I built a 1500-Level Puzzle Game in Pure Vanilla JS (And how AI helped me solve the hardest part)

Sigma Hunter
Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:38:32 GMT
webdev, javascript, gamedev, browsergames

🖥️ Source Code: https://github.com/moksh-jalendra/ziply-puzzel 🎮 Play Ziply Live: https://html5.gamemonetize.co/d7a965ple3vols2kwz51d646oclw79mh/ Whenever we start a new web project today, the immediate reflex is to run npx create-react-app or spin up a Next.js boilerplate. But what happens when you want to build a highly interactive, 1500-level logic puzzle game that needs to run flawlessly on low-end mobile devices? You drop the frameworks and go back to the basics. I recently launched Ziply, a line-drawing logic puzzle game. Instead of using a heavy game engine like Unity or a web framework like React, I built it entirely from scratch using Core Vanilla JS, HTML, and CSS. Here is a breakdown of the architecture, the performance choices I made, and how I used AI to overcome my biggest algorithm roadblock. Why Vanilla JS? (Performance & Control) In a game where the user is rapidly dragging their finger across a grid to draw pipes, frame rate is everything. If I used React, every