12 ms·
Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?
- noelpotnic 1y agoWhatsit Daily Challenge Completed in: 1:26 #5 (0:46) #2 (0:04) #4 (0:09) #1 (0:21) #3 (0:06) https://www.whatsit.today/ https://www.whatsit.today/
- Hackbraten 1y agoNice work, especially the minimalistic user interface. It runs fine on my low-powered smartphone, which is good.
- 12907835202 1y agoWhatsit Daily Challenge Completed in: 2:43 #5 (1:18) #3 (0:04) #4 (0:46) #1 (0:27) #2 (0:09) https://www.whatsit.today/ https://www.whatsit.today/
- 1123581321 1y agoIt’s fun! There is occasionally out of order input on mobile when tapping quickly.
- mcintyre1994 1y agoNeat! I played a few days :) the only issue I had was that I found it quite easy to tap a previously selected letter, and that’d mess me up especially if it wasn’t the last letter so far in that word. I think it’d probably be better to add a backspace button in addition to the clear one, and not deselect letters by tapping them.
- upmostly 1y agoThis could be incredible. Kind of like Strands on NY Times but in Wordle format.
- mouse_ 1y ago25 seconds here i feel smug
- dlgeek 1y agoSPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS AHEAD Today's challenge ("Sports Teams") was particularly easy because each one was plural. That made each one "unscramble a 4 letter word" instead of a 5. Might be a consideration for the future.
- khazhoux 1y agoCheck out the big brain on Brad!! I didn't spot this :-)
- card_zero 1y agoIt said LOINS is "not a valid word".
- danhau 1y agoLIONS
- GilbertErik 1y agoThere's no professional sports team (the category for the day) called the 'LOINS'
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- linsomniac 1y agoA coworker and my wife and I have recently been really enjoying https://bracket.city https://bracket.city which is a crossword-clue inspired word game with daily puzzles. It does take a little while to figure out, I'd recommend starting off asking for hints fairly often to decrease frustration, but after a couple weeks my wife and I are on a streak of 3 days of scoring 100.
- mildavw 1y agoFinal score: 4.0 :/ But pretty creative game. Thanks for sharing!
- linsomniac 1y agoThat is probably around where my first score was. :-) My wife and I had a 0 a couple weeks ago.
- j_bum 1y agoOh we absolutely love bracket city, +1 I’ve showed it to my friends, and it’s stuck. My brother shared it with all of his coworkers and they’re now playing too. It’s fun watching it “spread” amongst my social group
- linsomniac 1y agoYou've had better luck spreading it than I have it sounds like. Everyone I've mentioned it to has said "It's too hard" and I don't think has really even given it a shot.
- xnorswap 1y agoNeat puzzle. My first wrong answer was an international spelling issue. It would be nice if it accepted then silently corrected based on equivalent international spellings, but I can also understand why it doesn't, sometimes it might be more crucial to the solution.
- 1y ago
- carmela219 1y agoWhatsit Daily Challenge Completed in: 0:23 #1 (0:05) #2 (0:04) #3 (0:05) #4 (0:04) #5 (0:05) https://www.whatsit.today/ https://www.whatsit.today/
- soneca 1y agoI think it has some potential, but I found today’s puzzle just too easy. I never play for speed, but even if I was, playing on a iPhone, it missed a lot of touches that I only noticed when I was typing a few letters ahead. So I had to come back, erase what I typed and start over. It was annoying already, but if I was playing for speed, it would be a deal breaker.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hn111 1y agoVery nice! On iOS it does not seem to register fast consecutive taps correctly, if that’s fixed I would actually like to play this more often
- IronRod 1y agoSame on Android
- iandanforth 1y agoFirst clue of "Professional Sports Teams" and I noped right out. Sportsball is a pretty big red flag that the content presented is not for me.
- mkate 1y agothere are actually other categories available. Check it out tomorrow and it won't be about sports :D
- mft_ 1y agoNice concept, but US-centric short/slang sports teams' names is a bit misjudged as the very first puzzle when introducing your new game to an international audience. I solved them because they're (mostly) words rather than them having meaning to me.
