Make A Sokoban Game

Use Puzzlescript

Have you ever wanted to create your own Sokoban-style puzzles, even if you’ve never made a game before?

PuzzleScript is a free, open-source game engine built for creating Sokoban-style puzzle games and other grid-based games, right in your browser. It uses simple 5x5 pixel sprites, so you can build games quick and test ideas. Good for beginners, but powerful enough to create very complex ideas. I used PuzzleScript to design the puzzles in my indie game, Puzzledorf.

On this page, you’ll find a collection of step-by-step tutorials from my YouTube channel that will walk you through building your own Sokoban-style game from scratch.

Pixel art showing a sokoban-style puzzle concept made in Puzzlescript for the game Puzzledorf

How to Make Your First Sokoban Game with PuzzleScript

This video will teach you the basics of the PuzzleScript editor and help you get started with making your very first Sokoban-style game in PuzzleScript.
Make sure you first open the PuzzleScript Editor. By the end, you’ll be able to have your own Sokoban prototype running in PuzzleScript.

See What Puzzlescript Inspired

Every block has a purpose. Every move matters. Can you escape the land of puzzles? Click to find out!

Animated GIF of Puzzledorf, a pixel art Sokoban style puzzle game. Shows the player pushing boulders out of the way, to get the red block on the red target

Promo art for Puzzledorf, a pixel art sokoban puzzle game. Can you solve it? Links to the game Steam page.

Discover Puzzledorf button linking to the Puzzledorf home page where you can learn more

“Puzzledorf is a wonderful little puzzle game. It is simple yet elegant, and delivers its content beautifully.”
8.5 – Everyone's Arcade

How To Code In PuzzleScript

This video teaches you the first steps of coding in PuzzleScript so you can make Sokoban games, including:

How to understand PuzzleScript code
How to push blocks
How to pull blocks
Dealing with errors
Different movement ideas

By the end, you’ll be able to create several different types of puzzles and handle common issues.

How to Add Collisions and Create Objects in PuzzleScript

In this video you will be learning to use Puzzlescript's pixel art editor to create objects with the 5x5 sprites. You'll learn things like:

Making a game object
Adding it to the legend so you can use it
Add objects to the collision layer so they can touch

By the end, you’ll understand the correct way to create and define objects, how to make them interact with each other (or not) and them on proper layers.

I used PuzzleScript to Design Puzzledorf - Learn More

Animated GIF of Puzzledorf, a pixel art Sokoban style puzzle game. Shows a mysterious world filled with purple trees. The player is pushing coloured blocks around a tight maze on an island in a lake

“This is truly an amazing puzzle game.” 9/10 – Chocklah

How To Create Different Puzzle Types and Win Conditions

Want to make something different to traditional Sokoban? Want players to have a different goal other than just push the block on the target? This video will teach you how to set different win conditions so you can make other puzzle types in PuzzleScript. By the end, you’ll control timing (e.g., traps) with predictable rule order. Go beyond traditional Sokoban!

How to use the 'Late Command' and How Code Runs in PuzzleScript

This video teaches you how to use the 'Late' command in PuzzleScript. This is useful for things like, when you walk onto a spike trap, making sure the player dies at the right time. I also explain the order in which code runs in PuzzleScript for top to bottom, how that affects things, and how late behaves differently.

If you liked these tutorials, check out Puzzledorf

I used PuzzleScript to design all of my ideas for Puzzledorf.

“The classic box pushing puzzle game is especially fun if set up well, and Puzzledorf is short, sweet, but immensely satisfying.”
94/100 – CCGR