[swatcoder]

Solvers are useful for confirming that a puzzle you've recieved or generated is solvable. The meditative process can really go sideways when there is no solution for you to stumble upon.

Puzzles in commercial collections don't usually have that problem, but those from other sources sometimes do.

Solvers also make for a nice craft exercise, as here. Simple but not trivial, you can approach them in a lot of different ways and thereby work through different techniques or constraints you mean to explore.

[sellyme]

> Puzzles in commercial collections don't usually have that problem,

I would argue that puzzles in commercial collections are more likely to have that problem than ones made freely available by hobbyists, as commercial enterprises inevitably cut corners on things like labour costs for an actual human setter.

I have seen dozens of commercial puzzle games and applications that do not make any attempt to verify the (auto-generated) puzzles as solvable, but I don't think I've ever had the same problem on a site like LMD.