- enlyth 1y agoI wish there was a more internationally friendly version of NYT Games, they're so fun and I play them daily but a lot US cultural knowledge is required at times
- angry_moose 1y agoIt cuts both ways. Cryptic Crosswords are almost impenetrable from the US as they're so deep in UK specific words, spellings, and trivia.
- zem 1y agothere are some good american and canadian cryptics but i agree, it's a largely uk-centred pastime.
- angry_moose 1y agoInteresting. Any suggestions? I've looked in the past and didn't have much luck.
- zem 1y agolots of suggestions here: https://old.reddit.com/r/crosswords/comments/kqkbrq/what_are_your_favourite_sources_for_american/ https://old.reddit.com/r/crosswords/comments/kqkbrq/what_are... the new yorker archives are a great place to start https://www.newyorker.com/tag/cryptic-crossword https://www.newyorker.com/tag/cryptic-crossword
- MalcolmDwyer 1y ago
- hirako2000 1y agoLess localized words would be better. Sports teams in the U.S. are not that popular outside the U.S. UI is splendid.
- zoklet-enjoyer 1y agoThat was fun
- gizajob 1y agoBit too easy to have repeat value
- MattSayar 1y agoFun! I look forward to seeing what future categories and words are. Do you have to manually curate them each day? How big is your backlog? Is there a way to automate it?
- mkate 1y agothanks a lot :) yes my friend and I are designing the categories and the words manually with a tiny bit of help from AI tools but you can't fully trust them as they try to sneak in 6 and 4 letter words
- MattSayar 1y agoI have a Wordle-type clone I'm toying with and getting it to wrangle the correct letters is a harder problem than it seems. Hopefully you're able to streamline your design process so it's as painless as possible!
- andoando 1y agoFor mobile a button to clear the row by the word next to each word would be nice.
- kylecazar 1y agoI really like it (I play the NYT games daily). The UI is slick. As others have mentioned categories could probably have broader/non-US content but that's easy. The site/format itself is great.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- markx2 1y agoI see - thank you uMatrix - that you use plausible.io I block all such tracking, so thanks for allowing me to play without that tracking. I do realise that such blocking affects your stats so if you could devise a way to track without using an external service that would be great.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- fl4tul4 1y agoTo tell you a brutal truth, I dislike any timed game.
- massive-fail 1y agoSame! However, I think the OP has done a good job. On mini games like this, I guess it doesn't bother me. I only get frustrated if I have invested time and they throw a timer in. Such a dated mechanic.
- pnm45678 1y agoThe limiting time factor for me was the clicking around on the page. Allowing keyboard input somehow would be a plus.
- pnm45678 1y agoIt seems not to accept a correct answer, "ladel" for Wednesday, March 26, 2025 (minor spoiler, apologies!)
- angry_moose 1y ago"Ladel" isn't actually in the dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ladel https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ladel https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ladel https://www.dictionary.com/browse/ladel https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/spellcheck/english?q=ladel https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/spellcheck/english?q=la... OED has it as an incorrect/unusual variant: https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=ladel https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=ladel It's misspelled constantly on the internet, but "ladle" is the correct spelling.
- pnm45678 1y agoAh, fair enough! Thanks
- pnm45678 1y agoI like the calendar where you can go back to play other days. Enhancement request: would be nice for this to have an indicator of which days you have already played.
- mkate 1y agothat's a great point! thanks a lot
- jxjnskkzxxhx 1y agoSports teams? Who cares?
- DistractionRect 1y agoI agree, today's challenge was really easy. But I did enjoy the other days, I played all of them! What I'd like is an option to show the answers after failing (not by default, so you can still choose to replay if you want). For instance, I cannot for the life of me get the music act that's associated with "FALMO".
- jihadjihad 1y agoLMFAO?
- DistractionRect 1y agoThat was it! I was busy looking for a word rather than an acronym
- jpjoi 1y agoThis reminds me a lot of NYT strands, in the sense that it’s “multiple themed rounds of classic word game format X” In the strands example, the base word game is a word search in which they break the rules a bit to make it harder. Here it’s a simple word unscrambling. Makes me wonder what other games you could make by following this “themed rounds of X” format.
