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pompomsheep 12 hours ago [-]
Thanks everyone for the feedback! Two questions
1. For a version without the timer what would you like to happen if you are just completely stuck on a word? Hints to reveal letters or skip the word?
2. For those who like the timed version would you prefer to continue when you miss a word and then get a final score out of 18?
kokanee 12 hours ago [-]
Just a vote since I'm seeing a lot of anti-timer sentiment: I like the timer because it creates a conclusive way for the game to end, and causes me to spend a lot less time on the game, I imagine. But I also think it makes sense to have a non-timer mode. It would also be cool to have like 3 shuffles that you are allowed to use. As an exit to the non-timer mode, I think it would be fine to have an "I give up " button.
unholiness 11 hours ago [-]
I also love the countdown. Counterintuitively it makes the game less stressful — the counter goes back to 30 no matter what. If the timer counted up, you'd constantly need to care about getting each one as fast as possible, or fret about one that's taking you minutes, etc.
With the countdown, you more want to care about the high level stuff: Keep your brain agile enough to get the next one, figure out more general patterns, ensure you "cover" the promising patterns, notice tough spots (with tons of patterns) where you you'll need to lock in. That stuff is more fun to focus on than speed.
Everyone wants to fail less, sure. It's not surprising people's feedback focuses on the mechanic that made you fail! That doesn't mean changing that bit will make the game more fun.
latexr 10 hours ago [-]
> If the timer counted up, you'd constantly need to care about getting each one as fast as possible, or fret about one that's taking you minutes, etc.
The timer doesn’t have to be visible at all until the end.
> Everyone wants to fail less, sure.
It has nothing to do with not wanting to fail. Sometimes people just want to chill a bit or kill a few minutes with a simple word puzzle that engages your game without being stressful. This game doesn’t even let you repeat the challenges you took, so to play it you always have to be highly engaged. That’s fine for some games, but not every game needs to be like that, and this one doesn’t.
No one’s asking timer mode to go away, or even become the default, just to have the alternative option.
furyofantares 7 hours ago [-]
A problem with timers in word games is players vary A LOT, like a lot a lot, -- no, more than you're thinking now, even after I said that -- in terms of how fast they are at word games.
So a timer needs to either accept that a lot of interested parties will be turned off by it - or must be designed in a more accommodating way.
999900000999 10 hours ago [-]
I also like the timer. Eventually I’d like to do other things and the timer ends the games.
tobr 10 hours ago [-]
This is not a game for me - I don’t enjoy scrambled letter games in the first place, and I don’t really respond to time pressure in games. That said, I don’t think you should change it. It’s conceptually clear as it is, and adding a forgiving mode would just make it wishy washy. The simplicity is appealing and it doesn’t have to be for everyone!
matsemann 8 hours ago [-]
This is a game for me. I play lots of scrambled letter games (mainly https://squaredle.app/ every day). Time pressure ruins it for me.
fuzzythinker 23 minutes ago [-]
Many option to have a set time (best if selectable, 30, 45, 60 - hard/med/easy) per word, and a set time per game - 6, 8, 10 (hard/med/easy) minutes
auto 12 hours ago [-]
Complete gut reaction to your first question, my preference would be two fold:
1. An option to start the game in timeless mode
2. When I fail a word, prior to showing me the word, give me the option to enter timeless mode for the rest of the run, such that it doesn't ruin the current round, and that run is now excluded
As for the second, that's more suggestive and I don't care as much either way. Personally me for me I've just been going down the archive trying each day. I enjoy competitive games, so once I miss a word I don't have much interest in continuing on.
xp84 3 hours ago [-]
I too think timeless mode should be an option, and since you're telling me i'm in "top 10%" or whatever at the end, Timeless can just not be on the leaderboard, instead maybe just use a local-storage streak calculator or something to reward users instead.
^parent's #2 tip is great too, as I was sad to cut the fun short when I couldn't guess EXAMPLE today.
Just minor notes though really. The game was fun and seemed nice and polished. And obviously allowing playing using the keyboard was a great idea that I appreciated.
munchbunny 12 hours ago [-]
If you're not set on a "survival mode" design, could you design it as counting up instead of counting down? And maybe showing a "par" time, that way players can opt into the challenge vs. just a morning brainteaser.
smugma 12 hours ago [-]
I’d prefer a timer, but when it runs out of time, you just don’t get credit for the word.
You click next and it goes to the next word.
I don’t want hints but I can see how others might want that. But you still don’t get credit for hints. Or it shows “x hints used”
Final score can show that you got the first N words in <30s (as it is now), and you can have other stats:
* Total number of consecutive words (even if over time)
* Total number of words
* total words <30 seconds
* Plus whatever hint based metrics you want
smaudet 10 hours ago [-]
I'd prefer a mode where you fail the word, but can continue to the next word.
Perhaps it is intentionally part of the design, but being a bit of a perfectionist, I failed a couple of times, and found that actually the longer words were (often) easier than the shorter ones...
krick 11 hours ago [-]
I'm totally fine with the way it works, because, well, it's a game, losing should be losing. I mean, I kinda want to continue, but I'm glad I'm not allowed to. I didn't make it. There will be another chance tomorrow.
But I'd like to propose allowing keyboard input. Losing because of your mouse skills in a pattern recognition game is annoying.
pompomsheep 11 hours ago [-]
Keyboard input should work!
phuff 11 hours ago [-]
I wondered about this because I used a keyboard to do it. But then I thought maybe krick used mobile and there's no onscreen keyboard. But then I realized that krick said mouse skills and so is probably on a desktop. I think maybe just some graphical indicator that you can type would be helpful for first time users.
krick 10 hours ago [-]
No, I did try to type, but nothing happened. I seem to remember I did check that I had English layout turned on, but maybe I actually didn't. Really cannot guess any better than that what might have been the problem.
Anyway, doesn't matter, it was totally my mistake, everything works for me as well as for everyone else.
xp84 3 hours ago [-]
Maybe there was some kind of focus issue your first time, where the browser wasn't sending the keystrokes to the page.
krick 11 hours ago [-]
My bad. Indeed it does. Not sure what was the problem for me the first time.
TonyAlicea10 6 hours ago [-]
For me the timer makes the game. Most popular word games have no timer stress so it makes it unique, versus just "Boggle but one word at a time".
I would like the option to continue when you miss a word, but I also like the "miss a word and it's over" nature for the actual daily game.
You're not going to please everyone here. You might simply need to let the player pick a difficulty level, for example:
- Relaxed - No timer, keep going when you miss / Hurried - Timer, keep going when you miss / Rush - Timer, stops when you miss (default daily)
I think you really have something here! I love word games, and a new one that I would play daily doesn't come along often. Nice job!
ffsm8 11 hours ago [-]
1. keep the timer counting up
2. add a multiplier depending on the number of seconds until solved. [30s / [taken]s = score
I like the timed version, but would like to be able to just miss the word and get moved to the next one with a final score out of 18.
I also like some of the comments about the non-timed version to just chill and play without stress. Having a back catalog of timer-less puzzles would be a fun way to use my brain and kill some time.
sensecall 12 hours ago [-]
Someone replied with "survival mode" which is a great way to phrase it.
Maybe a few different modes? How many can you get out of 18, how long can you last (unlimited), and just a chilled relaxed mode.
jdthedisciple 6 hours ago [-]
I'm fine with the timer if at least the game isn't stopped after a fail.
Just reduce the final score, as someone else here also suggested, but I'd like to at least always get to try all 18 words.
skinfaxi 9 hours ago [-]
A button to jumble the letters would be nice too.
alwa 5 hours ago [-]
I'm timer-ambivalent--at the very least, I'd like to be able to continue through the sequence after getting stumped on one.
Maybe distinguish perfect/timely runs with the "trophy" you mention, or a "rank" from a scale (Bracket City's [0] "offices in a hypothetical city government" scale is cute). Or even a simple daily score. But I prefer to complete the daily puzzle even if I don't do it perfectly—and I find that "streak" oddly motivating despite myself. I dunno: "completed" and "completed perfectly" are two different flavors of reinforcement, both motivating.
As it is now, it feels like the game is punishing me for getting stuck on a single early puzzle, by withholding the other X puzzles in the set. And I feel like a consequence is that the game doesn't have a fixed "serving size" in my mind: it's either a 30-second single-clue game, or a 9-minute 18-clue game, and I don't know going in whether I'm getting the single cracker or the full afternoon tea today. I have to make 9 minutes of potential time for it, but I might only get 30 seconds of fun if I screw up.
As to your question 1), I'd like to see two things:
* A "shuffle" button. Often rearranging the letters helps me see it. I feel like I should be able to hit shuffle as much as I want with no cost in terms of the game mechanic--kind of analogous to playing with my (physical) Scrabble tiles.
