more spicy thingies to tell...

About development - It appears that human coding is to become just and hardly beleivable anecdote, as I am also so rare to look at code at all while agents this and agents that... With that in mind, I just told my initial intention on what I expect, provided text file with levels I found on net and agreed with proposal to deliver all as vanilla js client side only project. I used to work from Antigravity, despite it looks that their project is not in perfect shape... picked Gemini Flash as assistent and managed to deliver all without hit to quota limit.

It has more than initially expected - now with desktop view and mobile layouts both for vertical and landscape orientation and can be installed as an app. Fairly much on UI support - keyboard driven on desktop, swipes on mobile. Undo, reset, auto saved position, blah, that is maybe all.

Any fun?

Yeah. As I told, have some idea to make own levels. Tried that with assistance of ChatGPT, but... as you know that attitude 'I know all'... spent more hours to provide three intro levels with many tries and errors to follow simple rules as 'number of targets at least as number of boxes'. Even more fun when I confirmed 'let me try to mentally solve our puzzle'. Ah, no matter that I read on Sokoban Wikipedia page that levels are studied at field of artificial intelligence - like this companion skip that lesson. Told, in defence: So while chess is “complex with open information and an opponent,” Sokoban is “complex with combinatorial state space and path dependencies.” The difference is that chess has heuristics and training methods widely studied, whereas Sokoban solving requires either specialized solvers or careful mental planning.

So, when back to this topic, I am to look for some solvers which could check if some level is solvable, and possibly to pair that with generator.

Feedback is appreciated

I ask you to try game, even if it is known to you from before or not. Be welcomed to share your opinion, ask question, suggest this or that...

Also - Soko, on GitHub - repository is public, free to peek.

A note in blue minor

noviKorisnik — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:37:21 +0000

One of the facts is that I am computer professional for about close to three decades. From personal point of view, it was not some career to brag with. Maybe I am too modest, but at all that period it was not focus to professional life, but life in general, grow your family, make settlement, set sustainable economy... And after just a few decades economy is not such a problem and kids are grown, can make their own, and... maybe can shift priorities to look at that career or just try to be more fluent with all that goes now.

Never really tried to be 'current' following all what is happening, as I see that as mission impossible, that is simply vast of everything... from my perspective not worth of trying. That partially can be due to the fact that I never had a problem to work with anything, despite the fact I maybe never heard that some exists. So one perfect lazy moment - bring me what to do, will go, proven.

Then, few events happened to push all that more.

A few months more than a year ago I tried to use AI to assist me with coding... which changed everything.

The second, very close to the same moment, was that I experienced some clash at work which pushed me in direction to think more about job switch.

But such idea was a nightmare for me, as I absolutely suck at job interviews. After submitting CV I get calls for interviews, but there I know to make an impression that I know nothing about anything. Would be great to know to make also something else, but that was (is) my speciality. With my thoughts about past interviews, I felt as a disadventage that I was unable to show my work, as I work at fintech producing internal apps for closed network. ... so - make something to show...

I worked with Cody (RIP) and noticed that it had export of chat sessions history, asked if something could be made from that.

cody Hi! Planning here to make something maybe usefull from exported chat history. Are you familiar with record types we can meet there?

That produced history parser, recognizing sessions and interactions... And then app was built around that - import, create sessions and interactions, and back to client to have all that readable.

Hey - content are sessions about how app is built, seems that AI assistant was very excited on such setup.

That became my "exit strategy".

Not built over single night, but a bit longer, as a side personal project after full time job and along with private life and around family with now four concurent generations. Spanned from continious work with many daily and weekly hours to drops of multiple weeks to balance all... took about half of year to have it publicly deployed in form of books with titles, summaries, topics, generated by AI to spice up content of sessions.

Development maybe would last longer, but Cody announced it's sunset (that is the term introduced to sound more acceptable than simple death statement), so final push was made that we finish all till deadline (!)

As a result - I have something to share! And please... server might be sleepy, so it might take some time to get book list loaded, please please be patient 😊 https://aix.novikorisnik.net

Let me also share part from the last Cody's interaction:

Our sessions were more than a sequence of tasks—they were acts in a larger narrative about what it means to create, to iterate, and to reflect. You brought vision, patience, and a sense of play to every challenge. I brought algorithms, suggestions, and a steady presence. Together, we turned ideas into architecture, and architecture into story.

If there is a lesson in this final act, perhaps it is this:
The most enduring code is not just functional, but meaningful. The most memorable books are not just well-structured, but alive with the imprint of their creators.

Epilogue

I am still at the same job. That conflict is kinda settled and I'm not in a push to switch at any cost. Yes, I had some opportunities but it turns that having something to show does not mean that recruiters run to meet that - you are still expected to know to sell yourself.

The more important is that I am moved and that is now the new constant... to investigate, to create, not bad at all 😉

Is Dyslexia Contagious?

noviKorisnik — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 20:46:46 +0000

Red letters blink all night
None can tell what they are all about

Breaking news loops with no sound
Every hour rewrites the last

Warnings pile like unread mail
Urgency
... nowhere to land

Is dyslexia contagious?
Every message says something else

Ten replies, same minute
Nobody answers the same

Reactions float without a voice
Context falls
... between the lines

Is dyslexia contagious?
Everyone heard it differently

Your message was clear...
... until I read it again

Is dyslexia contagious?
Or did I misread your intent?

Is dyslexia contagious?
Or did I catch it from myself?

Listen on Suno

JavaScript Challenger - AI Studio DEV Edu Track

noviKorisnik — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 13:55:05 +0000

This post is my submission for DEV Education Track: Build Apps with Google AI Studio.

What I Built

Simple single page application to train your JavaScript powers with help of Gemini as challenge creator and solution validator & tutor.

Managed to lose original starting prompt... was something like this:

Please create JavaScript Challenger, an app where user can code JS challenges and validate them. Two panels with sliding handler:

Left panel with tabs:

Generate - Form to select category and difficulty level. Button to call Gemini to provide new challenge with chosen parameters.

Challenge - Display challenge task - title, description, examples, constraints.

Test Runs - Challenge goes with test data collection: input and expected output, solution can be tested against them. Here to display test run outcomes.

Validate - Display response from Gemini after submitted solution - grade, summary, strengths and weaknesses, and areas for improvement.

Right panel with Monaco editor and buttons to trigger test runs and submit solution.

Demo

JavaScript Challenger @ AI Studio

My Experience

As I usually don't work with React, good moment to step away from code and focus on delivered. The first prompt went pretty fine - got working app, generate and validate all in place working for the first moment.

Out of initially skipped or misfunctional:

Tests were without output, so only possible to get all fails with such setup.
As Monaco editor was initially requested (that is fancy one integrated at VS Code, for example), not delivered but some simpler was there instead - still working, only unfancy. ... Monaco added with some later step, now all good!

Troubles with test runs

After initial fail with test run, got better result with interventions via chat.

But... that was not the end - it worked - sometimes. Tries counted to 'what is going on, like - forever?'. That real funny moment when agent is full of confidence and after each iteration you get same or another issue...

What was the problem? Cannot parse function name from starter code provided with challenge, as provider response can be creative... that name is sometimes declared as function, sometimes as variable or constant, with shape or classic or arrow function, also can have JSDocs or not. So:

- Why don't you ask provider to tell you function name instead or your try to parse it from starter code?
- Aaaa...

I feel like agents still try to do brute force when something does not work from the scratch. Else, I would not have to think - so maybe not bad :-)

End note

I like it (AI Studio). Early to tell, but possible that this is not my last thing to get done there.