- pnm45678 1y agoCouple of minor bugs, one of which is arguably not a bug: 1. When you play a game for the first time it invites you to make an account. When you make an account, it seems to forget that you played that particular game already. 2. By manipulating the URL you can play games from the future.
- WoodenChair 1y agoQuick UI suggestion: Let users playing on desktop type the letters.
- Retr0id 1y agoI spent several seconds trying to click on the "Build your word here" box to put the cursor there
- spicybright 1y agoJust worked through a lot of the puzzles. I love the concept, and I also like how the timer doesn't reset when you switch between them. 3 pieces of feedback: 1. Since your time matters, a start button before a new puzzle is presented would be nice. 2. I wanted to play more puzzles but didn't realize the calendar button up top switched puzzles till reading comments. I think fading the screen with an overlay with the existing buttons and adding a "Play Another?" button would hook people in more. 3. Some of the scrambles are too easy. Maybe that's by design, but an example is "PAWSN" in the apr 4th chess puzzle, it's stupidly obvious compared to the other words. But again really awesome content and would make an amazing mobile website or app.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- spicybright 1y agoCould you share how you pick each day's words?
- mkate 1y agowe design them ourselves a bit of a manual process but quite fun
- snozolli 1y ago"Build your word here" really confused me. I thought that was a text box that I was supposed to activate.
- theyinwhy 1y agoWell done. 2 observations: when pressing the letters quickly it does not register them properly. I don't understand why the 5 letter limit.
- kdamica 1y agoFun game but you should disallow plurals. Overall I’d say use the same word rules as Wordle. Almost all my words were plurals and so were uninteresting, but if that was fixed I would play this!
- nvr219 1y agoI like it!
- pure-developer 1y agoThe top hint makes it bit too easy, but I guess if there’s only multiple valid words you need to narrow it down by some prompt
- jonplackett 1y agoI’m not much of a puzzler, I like a crossword or a sudoku and that’s all really - but I didn’t understand what I was meant to do? Edit; oh ok I get it now.. It could be fun but now I know what to do it’s not very challenging. The speed is more determined by the speed I can type that the words. Maybe one letter longer?
- wordglyph 1y ago[flagged]
- stephantul 1y agoVery nice! One confusing prompt is “not a valid word” when the word is actually valid, it’s just not the word you are looking for.
- mrinterweb 1y agoI would prefer if less plurals were used. Every word in my puzzle ended with an 's' as a plural.
- r0fl 1y agoSame Spurs Hawks Kings Pawns
- angry_moose 1y agoAs they're the name of US professional sports teams, that's the official name of the teams. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Hawks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Hawks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Lions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Lions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_Spurs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_Spurs Previous puzzles don't have many plurals, but its the correct choice for this puzzle.
- angry_moose 1y agoA few pieces of feedback from me: 1) Keyboard input would be really nice, especially playing on desktop 2) A "give up" button instead of a 5 minute timeout would be appreciated 3) It might be more fun/challenging if you don't give the category, but have to guess the category after unscrambling the words.
- evanb 1y agoKeyboard is essential; my time was dominated not by the time it took me to solve but the time it took me to click around with my mouse.
- Alifatisk 1y agoWhat professional sports team has the letters 'P', 'R', 'U', 'S', 'S'?
- angry_moose 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_Spurs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Antonio_Spurs
- Alifatisk 1y agoAhhh, thanks!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tlarkworthy 1y agoIt was spurs that made me think it was UK centric, lions as well is valid for England too
- Y444 1y agoProduct manager ex. game designer with a number of puzzle/word game in operation here. - Having a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games. If you insist on having a timer consider making it count upwards. - Additionally as other commenters mentioned is the game is a time trial it needs an explicit “Start” button. Also stop the timer when user is not playing e.g. reading the rules. - There’s no point of having a “Play again” option for a Wordle style daily game, the thinking part is already done, so any replay is just an exercise in dexterity. - It’s okay to be US-centric actually, doesn’t matter unless you are very serious about monetizing it, and even then being US-centric will work. - Consider showing rules for first time users before staring the puzzle. - Consider having some sort of overarching thing in your puzzle, so it’s not just five words on a specific topic to guess, but something more, like a hidden word across all five etc. This makes a delightful discovery moment and sometimes might work as a clue.
