Latest updates, new game modes and improvements from Beauty of Symmetry.
I have set the prizes for the winners of the Race competition. The player who is at the top of the leaderboard in each variant at 8:00 p.m. on 20 December 2026 will win €50.
The same prize will be awarded in all six variants, bringing the total prize money to €300.
Today, Monday, 17 August, I launched a series of prize challenges on the Beauty of Symmetry Instagram profile.
If you solve a challenge and are the first person to post the correct answer in the comments, you will receive the reward shown in the corresponding Reel. There are 30 challenges in total, so the combined prize money available to successful solvers is already quite interesting.
The reward can be transferred directly to the winner’s bank account.
I had previously published the same challenges on Facebook, but the response was surprising: despite each challenge receiving more than 200 views, not a single person submitted a correct solution.
With 30 challenges, that amounts to roughly 6,000 views in total – and yet not one challenge was solved.
This made me wonder: who was actually viewing my profile?
The challenges are not particularly difficult. So, does Meta’s software generate artificial views, or were the people who saw the posts simply not the right target audience? :-)
Yesterday, the latest version of Beauty of Symmetry – Update 4 – was approved and published on Google Play.
This update introduces two new ways to play: Pattern and Multiplayer.
In Pattern mode, the player is given a target pattern and must transform the starting position into the same symmetric arrangement.
The rules are simple and the game can be played as a relaxing visual puzzle. At the same time, solving Pattern puzzles challenges several cognitive skills:
Pattern is therefore easy to understand, but finding an efficient solution can require careful thinking and planning.
Multiplayer brings competition to Beauty of Symmetry. From 2 to 10 players can play together, with everyone receiving exactly the same puzzle in each of the 10 rounds.
After the tenth round, the final standings are calculated according to the total number of moves, with the total solving time used to decide between players when needed. The aim is simple: solve the same puzzles as your opponents using as few moves – and as little time – as possible.
This multiplayer mode is also designed as a basis for future Beauty of Symmetry competitions, which I plan to organise with players competing together in the same location.
In this article, I would like to look back at the entire development of Beauty of Symmetry. Maybe someone besides me will find it interesting – and perhaps get a slightly better idea of what kind of hell creating a game can actually be. :-)
I have always enjoyed inventing games. Together with Silvia, we used to make wooden logic games – tic-tac-toe, Nine Men's Morris, 3D tic-tac-toe and others – and offer them to small shops.
It was terrible business.
We probably underestimated the importance of marketing. Making something is difficult, but selling it can be much more difficult. Still, creating those games was great fun. I never saw it as a path to wealth. Other activities paid our bills.
About three years ago, an idea for a new game appeared in my head. For a long time, I did almost nothing with it. I didn't even draw it on paper. I simply kept turning the idea over in my mind.
Then, in December 2024, the idea finally matured.
On 12 December 2024 – 12/12, a nice date – I sat down at a table and drew the first game board. Or rather, game boards.
I started playing with the idea, testing it and refining the rules. By the end of January, the basic game was finished.
At first, I considered producing Beauty of Symmetry as a physical, paper-based game. But experience teaches you to calculate before you start producing things. The costs would have been considerable and the return on the investment very uncertain.
More importantly, this type of game seemed perfectly suited to a digital format.
So I abandoned the physical version and started thinking about an app.
There was one fairly significant obstacle.
I had absolutely no idea how to program it.
So I sat down at my computer and started learning JavaScript.
It took me exactly 86 lessons to understand one important thing: there was no realistic chance that I was going to program the whole game myself this way.
I therefore started looking for a programmer and a designer. My idea was to find a few people who might enjoy building something new with me – with one important difference: unlike me, they would actually be paid for their work.
What do you think happened?
I contacted around 20 people.
Even some who were not particularly busy refused. Some simply did not want to get involved, while others said they did not feel confident enough to take it on.
I found that surprisingly frustrating. People know how to program, but sometimes they are still afraid to try something unfamiliar.
Then I realised there was another possibility.
AI doesn't get tired of trying. Within its limits, it keeps helping, suggesting solutions and looking for another way when something does not work.
It doesn't complain. It doesn't lose patience. You can ask the same question ten different ways, break something that worked yesterday and come back again tomorrow.
In February 2025, I decided to build the game myself with AI as my development partner.
What followed was about a year of learning.
And I learned an incredible amount – or, more accurately, AI taught me an incredible amount.
At the same time, I had a front-row seat to something remarkable. During that single year, I could literally watch AI improve while we were working together.
By the time Beauty of Symmetry finally reached Google Play, I had spent approximately 1,050 hours working on it together with AI.
Today, I can take my phone out of my pocket and play my own game.
It doesn't have thousands of downloads. Far from it.
But it exists.
It has received a few great reviews. It has its own website. It has Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok accounts.
And I created all of it with the help of AI – the game itself, the website, images, videos and much more.
Making the game was one challenge.
Now I am learning how to make people notice it in a world containing millions of other games.
That means another round of learning: Reels, carousels, trailers, promotional videos and everything else that comes with trying to introduce a small independent game to the world.
Next year, I would like to go to Game Access in Brno. Not with some grand expectation of conquering the gaming industry. Mainly to experience it, meet people and have some fun.
I already have another game in my head.
We'll see whether I can find enough energy to make that one too.
There is one thing I already know: I probably won't look for development partners for my next project.
And that, I think, illustrates one of the much bigger consequences of AI.
For an individual creator, working with AI can be incredibly comfortable. There are no arguments, no scheduling problems, no hurt feelings and no frustration because someone has lost interest in the project.
Human cooperation has emotions, disagreements and imperfections. Working with AI can sometimes feel like the opposite – like the surface of a perfectly still lake, without the smallest wave.
It can feel almost idyllic.
But perhaps that is exactly the problem.
Social networks have already changed the way people interact with one another. AI may take this much further. If an artificial partner becomes easier, faster and more patient than a human one, how many people will still choose the complicated path of human collaboration?
I built Beauty of Symmetry because AI made something possible for me that I probably could not have done alone.
I am extremely grateful for that.
At the same time, my own experience makes me wonder what happens when millions of other people discover the same thing.
And we are still only at the beginning of the AI era.
Imagine where this could be in a few years.
Can you?
