A Puzzle a Day

Summary

A Puzzle a Day is a clever twist on the classic tangram concept. You’re given 8 colorful, irregular shapes and a game board that resembles a 7×7 grid - but with a catch: some cells are blocked and unusable, which changes how the pieces fit. Your goal: place all the pieces so that they don’t overlap, and exactly two valid cells remain empty - one for the month, and one for the day.

Behind the scenes, the entire game is powered by Named Formulas and User Defined Functions - a modern, maintainable approach to building logic in Power Apps. This design dramatically reduces code duplication, standardizes all calculations, and improves code redability by keeping the logic declarative and modular. Every shape move, rotation, or board update is calculated cleanly and efficiently.

Applies to

Compatibility

Contributors

• Katerina Chernevskaya

Version history

Version	Date	Comments
1.0	April 17, 2025	Initial release

Prerequisites

Make sure that experimental features are enabled:

• User-defined functions
• User-defined types

Minimal path to awesome

Using the solution zip

• Download the .zip from the solution folder
• Within Power Apps Studio, import the solution .zip file using Solutions > Import Solution and select the .zip file you just packed.

Using the source code

You can also use the Power Apps CLI to pack the source code by following these steps:

• Clone the repository to a local drive

• Pack the source files back into a solution .zip file:

  pac solution pack --zipfile pathtodestinationfile --folder pathtosourcefolder --processCanvasApps
  

  Making sure to replace pathtosourcefolder to point to the path to this sample's sourcecode folder, and pathtodestinationfile to point to the path of this solution's .zip file (located under the solution folder)

• Within Power Apps Studio, import the solution .zip file using Solutions > Import Solution and select the .zip file you just packed.

Features

• Fully declarative Power Fx architecture: no Power Automate, no connectors - built entirely with Named Formulas, User Defined Functions, and native Power Apps logic.
• Named Formulas as data model:
  • nfCanva — generates the board with titles and coordinates
  • nfShapesDefault — stores default shape geometry, rotations, positions
  • nfForbiddenCells — defines blocked cells on the board
• User Defined Functions (UDFs) for all game logic:
  • udfShape(shapeName) — central lookup returning all dynamic shape parameters
  • udfShapeCanvaCells(shapeName) — calculates absolute positions of shape cells based on position and rotation
  • udfMovementAvailability(shapeName) — returns movement availability in all four directions using smart collision detection
• Modular gameplay functions:
  • udfMove(...), udfRotate(...), udfRemoveShape(...) — all actions update both shape position and the board status (_canva)
  • udfUpdateCanva(...) — modular board painter used consistently for all shape actions

Help

We do not support samples, but this community is always willing to help, and we want to improve these samples. We use GitHub to track issues, which makes it easy for community members to volunteer their time and help resolve issues.

If you encounter any issues while using this sample, you can create a new issue.

For questions regarding this sample, create a new question.

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Disclaimer

THIS CODE IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.