How Block Puzzle Pro got made (and what I got wrong along the way)

I am the solo developer behind Sneaky App Studios, and this is the first devlog for Block Puzzle Pro.

I play a lot of block puzzle games. After a while they all felt the same: drag a piece, clear a line, lose, repeat. I kept thinking that one bad tray of pieces ending a great run felt unfair. So the whole idea started with one question: what if you had a few tools to save a run? That’s where the 4 power-ups came from: Hammer, Bomb, Rotate and Skip.

Combos had to feel big

I spent way too long on the scoring. Normal clears felt flat, so I built a combo table where the multiplier keeps jumping the longer you chain clears. The board border changes colour as your combo grows, and at 7+ it goes full rainbow. I wanted that moment where you go “ok one more game.”

The mistake that almost killed my player count

This one hurt. In one update I made daily rewards need internet, to stop people cheating with the phone clock. Turns out a lot of my most loyal players play fully offline. My daily players dropped to around 10. Lesson learned.

So I rebuilt it. The game is fully playable offline again, and progress syncs to Google Play Games whenever you are online. Daily rewards are still protected against airplane-mode and clock tricks. I decided fair rewards matter more than easy ones.

How I built it

It’s built with React and Capacitor, with Google Play Games for cloud saves and achievements. Your progress is tied to your Play Games account, kind of like Clash of Clans, so a new phone doesn’t mean starting over.

I designed the game and made the calls on how it plays, looks and feels. I did use AI tools along the way, mostly as a coding helper for debugging and some of the trickier parts. But the idea, the design and every decision on what stayed in or got cut were mine.

What’s next

I am working on better ad stability, more balance tweaks, and more gameplay Shorts on YouTube. If you play it, I’d really like to hear what feels too easy, too hard or just annoying. Drop a comment here.

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next devlog.