Play Demo Online (6 playable puzzles; full game has 31 total)
A programming puzzle game inspired by Chip's Challenge and Untrusted
7 September 2026: Get the full game on Steam or try the online demo!
10 June 2025: Try the demo on Steam!
I plan to add the following to Pragma Twice in the near future:
- Autonomous solution time/golf histograms (Zachtronics-style)
- Cloud Save
- Localization (most major languages - if you are a programmer and want to see this game ported to your native language, shoot me an email)
Pragma Twice is a dystopian sci-fi themed puzzle game of the "programming" genre. It features a custom game engine written in TypeScript, pixel graphics, 6 background tracks by Irene Chan, an in-game Code Mirror console and editor, and puzzles that will take your programming skills to the next level (pun intended)! Every object in the game has an API, including yourself, and certain objects in the game (such as the player) additionally have JavaScript "kernels" -- snippets of code that control the object and allow it to interact with other objects. Most objects have a few secret parts to their APIs that you'll discover later in the game.
The Steam version of the game is an Electron app. Levels were designed using LDtk.
Some of the technical challenges I faced developing this game (these could become full articles someday):
- Sandboxing code so that players couldn't jailbreak (and modify the game engine) or crash the game (with an infinite loop, etc). (short answer: Web Workers + SharedArrayBuffer)
- Implementing "secret" methods on JS objects that I didn't want players to be able to find via `Object.keys()` or `console.log()` (short answer: Proxy)
Some of the non-technical challenges I faced developing this game:
- Limited time (career, family, church, etc.)
- Limited motivation (burnout, etc.)