* As far as a more helpful/"costly" chickening-out for when you're stumped and ready to give up... With Bracket City fresh on my mind, I like their approach with a single, progressive "help" mechanic. Hit it once, you get the first letter; hit it again, you reveal the full word and move right on (at some cost to your score, but blunting the disappointment by immediately giving you the fresh energy of the next clue).
[0] https://bracket.city , now at The Atlantic Magazine. Bonus feature I didn't know about until recently: they have a public-facing puzzle builder ("suburb builder") at https://builder.bracket.city . Thank you @brgross! [1]
I would like a chance to play a puzzle I failed on to just practice what comes next. I don't need rewards or anything after the initial fail.
Fun game, thanks for sharing!
hencq 11 hours ago [-]
Yeah, when you fail, maybe it could offer a "continue playing" option? Then you can still finish the words, but it doesn't add to your score.
moontear 11 hours ago [-]
Same! I did it by using private browser windows, this way I could see all the words.
soperj 10 hours ago [-]
I tried with a private browser and it didn't work the second time i did it, which is crazy to me. Came to ask how they did that?
ineptech 9 hours ago [-]
In my dream version of this:
a) the timer would be cumulative, so that solving the early words faster gives more time for the harder words,
b) going negative wouldn't end the game, it would just turn the time red or something, with the goal being to finish all of the words with the highest time-remaining possible, rather than just to win/lose.
edanm 8 hours ago [-]
First, this is fantastic! Really fun.
I really like everyone's idea of finding some way of letting the player play all 18 words. Either count up time, and use total time as the score (while allowing pausing). Or else just count the total score at the end, and if someone fails a word it's reduced from the score. So you got 16/18 word or something.
edanm 8 hours ago [-]
Also, Zanagrams is really fun too!
erickhill 2 hours ago [-]
Is it not a clone of Puzzmo's 'Ribbit' game?
altairprime 7 hours ago [-]
The timer seems essential to the gameplay. If I can’t get the word in thirty seconds, I lose. That’s how word games with hourglasses worked in board boxes for years. The scoring system is fine. This is a tightly designed game and it would be less enjoyable if it catered to any other needs than went into its design.
Normal_gaussian 11 hours ago [-]
I don't think you need any non-timer version. The archive is there for people to play more.
Some suggestions people have made around being able to shuffle or place letters - maybe. But the game is pretty perfect as it is.
ejdyksen 4 hours ago [-]
I don’t mind the timer, but if I “lose” on a word I’d like to keep going or trying myself.
teo_zero 5 hours ago [-]
Timer should be like in chess tournaments: an initial budget of X, increase by Y for each word you guess.
tclancy 12 hours ago [-]
As someone who definitely gets worked up when there’s a timer (still got all 18; top 1% really? Might be good to show a rough number of total players), I don’t really get it without a timer.
I am with the people asking for a scramble/ shuffle button. I have to do anagrams all the time in cryptic crosswords and sometimes it requires seeing things in a totally different order to unlock the answer.
pompomsheep 11 hours ago [-]
According to my analytics only 32 people out of 12,145 got all 18 in todays puzzle so far!
lazyasciiart 5 hours ago [-]
That would be neat to include
cogburnd02 11 hours ago [-]
1. You can have a button for both.
2. Yes
3. I got stuck and couldn't get past RILGUN -- it'd be nice to know what the word you were going for actually was.
john_strinlai 11 hours ago [-]
>I got stuck and couldn't get past RILGUN -- it'd be nice to know what the word you were going for actually was.
i think there is only two valid words: luring and ruling.
dwa3592 11 hours ago [-]
I like the timer but just give the option - play with timer (pro), play without timer (relax). split the results as well.
busyant 12 hours ago [-]
1. I'd prefer to reveal letters ... each press of the hint button reveals the position of one random letter.
2. I don't have a preference.
Very cool and well done.
matthewhartmans 5 hours ago [-]
Nice work OP! Love this!
The timer adds more pressure and excitement.
Really simple and slick game - well done OP and congrats on the launch!
bambax 10 hours ago [-]
1. Yes, hints, like maybe the position of a random letter, then another, etc. The game could allow you to "buy" more letters with your existing score (and maybe an initial amount: everyone starts at, say, 36?)
2. Yes being able to continue would be great, it's frustrating that the game just stops.
Great work anyway!
mendelmaleh 10 hours ago [-]
> 2. For those who like the timed version would you prefer to continue when you miss a word and then get a final score out of 18?
Absolutely, I had to reopen it a bunch of times in incognito to make it to the end xD
Very fun!
dirkc 7 hours ago [-]
Keep the timer, but after 30 seconds, deduct a point, after 60 seconds show an option to reveal the word / give up.
sam1r 8 hours ago [-]
How about a hint provided for the last 5 seconds, for 7 letter words or greater.
And at the end there is a “used a hint” badge or not.
12 hours ago [-]
KerryJones 11 hours ago [-]
I'd like more common words?
"Baith" is incredibly esoteric.
arijun 11 hours ago [-]
"Habit" is another anagram you could have used, and not esoteric.
11 hours ago [-]
parpfish 11 hours ago [-]
i did "habit"
mikesela 4 hours ago [-]
I like it just the way it is. Fun!
thinkloop 11 hours ago [-]
Careful taking advice from nerds over-complicating things, it's beautiful as-is. Maybe have it be 7s per letter instead of a fixed 30s.
t-writescode 11 hours ago [-]
Oftentimes feedback is useful to address a complaint. “Lots of people are frustrated with X” is great signal. The solution might not be (but certainly sometimes is) the fixes they recommend; but the pain they’re expressing is real.
curiousObject 12 hours ago [-]
Those are all good options.
Also a version in which your unused time is accumulated for future rounds would be interesting
ralferoo 5 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I'd like some kind of reward for having done the previous words in 4s each. Just when I get to a hard one (for me) it can take a really long time to spot it.
Also, maybe having a button (and also a key press) to randomly rearrange the letters, or allow me to drag them around to try to figure it out... like I'd do with scrabble tiles on my rack.
Ntrails 10 hours ago [-]
I'd probably rather it just tell me the answer and give the option to continue :)
heironimus 10 hours ago [-]
2. Yes! Allow continue for no score after timeout
CamperBob2 10 hours ago [-]
The timer is OK, IMHO, but longer words should give you more time to guess. Makes little sense to give people 30 seconds to guess both a four-letter and a seven-letter word.
That would also let you scale to any arbitrary word length.
BurningFrog 11 hours ago [-]
Do something so you don't lose on time while "typing" the solution!
Adding a second for each letter you type is a crude version.
aaroninsf 7 hours ago [-]
Personal take:
I immediately liked the game and was inspired to try multiple days,
my single biggest frustration was that once a day is attempted, it's locked, and, you can't continue after a single failure.
The "single point of failure" having heavy consequences would likely make me bounce off and not return.
Might I suggest an alternate design to try:
Keep the incentive to speed, but reduce the punishment.
Proposal:
Score is points-per-word as a function of time to complete.
With a non-linear asymptomic point curve.
Bonus for very fast, long tail decreasing from 1.x points to 0.x, after 30s you get 0 points...
...but critically you are not loocked out of the game and can take as long as you like.
Bonus for caching this state so you can return later
There are variations, e.g. a total time budget for all words... perhaps you retain a sense of tier, with players able to select a "league" which gives higher reward for fastest responses but more quickly drops you to zero for the rest of the game...
You can still have a leader board (implicit or explicit) where points are fungible.
You could even then have a "no stress" league which gives a flat 0.25 points per success with no timer at all or something.
aaron695 15 minutes ago [-]
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steadystate_eng 11 hours ago [-]
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Waterluvian 13 hours ago [-]
The timer makes it not enjoyable for me. It seems necessary to the game design and I’m not being negatively critical. Just sharing an additional perspective. I’ve been playing Zanagrams and the ability to hide the clock really improved my enjoyment of that game.
If I could magically get a feature by request, it would be to give me infinite time even if that meant my score came with an asterisk. Maybe just call it Relax Mode vs. Challenge Mode.
By the way: I really like the overall design of Zanagrams and 18 Words. These are small puzzle games with very simple, clean UIs. They work crisply and I've noticed you've been tidying up Zanagrams, adding minor features and settings. They have a very Classic Web feel to them. It's not like you're trying to get me to watch ads or subscribe to your newsletter or are just breadcrumbs to some for-profit thing. I like having a handful of very easy to pick up puzzles/toys when I need to fidget. They help keep me away from TikToks and Shorts.
wrsh07 12 hours ago [-]
I think Zach Gage (developer of excellent games including Really Bad Chess, Spelltower, etc) says on Adam Conover's podcast that for many people they have difficulty improving at a skill when they have time (or other) pressure
Thus, he always includes a relaxed mode to let someone practice without any stress. Incidentally, he realized that some people only ever play in the relaxed mode!
criddell 13 hours ago [-]
The timer kills this for me too.