- JKCalhoun 1y agoAgree that timers suck the fun out of a game like this. I avoid any solitaire game with a timer for example.
- Y444 1y agoSome crossword people like having their timers (see NYT Games app for example), but as I’ve mentioned the timers are counting up, not triggering any negative conditions, and can be turned off completely.
- accrual 1y agoThe OG Windows 3 solitaire has an option to disable the timer, it's one of the first things I uncheck. I did "speedrun" solitaire in my computer classes for fun, though. :)
- megadata 1y ago> and even then being US-centric will work. The world has sadly changed a lot in recent months.
- nrjames 1y agoI made a word game while playing with a few ideas, like anonymous usernames and leaderboards. I still poke at some aspects of it. There’s a rare scoring bug I need to isolate and fix. Anyhow, feel free to look. :) https://www.gorillasuit.io/ https://www.gorillasuit.io/ Edit: coming up with a reasonable algorithm for scoring is far more difficult than it looks. I guess most of the word games floating around don't have scoring for a reason.
- wordglyph 1y ago[flagged]
- whimsicalism 1y agoi think this was a bad first puzzle for posting on hn, seemed a bit on the easy side as well, but nice concept
- youaskiansjjd 1y agoBoring and derivative.
- megadata 1y agoMight want to have an international version too? I don't know US sport teams.
- bbayer 1y agoFor some tips :) https://theunscrambled.com/anagram-solver https://theunscrambled.com/anagram-solver
- bilater 1y agoCool. I think low hanging fruit to add drag n drop. Some options are libraries like dnd-kit or hello-pangea/dnd.
- IronCoder1 1y ago[flagged]
- ph4evers 1y agoLove it!
- LtWorf 1y agoWhy is "loins" not a valid word? AFAIK it is. I am the maintainer of parolottero, another word game (I made it to be used on plasma-mobile) and finding good word lists is not easy at all. I have a decent one for italian but not for english. Which one are you using?
- tartoran 1y agoFor anyone interested in word games there's a very fun and free wordle like game I ended up playing daily for the past year, check out https://www.threemagicwords.app/ https://www.threemagicwords.app/ I'm not the author so this is not a shameless plug, just a good game that is playable on your phone without installing any app.
- wordglyph 1y ago[flagged]
- nabeards 1y agoStop spamming the thread, sheesh.
- kevinventullo 1y agoSo I actually like the timer and potential competitive aspect of it. If you want to lean into that, consider adding leaderboards and percentiles.
- joshdavham 1y agoWill you open source this by any chance? I'd be curious how it was built!
- frankdenbow 1y agoNice work! Would like to see what the correct result would have been for ones I didnt get after the time expires. Keep going!
- Alfonrock 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- skupig 1y agoNice UI, but I think someone needs to say it: there's no novel concept here, I've seen the exact same game printed in magazines and on kids' menus. If you're trying to catch people's attention, you need a clever gimmick that they haven't seen before.
- globular-toast 1y agoYeah, I don't really get it. Five unrelated anagrams? I was expecting something to happen but it's just the anagrams that I did in a fraction of the time given despite not having a clue what sports those teams play, assuming they exist.
- rco8786 1y agoAt first I though I was supposed to make one word using one letter from each row. I think that might be a fun variation, honestly.
- godelski 1y agoFirst off, I love the game. Your mom isn't just placating you. It is fun. Second, I think given all this advice a real clear example can be seen by looking at NYT's Wordle[0]. Instructions are the first thing you see and cover the puzzle. You then click start. Importantly, the instructions have an example. While the puzzle is extremely intuitive, an example can eliminate almost any ambiguity (intuitive for most people but maybe not kids, non-native English speakers, or just things like someone shoves the game into their friends face. Who knows). There can be a button on the side to show instructions again, which should cover the puzzle and stop the timer. > Having a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games. Personally, I like the timer. The game is simple and clearly meant to be played in a small fast setting, so I think this works. Can also reduce pressure (as well as induce) since someone might think "oh, I got 5 minutes to play" instead of having to "sit down". There's plenty of "thinky games" that have timers: Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are two good examples. Almost any TV game is timed. I don't think there's a problem with this and the pressure can make it fun while also conveying that it won't take a person all day. > There’s no point of having a “Play again” Could be good to show solutions. If not, maybe also count "attempts"? IDK [0] https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html
- latexr 1y ago> Almost any TV game is timed. For the benefit of the audience watching, not the player. You wouldn’t want someone consuming the whole show because they do not make a move. There’s little reason to care about time limits on a game someone plays by themselves.
