Show HN: Darkenn – Lights Out style puzzle game with global leaderboard • Hacker News Board

Show HN: Darkenn – Lights Out style puzzle game with global leaderboard

#1

Post by anirbanhere » Mon, Jun 22, 2026, 8:11 PM UTC

I used AI coding tools to create a single-player logic game called Darkenn. It is like a single player version of Go. Every move flips one cell and its neighbours. Under the hood it is linear algebra over GF(2), and the solver computes a minimum-move solution rather than just any solution. I have been personally drawn towards games and what they teach us. Darkenn teaches us seeing dependencies over one action and its flow towards the final goal.

Show HN: Darkenn – Lights Out style puzzle game with global leaderboard
darkenn.com

Re: Show HN: Darkenn – Lights Out style puzzle game with global leaderboard

#2

Post by samirchowdhury » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 12:58 PM UTC

Fun! Would you want to write up the math of how this works?

EDIT: clicked through to the "About the game" section. Nice.

Re: Show HN: Darkenn – Lights Out style puzzle game with global leaderboard

#3

Post by anirbanhere » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 2:51 PM UTC

samirchowdhury wrote: post #2

Fun! Would you want to write up the math of how this works? EDIT: clicked through to the "About the game" section. Nice.

During development of the game I went through many articles on how the math of of this works, some notable ones are: 1. https://oeis.org/A093614 & https://mathworld.wolfram.com/LightsOutPuzzle.html 2. https://imois.in/posts/the-properties-of-lights-out-the-game...

Re: Show HN: Darkenn – Lights Out style puzzle game with global leaderboard

#4

Post by samirchowdhury » Tue, Jun 23, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

anirbanhere wrote: post #3

samirchowdhury wrote: post #2

Fun! Would you want to write up the math of how this works? EDIT: clicked through to the "About the game" section. Nice.

During development of the game I went through many articles on how the math of of this works, some notable ones are: 1. https://oeis.org/A093614 & https://mathworld.wolfram.com/LightsOutPuzzle.html 2. https://imois.in/posts/the-properties-of-lights-out-the-game...

I was not expecting an OEIS reference. You must have had a lot of fun with this one. Thanks for the links!