Maybe if it counted up I would be less annoyed by it. I like how the NYT does it with their crossword app. If you complete it under some threshold you get a gold star but there's no upper limit on the time.
GordonS 10 hours ago [-]
The Zanagrams game, which AFACK is from the same developer (?), actually does this - it counts up like a stopwatch, then compares your time to the global average at the end.
I much prefer this way, personally at least.
sceptic123 12 hours ago [-]
Having a timer is maybe not so much the problem, but there's no reward here for doing early words quickly and no appreciation for the fact that difficulty is not linear. Would be nice if you could bank up some time for when harder ones come.
UmYeahNo 3 hours ago [-]
I agree. The combination of one game per day, and a timer is not a great combo. Having a total time at the end would be a great way for people who want to compete on time, and for anyone else who actually wants to finish they can do that too.
sensecall 13 hours ago [-]
Yep, instead of feeling like a fun puzzle the timer just adds unnecessary pressure and gets me really annoyed.
Yajirobe 13 hours ago [-]
My guy that’s the whole point of the game. Otherwise it’s too easy
hnfong 13 hours ago [-]
You can still be competitive in "casual mode" using total time used to solve all the words.
sensecall 12 hours ago [-]
I just want to chill... I have plenty of stress in my life already.
weedfroglozenge 29 minutes ago [-]
If unscrambling 6 letters is causing you stress..... word games might not be for you.
latexr 13 hours ago [-]
Not everyone plays games for purposeless dumb challenges and difficulty. Games are supposed to be fun. Sometimes you just want to chill and engage the brain at a leisurely pace.
nocman 12 hours ago [-]
> purposeless dumb challenges and difficulty
While I agree that for some people games with a time limit are not fun, I don't think the challenges and difficulty should be classified as "purposeless" and "dumb". For many the challenge/difficulty IS the fun part, and they serve a genuine purpose. If you don't like that, then play a different game, but that doesn't mean the game you don't like is useless.
latexr 10 hours ago [-]
Right. I don’t mean every challenge and difficulty is purposeless and dumb, just that those don’t have to be the goal, and that sometimes an easy game is what you want.
Tangentially, I have noticed some of the most well-balanced difficult games I have ever played were the ones with very granular difficulty settings. Examples include CrossCode and Celeste. Crypt of the Necrodancer too, though the customisation there feels like it crosses into too granular. In each I changed the difficulty settings exactly once, for optional challenges, and it made the games way more enjoyable.
Waterluvian 13 hours ago [-]
Yeah. It's just a walk to the mailbox for my brain.
aurmc 8 hours ago [-]
I’m a counselor at a day camp this summer, and we have Smart Boards in our rooms. I do some of the NYT games with the kids each morning (and then usually the smart board is off for the rest of the day).
I completely agree. If this didn’t have the timer (or maybe if it were counting up in the corner) it could be a great addition to our collection of games.
heggy 7 hours ago [-]
It seems so odd to me to have a word unscrambling game and have everyone shouting for the timer to be removed.
I'd probably say there instead of a Challenge Mode and a Relax Mode like you said, it could just be a combined mode where there is a timer but after it goes out it simply continues the game on Relax Mode.
Or alternatively every word still has the timer and then at the end if you finish, it tells you how many words you completed under the timer and gives you a score based on that.
And then maybe an option for those who don't want the timer to show at all, since maybe it adds a bit of pressure. You can have just a simple option that removes the timer entirely from view
munchbunny 12 hours ago [-]
Another idea: maybe time how long you take for each word, and for the competitive among us, show stats on how long you took compared to everyone else, and a leaderboard for who took the least total time.
lucideer 12 hours ago [-]
Agree on the timer.
In one sense I really enjoy the timer up to the point that I lose, but it feels very unsatisfactory, especially if I lose early, & I'm acutely aware the difficulty level it's set at will be experienced radically differently by different players (to the exclusion of most I would imagine).
Having a timerless mode is very much needed as an option - there's no real risk of "cheating" with these cookie-based browser games anyway since I could just have infinite retries in a private tab if I felt like doing that.
tech-historian 13 hours ago [-]
100% agree. Casual mode would be a winner.
SwamyM 13 hours ago [-]
Yea, the timer is a little stressful though I understand the purpose/design behind it. I do like the suggestion of the no timer or a relaxed mode with.
PS anyone have any other fun, simple games like this and Zanagrams? I found https://maptap.gg/ recently and that also gives me the same Classic Web feeling that OP mentioned.
guidoism 13 hours ago [-]
Yeah screw the timer. I can't work under pressure like that when it comes to word games. Maybe other people will enjoy that, but not me.
meken 7 hours ago [-]
I love the timer. It’s the closest game to ThruLine I’ve come across (that’s a compliment).
curiousObject 12 hours ago [-]
It’s the same reason people will instantly close a site with unwanted animations (ads).
But if this game was called “Do A Word Puzzle While Being Distracted By Animated Numbers in Your Peripheral Vision”, that would be alright.
encomiast 13 hours ago [-]
Same. Stopped after two words. Gave me the same feeling as taking a timed software developer screening.
beardyw 10 hours ago [-]
I will try out a game with a timer, but it will never be a keeper.
fbnlsr 13 hours ago [-]
English is not my native tongue. If I had a relaxed mode, that'd be awesome :)
PaulRobinson 11 hours ago [-]
All games should have the option to have the timer turned off.
I regularly do cryptic crosswords (so this sort of game is in my wheelhouse). My goal is to complete the puzzle, not do so in a particular time. Completing it is often hard (depending on which paper I've picked up). There is no timer when I'm say with paper and pen, so it baffles me that every online newspaper cryptic has a timer on by default, and in some cases it can't be disabled.
It's also the thing that "ruined" the LinkedIn puzzles for me. They're generally fun puzzles, but timing it against my PB or - worse - people I'm connected to on LinkedIn just wrecks the experience. I opted out of leaderboards, because I don't really want to know a guy I worked with years ago trashes me at Queens every morning.
Strong agreement that a "relax" mode is needed here - at longer word lengths its becoming a test of recall and anagram ability, and that's fun in its own right. The timer just makes it a bit "meh", and I won't be returning as a result. Shame.
parpfish 11 hours ago [-]
i like the timer.
BUT i'd like it if each round started with letters hidden and timer paused in case i need to step away and redirect my attention to something else.
latexr 13 hours ago [-]
> it would be to give me infinite time even if that meant my score came with an asterisk.
Or maybe don’t even keep score. That’s one of the features which makes be skip these daily games. Not every game needs to be a competition!
flkiwi 12 hours ago [-]
This reminds me of how my wife absolutely thrives on gamification and the social competition of things like Peloton, while they destroy 100% of my interest in the thing. We’re both intensely competitive people but in completely different ways.
paisawalla 13 hours ago [-]
I would appreciate the timer not turning red. It's better to be surprised that time's up, rather than be surprised to know it's running out.
altmanaltman 12 hours ago [-]
Yeah I think this will be a bit too easy without a timer. But that ui does make it kind of intense, i forgot how to spell a basic word because i was thinking i only have 10 red seconds left
Omnipresent 6 minutes ago [-]
Mind sharing some metrics (time it took you ...tokens etc) and the approach you took? Did you break it up by module? Share some prompts?
gopalakrishnans 13 hours ago [-]
Would be nice to have a ‘scramble!’ button so it makes it slightly easier when we get stuck
kraquepype 10 hours ago [-]
That would be nice!
The ones I get stuck on are so obvious once the word is revealed that just a reshuffle of the letters would help.
Maybe give the player 3 chances to re-scramble the letters.
dirkc 13 hours ago [-]
I like the idea, but I didn't like losing after a few words. Now it might just be me not being good at losing, but who is?
Maybe the game can always progress to the next word with your total score being reduced. So if you get all within 30 seconds you score 18/18. That way everyone can play the whole game and share with their friends how far they got:
|X|o|X|X|X|o|o|o|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|o|X| 13/18
giancarlostoro 12 hours ago [-]
Yeah, but also, is it really "18 words" if you don't get there?
qocialApp 10 hours ago [-]
BUG:
I guessed "LATER", but it said - wrong and mentioned "ALERT". The only fix I would make is to ensure that all possible words with scrambled characters make sense.
LATER and ALERT are both correct, for text "A E R T L"
carljungslabtek 10 hours ago [-]
One of my winning words was “BAITH” which google tells me is scottish haha. Is this intentional OP?
Oh it was supposed to be Habit…
mock-possum 8 hours ago [-]
Yeah I got Baith too, I have no idea what that is, I just guessed it because, you know, it looks like it’d fit as a rare English word.
telecuda 15 minutes ago [-]
Just my opinion — don’t change anything. I got to 9 words, had fun, will try again tomorrow. Simplicity and urgency win
pjz 9 hours ago [-]
I'd appreciate a 'shuffle' button that just re-mixed-up the letters into a different order. I find this keeps me from obsessing on adjacent letter pairs that my eyes/brain lock onto.
vicnov 12 hours ago [-]
I think there is probably a research paper hiding inside this game.