- esperent 1y ago> Personally, I like the timer. Personally, I hate the timer. It makes me feel stressed. I guessed the first word then decided to stop playing because of the timer. It's clear while some people appreciate it, many people won't play the game if it has a timer. So, make it optional.
- godelski 1y agoThere's a 5 minute timer you can effectively guess all permutations in that time. Ignore the timer. The only real limitation is coming from you. There needs to be some limit like how wordle limits the number of guesses. The timer is good in that it can put pressure in especially considering how simple the game is. The long length means almost everyone has enough time
- bkvvldmr 1y agoLove it!
- chester195 1y agoThis was super fun and just played the whole back catalogue. SPOILER BELOW Took a few games to notice but one minor issue is that in each game the pattern for each row is the same, e.g 3rd row is 2,4,1,3,5. Randomising this would make it better.
- cgomez 1y agoPleasant and responsive lightweight design, but the game itself just has no difficulty to it. Tried four puzzles and all were done in 15 seconds.
- wileydragonfly 1y agoI like it.
- bbstats 1y agoLittle too easy
- windowshopping 1y agoIs this a word game? In all honesty I don't see how it isn't just 5 anagrams with a related theme. I don't know if I'd call that a word game.
- whiterook6 1y agoIt's nice but it takes a million clicks to get to another day's puzzle. Tap to close the results page, Tap the toast to show the close button, tap the close button, tap the calendar, tap the day. Maybe some big left and right arrows at the top of the page?
- whacko_quacko 1y agoI like it
- tuukkah 1y agoI think you shouldn't include proper nouns (like there's one in the Apr 6 solution).
- mottaquikarim 1y agoI ended up building a word game last year for the wife and I to play, we kinda forgot about it but this post reminded me (so thanks for that, OP) Just visited and turns out some people still play! https://playfreestyle.co/new https://playfreestyle.co/new
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- maest 1y ago> Professional Sports Teams All American teams, so I got very few of them / care very little about them.
- ShamilDibirov 1y agoWould be great to have "Hint" button
- electromech 1y agoI love the game! I hate hate hate the timer though. Other than the timer I'd happily add this to my daily word game routine.
- thecmrfrd 1y agoI like this concept! I've seen other games like https://wordputt.com https://wordputt.com which try to go semantic instead of categorical.
- willf 1y agoI so hate timers. I left immediately. Sure, have a count up timer for those who what it, but make sure to allow it to be turned off permanently
- anonu 1y agoReminds me of https://www.sporcle.com/ https://www.sporcle.com/
- ucirello 1y agoles circuits de consécration sociale, sera d'autant plus efficace plus la distance sociale de l'objet consacrée - Bourdieu
- rcyeh 1y agoNice! One nit: if playing an archive game (from a previous date), when opening the calendar, would you show not the current month, but the month of the game? This would make it easier to go back to other dates.
- coldtrait 1y agoI like it because it scratches my jumble itch.
- bhtru 1y agoSomeone needs to tell me what word could there be with TCAAN? What dictionary are you using OP? edit: IT'S CATAN. Smh
- genezeta 1y agoWhile the game is ok, there's unfortunately a problem on Firefox on Android. I know, who cares, only three people in the planet use Firefox on Android. But if you want to know anyway... The problem is the sizes are not adjusted correctly and so the fixed header/upper part overlaps the scrambled word list, almost completely hiding the first word. You can, through some tricky scrolling, manage to see it and then solve it. But it's tricky. And ugly.
- MrJohz 1y agoFwiw, I am one of the other two people with Firefox on Android and am not having this issue, so it might be a question of screen size rather than browser?
- genezeta 1y agoCould be, but I've tried on the same phone on Chrome and it works there.
- cookie_monsta 1y agoThe other guy checking in here. No problems with FF on Android for me either
- genezeta 1y agoOk then. I'll assume it's something on my part.
