Paul Lewandowski, APX Puzzler

Paul Lewandowski was in high school when he wrote Puzzler, which was published by Atari Program Exchange and won the Atari Star Award in fall 1983: first prize in the learning category.

Puzzler is a game that shows you a picture on the screen, chops it into equally sized squares, and scrambles them. Then, the player uses the joystick to try to put the picture back together - like one of those plastic puzzles where you slide numbers around to put them in order. Puzzler had three difficulty levels: 4x4 was easy, 8x8 was hard, and 10x10 was “insane”.

This interview took place on December 9, 2015

Teaser quote:

“The whole thing was such a great idea ... having users write programs. It was so ahead of its time.” 

Links

APX catalog featuring Puzzler

Puzzler download at AtariArchives.org

Paul on Twitter