I couldn't guess Dice because, as an ESL person, I couldn't make the D-i combo sound like /d/+ /aɪ/ in my head (it sounded as /d/ + /ɪ/), so a part of my neural circuitry didn't fire, and I couldn't complete it with `ce.`
In other words I, personally, in this pattern recognition game rely on the way words sounds in my head to find familiar combinations and continue the sequence.
Liftyee 6 hours ago [-]
This is an odd and interesting effect. I experienced it and English is my first language.
Couldn't figure out "binding" because in the process of permuting the letters it got sounded out as "bin ding" which I immediately rejected as "not a word". It seems like it's intuitive to permute letters but I forget that you have to permute the sound too, otherwise it won't parse as a word.
swyx 3 hours ago [-]
for what its worth you sound ultra fluent in english, so kudos whoever taught you english
xpct 11 hours ago [-]
On some levels I tried guessing, starting with different letters, and still got into some local minima in my brain where I couldn't guess the word, only for it to be something obvious like 'pound'.
ecshafer 12 hours ago [-]
I got the word BAITH on like turn 5, and I only chose that because I couldn't figure anything out. I thought it was a nonsense word. But mixing in a scottish slang word in the easy section was a surprise.
nathell 12 hours ago [-]
I guess HABIT was the expected one here.
ecshafer 12 hours ago [-]
Baith was right. But I feel stupid that I couldnt see Habit.
jader201 5 hours ago [-]
> Baith was right.
My wife missed that word, and it said the correct word was “habit”.
I also did “baith” (for the same reason as OP), and ended up making it to 16, but I feel like I shouldn’t have, since I’ve never heard of “baith”. I was confused when it accepted it.
EvanAnderson 12 hours ago [-]
Shuffle would certainly help with that. I felt like I was expending a ton of energy and time shuffling mentally (but I'll concede that if I did it enough I'd get faster at it).
temporallobe 10 hours ago [-]
I would suggest instead of a countdown timer, use time as a score (less time used = higher score) so at least the player can advance. Also it’s no fun and extremely annoying to make the player wait 12 hours for the next challenge, which turns me off to even wanting to play again.
nonethewiser 10 hours ago [-]
If you do that you could not even show the timer. Or make it more discrete or toggle its presence. For the person who wants to optimize (although tbh its not really even actionable), but otherwise remove it since its stressing people out
ronyeh 10 hours ago [-]
Don’t reset to 30s for each word. Just add 30s (or 20s). So if I am fast in the early rounds, I am rewarded in later rounds by having 1:43 to work on a word I am completely stuck on.
Possibly the biggest difference is that 23 Words continues with the next word if you fail to get a word within 30 seconds. When you have attempted all 23 words it will present you with results like this.
You found 21/23 words
Top 7% of players today.
therealdrag0 6 hours ago [-]
I like that better
nchmy 4 hours ago [-]
As do i
throwaway_ocr 13 hours ago [-]
Pretty frustrating when you find a word, but it's not THE word. Pretty fun otherwise.
functionmouse 13 hours ago [-]
tbh this should accept all dictionary matches
pompomsheep 13 hours ago [-]
Did you find a word that wasn't accepted you thought should be?
I do have another version where it accepts ANY word but I found it quite unsatisfying when I survived by randomly spamming combinations and finding a really obscure word.
So am currently running it against a 20,000 word wordlist instead of my larger 300,000 wordlist
happytoexplain 13 hours ago [-]
The third one in the archive wouldn't accept "tase" or "sate" for "seat".
DamnInteresting 12 hours ago [-]
I've built a some word games over the years (e.g., wordwhile.com, omiword.com), and one thing I've discovered is that players find it very unsatisfying when they enter a real, valid word and the game rejects it. I imagine that the timer would amplify that sense of unfairness.
Granted, there are also people who get annoyed when the game seems too accepting of unusual words, but if you can point them to a valid dictionary definition for that oddball word, they usually accept it without argument.
groggo 11 hours ago [-]
I'm one of those people who get annoyed if it's too loose. But I can just impose that restriction on myself and look down on people who rely on obscure words.
maxweylandt 13 hours ago [-]
Going two days back in the archive, "egret" not allowed
elxr 13 hours ago [-]
"braze" is a very common word, especially if you like bicycles.
Definitely not any less valid or unsatisfying than "zebra".
pompomsheep 13 hours ago [-]
Ok yes all good examples. Have reverted back ot the large dictionary for now which accepts all these
groggo 11 hours ago [-]
I would argue it's less satisfying. I like bikes and I still had to look it up.
darepublic 11 hours ago [-]
just tried that same archive puzzle and it accepted braze for me
shaftway 10 hours ago [-]
On today's puzzle, `WROGHT` was rejected, and I got `GROWTH` just in the nick of time.
tikhonj 10 hours ago [-]
Is that actually a word, or were you thinking of "wrought"?
quickthrowman 10 hours ago [-]
The word is ‘wrought’, which is why it wasn’t accepted.
paulluuk 13 hours ago [-]
Why not just only allow a single try, but accept any "real" word?
pompomsheep 13 hours ago [-]
Interesting idea but too many people mistype / mispell on first attempt (mostly me)
svantana 13 hours ago [-]
the obvious solution is to not use the words that have an obscure word as anagram. I failed on 'target' because I went for 'regatta'.
dahart 13 hours ago [-]
> I failed on ‘target’ because I went for ‘regatta’.
Given that those two don’t have the same letters, isn’t that the expected outcome?
svantana 11 hours ago [-]
Haha oops, you're right :)
mjdv 13 hours ago [-]
That seems only fair. ;-)
mhb 13 hours ago [-]
quite/quiet
fsckboy 12 hours ago [-]
Did you find a word that wasn't accepted you thought should be?
EARLS was not accepted, and I had already decided not to try REALS. (is there a rule against plurals?) what it was looking for was LASER which has a more tenuous claim on being a word than those two.
IAmGraydon 13 hours ago [-]
300,000? The Oxford dictionary only contains 171,000!
echoangle 13 hours ago [-]
I guess the wordlist with 300k contains all the different forms a word can have while the 171k count is only the base words.
pompomsheep 13 hours ago [-]
Haha yeah the 300k list contains so really obscure stuff
NooneAtAll3 13 hours ago [-]
I can understand the clock running out meaning a loss - but I still want to play the rest of the words? how do I do that? I don't think they are accessible anymore
wrsh07 12 hours ago [-]
A continue that let's you keep playing would be fun. Or maybe different modes (eg hard vs normal)
bspammer 13 hours ago [-]
Clear your cookies for the site or open incognito mode. But I agree there's no reason not to let people continue and just mark where they ended "legitimately".
santiagobasulto 12 hours ago [-]
I loved it, i hated it. I'm so bad at this.
I think summarizing everybody's feedback the simplest solution is: "Game difficulty".
- Standard: what you have today
- Relaxed: 1 minute per word?
- Practice Mode: no timer whatsoever
And "Practice Mode" is a completely different mode that lets you skip questions, and instead of "you win / you lose" which is today's behavior, you end up with a score (14/18).
runjake 11 hours ago [-]
This name is dangerously close to "14 Words", a white nationalist creed, which carries certain connotations to Americans in the know.
Hardly dangerous. The same disclaimer put on the Anti-Defamation League website applies here:
> All the symbols depicted here must be evaluated in the context in which they appear. Few symbols represent just one idea or are used exclusively by one group. For example, 100% is often used as an amount or an expression and it is also used by some by some white supremacists as shorthand for "100% white."
volkk 10 hours ago [-]
i've literally never heard of this, but great to pollute my brain with more of this bs.
serious question: if the majority aren't "in the know" and some minority is, and the game has literally nothing to do with sending any sekrut messages, who cares? like, is a white nationalist sitting here on HN, playing this game over a coffee and thinks, "heh, sick this is 4 numbers away from the callsign"
johndough 10 hours ago [-]
If an uneducated acquaintance of yours was about to name their newborn child "Adolf", would you interject that this name might not be such a great idea?
pohl 10 hours ago [-]
Absolutely, it’s an act of kindness to loop them in. And if an eavesdropper complains about it I’d be super suspicious.
volkk 10 hours ago [-]
there's a big difference between Adolf and whatever esoteric garbage this is
runjake 8 hours ago [-]
This "esoteric" garbage is the catchphrase of white nationalists globally.
So it's about as esoteric as white nationalism is. For example, members of the current US administration know it/believe it.
pohl 10 hours ago [-]
Not sure where you’re from but it’s not esoteric at all. Here in the US our current administration is constantly vice-signaling to white supremacists to maintain them as a political base, and uses myriad similar winks to do it. One example: in 2020 the Trump campaign ran Facebook ads featuring an inverted red triangle. The opening sentence was 14 words long. They ran the ad 88 times. It’s ok to choose to be ignorant of the implications, but it’s better to maintain situational awareness.