- stevage 1y agoIt should show instructions the first time, without prompting. I was just confused for a long time. The icons at the start and end of each row were distracting and confusing.
- glitchc 1y agoGreat idea, like the game. Thanks for making and sharing!
- rao-d 1y agoFirst of all, great game, just the kind I love. Personally, I love the timer. I can see varying opinions though. Perhaps a toggle for easy mode (no timer) or hard mode (timer, track and beat your own time)
- div3rs3 1y agoNice job! Pretty fun game. Only improvement ideas I have are for a smoother start for new players: 1. Let the user start the game themselves so that they have a chance to read the rules without a stressful first impression. 2. Use a different label text than "Build your word here" as it sounds like a drag and drop target rather than an output.
- samg19 1y ago- love the concept, it was unclear at first how to delete a single letter when the button clears the whole word. - I see the comments about a timer but maybe the user can have the option to enable/disable. - Ability to make words more challenging - ability to play previous day games - pop-up instructions for new users - would my mom know what to do when playing for the first time?
- moomin 1y agoOne small piece of feedback: typically these games do not allow proper nouns, because there’s too many of them. So having “Catan” be a valid word is pretty awful.
- Alfonrock 1y ago[dead]
- pope_meat 1y agoMy favorite part about your game is the A B testing with your mom liking it and not liking it. Your mom liked the game I played with her too. Got em.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- eps 1y agoOn an older iPad I get "Application error: a client-side exception has occurred while loading www.whatsit.today (see the browser console for more information)." neatly centred on an otherwise blank page.
- admiralrohan 1y agoIt starts the timer before I can understand what it is. So annoying.
- alanbernstein 1y agoCool - it's nearly a subset of Jumble, which I prefer because of the secondary mechanism of solving a pun to guess backwards.
- hn8726 1y agoWhat I don't get is whether the mechanics of selecting letters are supposed to be significant. It's pretty odd to click `a b c`, then missclick `a` again and end up with `b c` which means I have to click `b` and `c` only to go for `a b c d` all over again
- n-gauge 1y agoJust feedback from me: I enjoyed it and found it non frustrating to use. Not sure if I would create an account for it though.
- greybox 1y agoThat was fun, thank you! Whatsit Daily Challenge Completed in: 3:28 #1 (1:02) #2 (0:43) #3 (0:29) #4 (0:43) #5 (0:32) https://www.whatsit.today/ https://www.whatsit.today/
- jamesdhutton 1y agoIt was fun. Couple of suggestions: - It gave me “TCAAN” which stumped me. Afterwards I pasted it into the Internet Anagram Server, which failed to find any acronyms for it. So I can say with some confidence I don’t think it’s a valid word. Suggest making sure you’re using a dictionary similar to Wordle’s one. - The game should reveal the solution at the end if the player fails to guess any words.
- bogtog 1y agoCatan! (of settling fame)
- jamesdhutton 1y agoAhhh. Proper noun though right? I would suggest excluding proper nouns.
- kevincox 1y agoYeah, it was a bit strange but it did fit the theme of board games which was a solid hint.
- djaychela 1y agoCame here to say exactly this. I let the timer expire and was expecting to be able to see the answer rather than resort to an anagram solver site...
- SamBam 1y agoThe game ought to make it explicit that proper names are allowed. But, personally, I would remove proper names, to make it more like most other word games (wordle, spelling bee, jumble, etc.). Crosswords do have proper names, but they've got the clue context to go with them.
- zTgx 1y ago[dead]
- ascorbic 1y agoI like it, but here's my feedback: - let me use keyboard input - don't include proper nouns! I did't get catan because I wasn't expecting that - show the answers at the end. Still didn't get catan after, and anagram solvers didn't find it. It was only when I came here that I saw the answer
- derdi 1y agoNice game. Tedious to use on a laptop with a trackpad. You should allow keyboard input. Managing accounts is a huge headache both for yourself and for your users. It's a bunch of code and responsibility for you to manage people's private data securely. It's one more password to manage for your users. You could just use cookies to track daily progress, like catfishing.net does. So what if that doesn't let me have my data available across browsers? It's just a game, tracking progress does not matter that much.
