Have you tried any of the Zachtronics games? Magnum Opus, Spacechem, etc?
Still scratches the “programming puzzle” itch for me, still complex in the later stages, but more bite sized problems so no refactoring/maintenance to speak of (unless you want to try reimplementing to beat your previous score).
I believe it was spacechem that made me long for testable components in the game, since the stage was conceptually getting several submodules to work, and then orchestrating their outputs into the final product
When I started longing for unit testing in a game, that was the end for me
Still scratches the “programming puzzle” itch for me, still complex in the later stages, but more bite sized problems so no refactoring/maintenance to speak of (unless you want to try reimplementing to beat your previous score).