(I’m not saying the game needs to change its name.)
But you gotta admit it’s strange that some mass murders are off limits but not others. Joseph, mao, osama. It’s mostly about preexisting popularity.
jersmtpd 7 hours ago [-]
What is your point with this comment?
Do you think this cute little word game is white nationalist? Do white nationalists have claim on all "(number) words" names?
w10-1 7 hours ago [-]
Loved it. I would change the timer from text (which I'm constantly reading as it changes) to a progress bar or set of dots which don't require thinking. Also I would use 3 strikes instead of one you're out, because a single miss isn't really representative. (similarly, any valid word should work.) Letter display order can offer clues but seems random. Perhaps vowels on top row, then consonants on bottom, in alphabetic order? Would love a hard mode for multi-lingual (latin-text) speakers to use multiple languages.
nickcw 12 hours ago [-]
I didn't realise at first that you could choose letters which weren't adjacent which made it very hard! Guess I've been playing too much https://zanagrams.com/ (which was also posted here recently).
pompomsheep 11 hours ago [-]
My other game! Thanks for playing
forbiddenvoid 11 hours ago [-]
This is great. The speed aspect reminds me of the old AOL chatroom word scramble games. I personally love the timer, but I also do the newspaper anagrams without a pen, so I'm certain to be out of the majority on this.
A shuffle button would be nice (especially if it's keyboard friendly). I've found it useful for me with the NYT Spelling Bee. Sometimes my brain just gets stuck on a letter combination because two letters are close together, and the rearrangement helps.
It would be kind of fun to have an endless mode too, that just pulls words from the dictionary. Maybe not quite in line with the "daily word game" premise, but something I would personally find enjoyable.
fisher-brett 7 hours ago [-]
Very fun and I loved the UI. Just wish I could have played the rest of the words ("photo" got me out)
maxverse 2 hours ago [-]
Same
samiskin 13 hours ago [-]
Fun game though I wish it left more time for the longer words, also wish we could have the letters in one line and shuffle them
varun_ch 2 hours ago [-]
function getPercentileText(survived) {
if (survived === 18) return 'Top 1% of players today ';
if (survived === 17) return 'Top 2% of players today ';
if (survived === 16) return 'Top 3% of players today ';
if (survived === 15) return 'Top 5% of players today ';
if (survived >= 12 && survived <= 14) return 'Top 10% of players today ';
if (survived >= 10 && survived <= 11) return 'Top 20% of players today ';
if (survived >= 8 && survived <= 9) return 'Top 50% of players today ';
return 'No trophy earned today ';
}
I feel like I've been lied to!
Fourier864 4 hours ago [-]
A lot of comments are suggestions and/or complaints, so I just came to say I loved it, no notes.
redbell 4 hours ago [-]
Lovely game indeed!
Spoiler alert ahead: unethical way to win that needs to be fixed.
Play in incognito mode and when you lose, you already know the word(s). Restart the browser and you are ready to play again, instantly.
murphyslab 8 hours ago [-]
Suggestion: Require a user to hit ENTER or SPACE to clear the word, even if it's a wrong word. Being able to see the letters laid linearly is useful to solving. Automated clearing of wrong words is unhelpful.
orthogonal_cube 12 hours ago [-]
Was this by chance inspired by a previous submission (now defunct) that had a similar premise?
Very similar in spirit, but IMHO a lot more enjoyable than your version. It's untimed which takes the pressure off, but still a challenge because there are multiple potentially correct answers.
The on-line version doesn't seem to be working, and I don't have an android device so I can't tell if the app is still working either. But I ran this on my nexus 7 for years until it died. It was one of my favorite on-line games. I would happily pay someone to port it to ios.
realty_geek 9 hours ago [-]
Interesting to see how much more popular creating games has become as AI has become more powerful.
Right now I am working on a house price guessing game and I know I would not have be able to get anywhere with it a couple of years ago. It has still taken me a few weeks to get it where I wanted but I have had to intervene a lot with things the AI just wasn't good at.
TimTheTinker 10 hours ago [-]
Some kinds of brains must just not be good at this kind of game.
I used to win spelling bees in school, but I played the entire archive on this game and my highest score was 6/18.
Maybe it has to do with the balance between audio and visual learning. Spelling bees are spoken words in, letters out -- not letters in, words out. When trying to solve these, I kept trying to sound out different orderings of letters, maybe that's not how good players do it?
hombre_fatal 10 hours ago [-]
I think I get anchored too easily based on what my brain sees in the scrambled letters.
A re-scramble button would do wonders for me like in that Spelling Bee game on NYTimes.
maaaaattttt 13 hours ago [-]
This was harder than I thought it would be. It's pretty fun to play!
May I suggest displaying the final result and/or ongoing progress as 18 circles/shapes that fill up depending on how far you made it?
pmarreck 13 hours ago [-]
I didn’t realize the word “crowd“ only had one vowel until I saw it scrambled!
maaaaattttt 13 hours ago [-]
And I didn't realize "audio" had only one consonant!
Static2280 13 hours ago [-]
Something about not being able to shuffle the tiles makes this hard for me.
jayemar 9 hours ago [-]
Agreed, I'd really like a shuffle button
beaker52 11 hours ago [-]
This game helped me realise I'm a doofus 10/10
V__ 11 hours ago [-]
I don't mind the timer as much, but I also like some of the suggested improvements here.
The only thing I really don't like, is that each puzzle can only be played once. I would like to figure out all words of a day even if it doesn't count.
This could even be an interesting statistic, how many people finished all words ignoring the time component.
ninjahawk1 11 hours ago [-]
I beat it! This is the first of your challenges I’ve actually completed.
It’s coming along nicely btw, some people are saying they don’t like the timer but I personally think the timer adds a lot to it. Also only being able to attempt once makes it more competitive, like if you combined hardcore minecraft and wordle. Hardcore wordle.
minikomi 3 hours ago [-]
I think it might be fun if the words told a story
tobadzistsini 11 hours ago [-]
Using an android phone with Firefox and when I hit word #13 with 7 letters, I was unable to scroll to the right to see a hidden letter. I switched to landscape and the bottom three letters were not available not was I able to scroll down to tap them.
LordOmlette 8 hours ago [-]
Beautifully done! Simple, elegant, and how in the unholy hell do I not know how to spell "photo"??
I anticipate the NY Times will buy you out and I am very jealous
rzzzt 7 hours ago [-]
I guessed HOPTO and PHOOT but none of them worked unfortunately
jefozabuss 12 hours ago [-]
I think loading the big wordlist (279496 words as of now) is a waste of bandwidth as you only need to load permutations of the words in the selected challenge (e.g. you don't need "ABANDONEES" if you don't have a word with those letters).
pompomsheep 12 hours ago [-]
Very true and it's a bit lazy.
I'm load a short wordlist first and then the longer version async so it doesn't really affect how long until you can start playing.
Waste of bandwidth is true. Cloudflare pages hates me
DamnInteresting 12 hours ago [-]
One thing you can do is store a word profile in your database, which is a string of all of the letters in the word in alphabetical order. So the word profile for 'apple' is 'aelpp'. Then you can just include all of the words that match the profiles of the real words. For example, 'quiet' and 'quite' both have the profile 'eiqtu'.
littlekey 7 hours ago [-]
Great little game, thanks! I found I'm terrible at the vowel heavy words like audio and ideal, interesting.
curiousObject 11 hours ago [-]
This a good game. It’s fun, simple and quick. It’s self explanatory and clear what you need to do.
The UI is almost perfect, it’s seamless on mobile and desktop.
I made some criticism in other comments therefore I also wanted to make a comment saying what I liked.
p2detar 11 hours ago [-]
Love the sleek UI.
Forgive the shameless plug. Here is my word game which only features words from programming and compsci.
I had to know what the answer "corner" turned out to be
andy_does_code 11 hours ago [-]
This is really fun, love the idea! I agree with the others, a chill/practice mode would be great.