- ms7892 1y agoAddictive. What was third word?
- nkrisc 1y agoSaw timer, closed tab. Would try it if there's no timer.
- dr_ 1y agoIs there an option where if you don’t guess a word, it tells you what it was (at least after the timer is up?).
- tlh 1y agoIt can be a slog to build and release a game like this, so well done on getting it out! Personally, I think it’s quite well polished UI wise. UX wise I guess keyboard input as others have said would be nice. On mobile I really want to drag the letters to re-order them, - but - at the same time it works just fine. We’ve had loads of feedback for https://puzzlist.com/stackdown https://puzzlist.com/stackdown and I felt pretty overwhelmed so if you feel like that, be encouraged, squint your eyes and see all the positivity from what you’ve made!
- uptownfunk 1y agoIt’s good, well done
- y-curious 1y agoI got the letters "AACNT" and even cheated online. The only word online dictionaries could make was "TACAN" and it wasn't accepted.
- tczMUFlmoNk 1y agoSince the category is "Games", the answer is [Settlers of] CATAN.
- 1000100_1000101 1y agoI got stuck on Catan for a while too, as I assumed it was like most games and didn't use names. At some point I just moved on, and solved the next word, Chess, in like 2 seconds. The results claimed I spent a whole pile of time on Chess, since it has no idea which result I'm thinking of solving (though all the wrong guesses for Catan should have been a clue that the time should have gone towards Catan.) I'm not sure the per-word time values are useful if they can't be trusted to be accurate.
- ulfw 1y agoYour mom loves you. Cherish that! I wish mine was still alive
- astura 1y agoI hate anagrams.
- dybber 1y agoDidn’t see that there was a theme at first, and I think after trying some of the other dates having that theme makes it too easy
- curtisszmania 1y ago[dead]
- wrsh07 1y agoThis is fun! I like the timing challenge but for many people this is a turnoff (there's a great interview with Zach Gage^ where he discusses research - some people are unable to critically think / learn new things while under pressure) So giving a sandbox where there is no pressure will probably be more fun for a large subset of players My only real complaint: please include a puzzle version number in the auto copied share link so that if I solve yesterday's you know that's different from you solving today's Incidentally you could probably let people try historic puzzles from the link if you wanted (compete on that one vs play today's), that would be a nice wordle feature ^ I think the humans make games podcast
- nisse72 1y agoI like the idea but there were several examples where I found a word but it was not the word the game wanted, and I was told "invalid word". Examples: I found "STONE" but the correct word was "NOTES", or "SPILL" vs "PILLS" etc. Extremely frustrating!
- nazgul17 1y agoAnd don't forget TONES!
- karpatic 1y agoMy friend whos loves word games said she liked it. Asked for the link so I sent it along. Critique was that proper nouns should be removed as it caused a great deal of uncertainy about weather the remaining words would be known.
- niccl 1y agois it intentional that one arrangement of the letters is correct when another, equally correct, arrangement is wrong? eg 'L L I P S' can be 'SPILL' or PILLS, but only PILLS is accepted. Similarly for NOTES being 'correct' but STONE being wrong.
- alkonaut 1y agoAs umpteen other have said: drop the timer and add drag & drop and it's a winner. The problem (compared to wordle) I think is that it requires manual work to make the categories. If you want to rank the results I think number of guesses is better than shortest time. But it also feels like one of these things where a ChatGPT could help you create the game data very easily. It excels as these things like "give me 1000 categories of 6 letter words grouped with 5 in each category". That would have been a chore, but now it's just easy. Not sure if that's what you did here already.
- vladnedelcu 1y agoseems like a wordle with a super clean interface. I like the animations on completion and not guessing a word. I also suggest that maybe the animations are shorted as this is a time focused game, I want as a user as little distractions as possible.
- sdotdev 1y agoYour moms right for sure I think adding a theme to all the words like food, names or something random like that could make it more fun. It could also make it easier to there's that too. Nice game though
- realxrobau 1y agoThis is your only post, and you haven't responded to anything in 4 days. Was this just a marketing ploy?
- blaix 1y agoI tried "coins" so many times, getting so angry, before reading the title that said "video game characters"