In June, I shared Marches & Gnats (https://mng.quest), a programming puzzle game (similar to Advent of Code) where you solve challenges using a Turing machine.

Since then:

- I added 13 new quests, from arithmetic basics to Elementary Cellular Automata and Sudoku.

- Rewrote the Turing machine core in Rust, making evaluation much faster and able to handle heavier tasks.

- 102 players have joined, submitting 15000 solutions; 10 players have already solved every quest.

The hardest part turned out to be the storyline. I use ChatGPT to draft outlines. It does it quite well, but shaping them into something with real depth and atmosphere takes far more work than I expected.

Another challenge: since it's a competitive game, players quickly explored the edges of the rules. For example, submitting very long solutions that use transitions as a kind of memory. I love that kind of creativity, but it also undermines the original goal of solving a puzzle as efficiently as possible. So I've spent quite some time balancing mechanics to reward creativity without encouraging loopholes much.

The most fun part, though, is still inventing new puzzles.