HelloUsername 13 hours ago [-]
When I didn't know the word I just mashed the given letters on the keyboard randomly, sometimes I got lucky with it
criddell 13 hours ago [-]
Maybe the game should limit the number of tries per word?
asaix 13 hours ago [-]
Pretty cool idea. I think a calendar based UI to go through the archives would be more user friendly than what you have right now.
pompomsheep 13 hours ago [-]
Yeah for sure I agree just kept it simple for now but will improve if people like it
mailship 9 hours ago [-]
Man, got something interesting and FUN on HN after a long time, LOVED IT
nathell 13 hours ago [-]
Could I have the source code so I can plug in the Polish word list? It would make a great training app for Scrabble.
pompomsheep 13 hours ago [-]
Yeah its just the single index.html file feel free to download it and adapt
pocksuppet 12 hours ago [-]
It's unobfuscated. Right click, view source, there it is.
jdthedisciple 13 hours ago [-]
You could also probably one-shot your own version of this using any SOTA LLM, it's not terribly complicated (but a nice game idea!).
binary0010 13 hours ago [-]
Just one shot in Claude if you have it or deepseek flash for free.
love0972 11 hours ago [-]
I haven’t been able to post anything at all, so I don’t even know what it’s like to make a post.
semiquaver 14 hours ago [-]
iPhone bug: double tapping on a letter zooms in the viewport with no way to zoom back out, permanently breaking the page.
pompomsheep 13 hours ago [-]
Oof yeah thanks! Fixed now
mmanfrin 9 hours ago [-]
3rd word it asked of me was 'BAITH' which is crazy business.
spogbiper 9 hours ago [-]
HABIT worked for me
gjm11 11 hours ago [-]
Some thoughts about the timer, since it's what everyone wants to talk about :-) --
I find that with things like this my distribution of times is extremely uneven: I get most words in a few seconds, but every now and then one comes along that for whatever reason my brain doesn't want to see and then it takes much longer. (And if that "much longer" is over the 30-second limit, too bad, I lose.)
And something about this makes playing with the timer annoying for me: I feel some combination of "surely I should get some credit for getting all those others so much quicker than the timer allows" and "oh, come on, that was just unlucky and doesn't reflect what I can generally do".
(I am not claiming that it's right to feel anything like that. Just that I do and I suspect I'm not alone.)
I wonder about a mechanic like this: the timer starts at 30 seconds; when you solve a word, rather than resetting to 30 seconds the timer increments by 10 seconds. So if you're solving in <10s on average then (at least after the first few, easier, words) you can afford to have the occasional brain failure without getting thrown out of the game. And your overall performance depends on how well you do on all the words, not how you do on the single worst one.
(I agree with others that there should also be a no-timer mode for those who just don't want to feel tested and/or stressed in that way.)
blt 9 hours ago [-]
UI does not register quick taps on iphone 15p duckduckgo browser
nwsm 13 hours ago [-]
Fun! But disappointing if you lose early. Maybe let the player continue after failing and showing a final score out of 18.
maerF0x0 10 hours ago [-]
This is so much more fun than those dumb word games on linkedin
gwbas1c 13 hours ago [-]
Made it to 9 and then time ran out... I wish it showed me the word that I got stuck on! Argh!!!
pompomsheep 13 hours ago [-]
It should have shown you!
neogodless 7 hours ago [-]
But how do I learn the word I missed?!
XUEYANZ 12 hours ago [-]
nice game to start my day. a refresh button to reorder the letter would be great.
h2aichat 6 hours ago [-]
It is harder when english is not your first language. It's fun!
timothymwiti 12 hours ago [-]
That was really fun. Made it to 16/18. Thank you popmpomsheep.
pompomsheep 11 hours ago [-]
Thanks for playing!
mkrecny 12 hours ago [-]
one thing I noticed playing this:
way easier with fingers on the keyboard (vs selecting characters with mouse)
just typing out seemingly possible words per muscle memory / subconscious impulse
spaceman_2020 11 hours ago [-]
Damn fun and challenging
Congrats! This looks like a daily one for me
unbalancedevh 9 hours ago [-]
This is like the on-line game Text Twist.
upmind 13 hours ago [-]
what made you go with 18?
drcongo 13 hours ago [-]
14 was taken.
giancarlostoro 12 hours ago [-]
I see what you did there. I did a double take when I saw this on the front page of HN.
Haha I've never heard of this but lucky i went with 18
giancarlostoro 12 hours ago [-]
I'm equally laughing because I remember a coding snafu I ran into once, where we were aggressively filtering out "1488" turns out someone finally joined and "1488" was part of their user ID (auto-increment field!), and we realized maybe we shouldn't be checking the auto-increment field, not sure if it was me being too aggressive and not thinking about it, or another developer, but I did laugh once I figured out why that one user was unable to use half of the web app. This was for a gaming community based project, we had a lot of trolls come and go, and they would definitely shove these sorts of references in their usernames, and anywhere else you had custom user input.
The internet is a magical place.
pizzafeelsright 8 hours ago [-]
in good faith, you went with a number.
had it been 14 you would have a torrent of ill will where no excuse or response would have been sufficient in the minds of those who fail at life.
We must secure equal forgiveness for the people and the future inadvertent online mistakes.
giancarlostoro 7 hours ago [-]
We must secure Hacker News from low quality commentary and ensure insightful future discussions.
falcor84 13 hours ago [-]
Not the parent, but I just checked and it seems that all $iwords.com are taken for i<18
Retr0id 10 hours ago [-]
It's the standard number of holes in a golf course
eranation 12 hours ago [-]
Nicely done.
A shuffle letters button would be nice.
docheinestages 13 hours ago [-]
This could be a cool captcha challenge (without the timer).
addandsubtract 13 hours ago [-]
That's not how captchas work...
docheinestages 10 hours ago [-]
Please enlighten me on how they work. My understanding is that captchas usually either involve challenges for humans or require proof of work (some computation). I found the idea of this game along the lines of a human challenge.
magneticnorth 9 hours ago [-]
Captchas are usually used to separate humans and bots, typically with something a human can solve but a bot cannot. A bot would have no trouble at all with this game.
docheinestages 5 hours ago [-]
I think humans don't behave the same as bots when playing this game.
orliesaurus 13 hours ago [-]
Fun, that's it. New addiction after daily wordle unlocked
mclanett 5 hours ago [-]
Surprisingly fun!
quasiperfectus 13 hours ago [-]
Embarrassed of where I failed (#8). Very cool game though!
magneticnorth 9 hours ago [-]
I failed on number 11, which put me in the top 20%. It's a tough game!
al_borland 13 hours ago [-]
If it makes you feel better, I failed on #3. In my defense, I'm running on 2 hours of sleep.
mritchie712 13 hours ago [-]
great game, what do you think of adding shuffle?
linhns 9 hours ago [-]
Shuffle button needed.
yayamao 4 hours ago [-]
hard and addictive
13 hours ago [-]
cschep 6 hours ago [-]
keyboard input please!
aosmith 13 hours ago [-]
Nice, this is pretty fun!
jzer0cool 7 hours ago [-]
M-E-T-I-R
wbnns 13 hours ago [-]
Great game, well done
jmkni 13 hours ago [-]
Ha fun little game :)
system2 8 hours ago [-]
It should be point based and go to the next word instead of killing the game.
akkad33 9 hours ago [-]
Great game.
woodpanel 9 hours ago [-]
Non-native speaker here: really really hard, never make it past 13/18
keepamovin 13 hours ago [-]
Damn got to 13.
mudil 10 hours ago [-]
I played three games, and every time the third word for me was difficult. I bet I am not alone. Not sure it's a game I want to return to just for two first words.
I lost on the third word because I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was, and then I restarted and got to the 18th. I'd look at the letters and just know which word it was, it was pretty odd how hard I found it the first time around versus how easy it was the second.
I'm normally terrible at anagrams.
C4sual 7 hours ago [-]
5/18
jhalloran 10 hours ago [-]
wow, addictive
abcd_f 11 hours ago [-]
"Baith" ? That's a pretty niche word I'd say.
pompomsheep 11 hours ago [-]
This was habit but baith was accepted as well
rizsyed1 10 hours ago [-]
This is a lot of fun lol. Well done!
tefkah 11 hours ago [-]
holy shit this is hard
Calazon 8 hours ago [-]
[dead]
swordlucky666 12 hours ago [-]
[dead]
13 hours ago [-]
neuroticnews25 13 hours ago [-]
4/18
Enjoying time-based games must be some prey animal adaptation, y'all are probably vegan and have negative canthal tilt.
shruggedatlas 13 hours ago [-]
Skill issue
jaffa2 13 hours ago [-]
haha yes. I got 2 and it said come back in 9hours. LOL. Ain't nobody got time for that.
1. For a version without the timer what would you like to happen if you are just completely stuck on a word? Hints to reveal letters or skip the word?
2. For those who like the timed version would you prefer to continue when you miss a word and then get a final score out of 18?
With the countdown, you more want to care about the high level stuff: Keep your brain agile enough to get the next one, figure out more general patterns, ensure you "cover" the promising patterns, notice tough spots (with tons of patterns) where you you'll need to lock in. That stuff is more fun to focus on than speed.
Everyone wants to fail less, sure. It's not surprising people's feedback focuses on the mechanic that made you fail! That doesn't mean changing that bit will make the game more fun.
The timer doesn’t have to be visible at all until the end.
> Everyone wants to fail less, sure.
It has nothing to do with not wanting to fail. Sometimes people just want to chill a bit or kill a few minutes with a simple word puzzle that engages your game without being stressful. This game doesn’t even let you repeat the challenges you took, so to play it you always have to be highly engaged. That’s fine for some games, but not every game needs to be like that, and this one doesn’t.
