Samon: Designing a Zen Garden Raking Puzzle

networked 38 points 14 comments October 05, 2026
gwern.net · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (6 comments)

lubujackson

Surprisingly deep and seems quite in line with the underlying concept of Zen gardens.

duhhhhh1212

https://www.pangram.com/history/cfc9ee7e-b1f5-4ce0-8377-6102... No surprise there.

mcphage

It’s not exactly the same, but Zen Puzzle Garden ( https://www.lexaloffle.com/zen.php ) has been around since the 90s.

Wowfunhappy

If you like this, I happen to think Cardinal Chains is a more interesting take on the same overall concept: https://danijmn.itch.io/cardinalchains

TZubiri

If you transpile convert this to CSS with some turing complete JS to CSS transpiler, you could submit this to that Zen Garden CSS zine

contingencies

Ideas for elevated difficulty and more complex mechanics: animal interactions, precipitation, water interactions, wind interactions, directional and variant lighting, mirrors, earthquakes, plant/fern/bryophyte interactions (volunteer plants, spreading plants, pop-ups, seasonal flowering, seed dropping), plants that respond to nutrient/sun/seasonal conditions, littering humans.

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