No one’s asking timer mode to go away, or even become the default, just to have the alternative option.
So a timer needs to either accept that a lot of interested parties will be turned off by it - or must be designed in a more accommodating way.
As for the second, that's more suggestive and I don't care as much either way. Personally me for me I've just been going down the archive trying each day. I enjoy competitive games, so once I miss a word I don't have much interest in continuing on.
^parent's #2 tip is great too, as I was sad to cut the fun short when I couldn't guess EXAMPLE today.
Just minor notes though really. The game was fun and seemed nice and polished. And obviously allowing playing using the keyboard was a great idea that I appreciated.
You click next and it goes to the next word.
I don’t want hints but I can see how others might want that. But you still don’t get credit for hints. Or it shows “x hints used”
Final score can show that you got the first N words in <30s (as it is now), and you can have other stats:
* Total number of consecutive words (even if over time)
* Total number of words
* total words <30 seconds
* Plus whatever hint based metrics you want
Perhaps it is intentionally part of the design, but being a bit of a perfectionist, I failed a couple of times, and found that actually the longer words were (often) easier than the shorter ones...
But I'd like to propose allowing keyboard input. Losing because of your mouse skills in a pattern recognition game is annoying.
Anyway, doesn't matter, it was totally my mistake, everything works for me as well as for everyone else.
I would like the option to continue when you miss a word, but I also like the "miss a word and it's over" nature for the actual daily game.
You're not going to please everyone here. You might simply need to let the player pick a difficulty level, for example:
- Relaxed - No timer, keep going when you miss / Hurried - Timer, keep going when you miss / Rush - Timer, stops when you miss (default daily)
I think you really have something here! I love word games, and a new one that I would play daily doesn't come along often. Nice job!
2. add a multiplier depending on the number of seconds until solved. [30s / [taken]s = score
3. add button to give upI also like some of the comments about the non-timed version to just chill and play without stress. Having a back catalog of timer-less puzzles would be a fun way to use my brain and kill some time.
Maybe a few different modes? How many can you get out of 18, how long can you last (unlimited), and just a chilled relaxed mode.
Just reduce the final score, as someone else here also suggested, but I'd like to at least always get to try all 18 words.
Maybe distinguish perfect/timely runs with the "trophy" you mention, or a "rank" from a scale (Bracket City's [0] "offices in a hypothetical city government" scale is cute). Or even a simple daily score. But I prefer to complete the daily puzzle even if I don't do it perfectly—and I find that "streak" oddly motivating despite myself. I dunno: "completed" and "completed perfectly" are two different flavors of reinforcement, both motivating.
As it is now, it feels like the game is punishing me for getting stuck on a single early puzzle, by withholding the other X puzzles in the set. And I feel like a consequence is that the game doesn't have a fixed "serving size" in my mind: it's either a 30-second single-clue game, or a 9-minute 18-clue game, and I don't know going in whether I'm getting the single cracker or the full afternoon tea today. I have to make 9 minutes of potential time for it, but I might only get 30 seconds of fun if I screw up.
As to your question 1), I'd like to see two things:
* A "shuffle" button. Often rearranging the letters helps me see it. I feel like I should be able to hit shuffle as much as I want with no cost in terms of the game mechanic--kind of analogous to playing with my (physical) Scrabble tiles.
* As far as a more helpful/"costly" chickening-out for when you're stumped and ready to give up... With Bracket City fresh on my mind, I like their approach with a single, progressive "help" mechanic. Hit it once, you get the first letter; hit it again, you reveal the full word and move right on (at some cost to your score, but blunting the disappointment by immediately giving you the fresh energy of the next clue).
[0] https://bracket.city , now at The Atlantic Magazine. Bonus feature I didn't know about until recently: they have a public-facing puzzle builder ("suburb builder") at https://builder.bracket.city . Thank you @brgross! [1]
[1] Bracket City's Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43160542
Fun game, thanks for sharing!
a) the timer would be cumulative, so that solving the early words faster gives more time for the harder words,
b) going negative wouldn't end the game, it would just turn the time red or something, with the goal being to finish all of the words with the highest time-remaining possible, rather than just to win/lose.
I really like everyone's idea of finding some way of letting the player play all 18 words. Either count up time, and use total time as the score (while allowing pausing). Or else just count the total score at the end, and if someone fails a word it's reduced from the score. So you got 16/18 word or something.
Some suggestions people have made around being able to shuffle or place letters - maybe. But the game is pretty perfect as it is.
I am with the people asking for a scramble/ shuffle button. I have to do anagrams all the time in cryptic crosswords and sometimes it requires seeing things in a totally different order to unlock the answer.
2. Yes
3. I got stuck and couldn't get past RILGUN -- it'd be nice to know what the word you were going for actually was.
i think there is only two valid words: luring and ruling.
2. I don't have a preference.
Very cool and well done.
The timer adds more pressure and excitement.
Really simple and slick game - well done OP and congrats on the launch!
2. Yes being able to continue would be great, it's frustrating that the game just stops.
Great work anyway!
Absolutely, I had to reopen it a bunch of times in incognito to make it to the end xD
Very fun!
And at the end there is a “used a hint” badge or not.
"Baith" is incredibly esoteric.
Also a version in which your unused time is accumulated for future rounds would be interesting
Also, maybe having a button (and also a key press) to randomly rearrange the letters, or allow me to drag them around to try to figure it out... like I'd do with scrabble tiles on my rack.
That would also let you scale to any arbitrary word length.
Adding a second for each letter you type is a crude version.
I immediately liked the game and was inspired to try multiple days,
my single biggest frustration was that once a day is attempted, it's locked, and, you can't continue after a single failure.
The "single point of failure" having heavy consequences would likely make me bounce off and not return.
Might I suggest an alternate design to try:
Keep the incentive to speed, but reduce the punishment.
Proposal:
Score is points-per-word as a function of time to complete.
With a non-linear asymptomic point curve.
Bonus for very fast, long tail decreasing from 1.x points to 0.x, after 30s you get 0 points...
...but critically you are not loocked out of the game and can take as long as you like.
Bonus for caching this state so you can return later
There are variations, e.g. a total time budget for all words... perhaps you retain a sense of tier, with players able to select a "league" which gives higher reward for fastest responses but more quickly drops you to zero for the rest of the game...
You can still have a leader board (implicit or explicit) where points are fungible.
You could even then have a "no stress" league which gives a flat 0.25 points per success with no timer at all or something.
If I could magically get a feature by request, it would be to give me infinite time even if that meant my score came with an asterisk. Maybe just call it Relax Mode vs. Challenge Mode.
By the way: I really like the overall design of Zanagrams and 18 Words. These are small puzzle games with very simple, clean UIs. They work crisply and I've noticed you've been tidying up Zanagrams, adding minor features and settings. They have a very Classic Web feel to them. It's not like you're trying to get me to watch ads or subscribe to your newsletter or are just breadcrumbs to some for-profit thing. I like having a handful of very easy to pick up puzzles/toys when I need to fidget. They help keep me away from TikToks and Shorts.
Thus, he always includes a relaxed mode to let someone practice without any stress. Incidentally, he realized that some people only ever play in the relaxed mode!
Maybe if it counted up I would be less annoyed by it. I like how the NYT does it with their crossword app. If you complete it under some threshold you get a gold star but there's no upper limit on the time.
I much prefer this way, personally at least.
While I agree that for some people games with a time limit are not fun, I don't think the challenges and difficulty should be classified as "purposeless" and "dumb". For many the challenge/difficulty IS the fun part, and they serve a genuine purpose. If you don't like that, then play a different game, but that doesn't mean the game you don't like is useless.
Tangentially, I have noticed some of the most well-balanced difficult games I have ever played were the ones with very granular difficulty settings. Examples include CrossCode and Celeste. Crypt of the Necrodancer too, though the customisation there feels like it crosses into too granular. In each I changed the difficulty settings exactly once, for optional challenges, and it made the games way more enjoyable.
I completely agree. If this didn’t have the timer (or maybe if it were counting up in the corner) it could be a great addition to our collection of games.
I grew up with this: https://youtu.be/UaOLkwtG-Ak?t=12 If anything it should be more intense and have music!
Or alternatively every word still has the timer and then at the end if you finish, it tells you how many words you completed under the timer and gives you a score based on that.
And then maybe an option for those who don't want the timer to show at all, since maybe it adds a bit of pressure. You can have just a simple option that removes the timer entirely from view
In one sense I really enjoy the timer up to the point that I lose, but it feels very unsatisfactory, especially if I lose early, & I'm acutely aware the difficulty level it's set at will be experienced radically differently by different players (to the exclusion of most I would imagine).
Having a timerless mode is very much needed as an option - there's no real risk of "cheating" with these cookie-based browser games anyway since I could just have infinite retries in a private tab if I felt like doing that.
PS anyone have any other fun, simple games like this and Zanagrams? I found https://maptap.gg/ recently and that also gives me the same Classic Web feeling that OP mentioned.
But if this game was called “Do A Word Puzzle While Being Distracted By Animated Numbers in Your Peripheral Vision”, that would be alright.
I regularly do cryptic crosswords (so this sort of game is in my wheelhouse). My goal is to complete the puzzle, not do so in a particular time. Completing it is often hard (depending on which paper I've picked up). There is no timer when I'm say with paper and pen, so it baffles me that every online newspaper cryptic has a timer on by default, and in some cases it can't be disabled.
It's also the thing that "ruined" the LinkedIn puzzles for me. They're generally fun puzzles, but timing it against my PB or - worse - people I'm connected to on LinkedIn just wrecks the experience. I opted out of leaderboards, because I don't really want to know a guy I worked with years ago trashes me at Queens every morning.
Strong agreement that a "relax" mode is needed here - at longer word lengths its becoming a test of recall and anagram ability, and that's fun in its own right. The timer just makes it a bit "meh", and I won't be returning as a result. Shame.
BUT i'd like it if each round started with letters hidden and timer paused in case i need to step away and redirect my attention to something else.
Or maybe don’t even keep score. That’s one of the features which makes be skip these daily games. Not every game needs to be a competition!
The ones I get stuck on are so obvious once the word is revealed that just a reshuffle of the letters would help.
Maybe give the player 3 chances to re-scramble the letters.
Maybe the game can always progress to the next word with your total score being reduced. So if you get all within 30 seconds you score 18/18. That way everyone can play the whole game and share with their friends how far they got:
|X|o|X|X|X|o|o|o|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|o|X| 13/18
I guessed "LATER", but it said - wrong and mentioned "ALERT". The only fix I would make is to ensure that all possible words with scrambled characters make sense.
LATER and ALERT are both correct, for text "A E R T L"
Oh it was supposed to be Habit…
I couldn't guess Dice because, as an ESL person, I couldn't make the D-i combo sound like /d/+ /aɪ/ in my head (it sounded as /d/ + /ɪ/), so a part of my neural circuitry didn't fire, and I couldn't complete it with `ce.`
In other words I, personally, in this pattern recognition game rely on the way words sounds in my head to find familiar combinations and continue the sequence.
Couldn't figure out "binding" because in the process of permuting the letters it got sounded out as "bin ding" which I immediately rejected as "not a word". It seems like it's intuitive to permute letters but I forget that you have to permute the sound too, otherwise it won't parse as a word.
My wife missed that word, and it said the correct word was “habit”.
I also did “baith” (for the same reason as OP), and ended up making it to 16, but I feel like I shouldn’t have, since I’ve never heard of “baith”. I was confused when it accepted it.
Possibly the biggest difference is that 23 Words continues with the next word if you fail to get a word within 30 seconds. When you have attempted all 23 words it will present you with results like this.
I do have another version where it accepts ANY word but I found it quite unsatisfying when I survived by randomly spamming combinations and finding a really obscure word.
So am currently running it against a 20,000 word wordlist instead of my larger 300,000 wordlist
Granted, there are also people who get annoyed when the game seems too accepting of unusual words, but if you can point them to a valid dictionary definition for that oddball word, they usually accept it without argument.
Definitely not any less valid or unsatisfying than "zebra".
Given that those two don’t have the same letters, isn’t that the expected outcome?
EARLS was not accepted, and I had already decided not to try REALS. (is there a rule against plurals?) what it was looking for was LASER which has a more tenuous claim on being a word than those two.
I think summarizing everybody's feedback the simplest solution is: "Game difficulty".
- Standard: what you have today
- Relaxed: 1 minute per word?
- Practice Mode: no timer whatsoever
And "Practice Mode" is a completely different mode that lets you skip questions, and instead of "you win / you lose" which is today's behavior, you end up with a score (14/18).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
> All the symbols depicted here must be evaluated in the context in which they appear. Few symbols represent just one idea or are used exclusively by one group. For example, 100% is often used as an amount or an expression and it is also used by some by some white supremacists as shorthand for "100% white."
serious question: if the majority aren't "in the know" and some minority is, and the game has literally nothing to do with sending any sekrut messages, who cares? like, is a white nationalist sitting here on HN, playing this game over a coffee and thinks, "heh, sick this is 4 numbers away from the callsign"
So it's about as esoteric as white nationalism is. For example, members of the current US administration know it/believe it.
(I’m not saying the game needs to change its name.)
But you gotta admit it’s strange that some mass murders are off limits but not others. Joseph, mao, osama. It’s mostly about preexisting popularity.
Do you think this cute little word game is white nationalist? Do white nationalists have claim on all "(number) words" names?
A shuffle button would be nice (especially if it's keyboard friendly). I've found it useful for me with the NYT Spelling Bee. Sometimes my brain just gets stuck on a letter combination because two letters are close together, and the rearrangement helps.
It would be kind of fun to have an endless mode too, that just pulls words from the dictionary. Maybe not quite in line with the "daily word game" premise, but something I would personally find enjoyable.
Spoiler alert ahead: unethical way to win that needs to be fixed.
Play in incognito mode and when you lose, you already know the word(s). Restart the browser and you are ready to play again, instantly.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40536488
Edit: I believe it was transferred to a new domain at https://wordnerd.co/
https://www.uptoplay.net/wordiest-online-game/com.concretero...
Very similar in spirit, but IMHO a lot more enjoyable than your version. It's untimed which takes the pressure off, but still a challenge because there are multiple potentially correct answers.
The on-line version doesn't seem to be working, and I don't have an android device so I can't tell if the app is still working either. But I ran this on my nexus 7 for years until it died. It was one of my favorite on-line games. I would happily pay someone to port it to ios.
I used to win spelling bees in school, but I played the entire archive on this game and my highest score was 6/18.
Maybe it has to do with the balance between audio and visual learning. Spelling bees are spoken words in, letters out -- not letters in, words out. When trying to solve these, I kept trying to sound out different orderings of letters, maybe that's not how good players do it?
A re-scramble button would do wonders for me like in that Spelling Bee game on NYTimes.
The only thing I really don't like, is that each puzzle can only be played once. I would like to figure out all words of a day even if it doesn't count.
This could even be an interesting statistic, how many people finished all words ignoring the time component.
It’s coming along nicely btw, some people are saying they don’t like the timer but I personally think the timer adds a lot to it. Also only being able to attempt once makes it more competitive, like if you combined hardcore minecraft and wordle. Hardcore wordle.
I anticipate the NY Times will buy you out and I am very jealous
I'm load a short wordlist first and then the longer version async so it doesn't really affect how long until you can start playing.
Waste of bandwidth is true. Cloudflare pages hates me
The UI is almost perfect, it’s seamless on mobile and desktop.
I made some criticism in other comments therefore I also wanted to make a comment saying what I liked.
Forgive the shameless plug. Here is my word game which only features words from programming and compsci.
https://7coderwords.kenamick.com
For 4 letters it's enough time to guess, but I have no idea what they mean: 'Doby', 'Etas'
Love the pressure due to the timer, and the best aid to help is say it aloud.
Good job, I got 15/18
I find that with things like this my distribution of times is extremely uneven: I get most words in a few seconds, but every now and then one comes along that for whatever reason my brain doesn't want to see and then it takes much longer. (And if that "much longer" is over the 30-second limit, too bad, I lose.)
And something about this makes playing with the timer annoying for me: I feel some combination of "surely I should get some credit for getting all those others so much quicker than the timer allows" and "oh, come on, that was just unlucky and doesn't reflect what I can generally do".
(I am not claiming that it's right to feel anything like that. Just that I do and I suspect I'm not alone.)
I wonder about a mechanic like this: the timer starts at 30 seconds; when you solve a word, rather than resetting to 30 seconds the timer increments by 10 seconds. So if you're solving in <10s on average then (at least after the first few, easier, words) you can afford to have the occasional brain failure without getting thrown out of the game. And your overall performance depends on how well you do on all the words, not how you do on the single worst one.
(I agree with others that there should also be a no-timer mode for those who just don't want to feel tested and/or stressed in that way.)
way easier with fingers on the keyboard (vs selecting characters with mouse)
just typing out seemingly possible words per muscle memory / subconscious impulse
Congrats! This looks like a daily one for me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words
The internet is a magical place.
had it been 14 you would have a torrent of ill will where no excuse or response would have been sufficient in the minds of those who fail at life.
We must secure equal forgiveness for the people and the future inadvertent online mistakes.
I got stuck on the word corner of all words. Ugh
Huh? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/color
I'm normally terrible at anagrams.
Enjoying time-based games must be some prey animal adaptation, y'all are probably vegan and have negative canthal tilt.