[HN Gopher] Show HN: Three Magic Words, a five-letter word game ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Show HN: Three Magic Words, a five-letter word game that isn't
       Wordle
        
       Author : beepy
       Score  : 166 points
       Date   : 2022-02-08 13:06 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.threemagicwords.app)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.threemagicwords.app)
        
       | huhtenberg wrote:
       | I really don't like that it's timed.
        
       | feintruled wrote:
       | I like this a lot. I sort of agree with other posters about the
       | animations, though it looks really good so perhaps some middle
       | ground is possible here. Timer is stressful, but that's fine IMHO
       | - it's a different vibe to Wordle (which let's be honest is waaay
       | too easy) and allows you to compete on a more granular level.
       | 
       | I don't so much mind the multiple solutions - if you get the
       | 'wrong' one, that's a new datapoint and you need to guess again,
       | hangman style - but I don't like that it counts as a wrong guess
       | in your stats.
       | 
       | But yeah, I'll play this again for sure.
        
       | alecst wrote:
       | Cool, fun, inventive, challenging. Might enjoy it even more than
       | Wordle.
       | 
       | It took a second for it to load on my mac -- I thought maybe it
       | was busted. Maybe page load speed is something to look into.
        
       | sprak wrote:
       | Nice game. I liked the feel of moving the tiles. There is a
       | slight problem when I first enter a new puzzle. The movable tiles
       | are below the screen! [0] (On Android, standard Chrome browser).
       | It fixes itself if I rotate to landscape and then back to
       | portrait.
       | 
       | So far I like the word list you've used. But I've only tried the
       | easier days :p.
       | 
       | [0]: https://ibb.co/7NvPTnM
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | Thank you!
        
         | sprak wrote:
         | ...and in Firefox on the same Android device everything works
         | fine.
        
       | rzzzt wrote:
       | Slightly off-topic: when Flappy Bird was cool, games popped up
       | everywhere that were derivatives of Flappy Bird. When 2048 took
       | the scene, a flurry of 2048-like games appeared. Flappy 2048
       | games also exist.
       | 
       | Does a Flappy Wordle, 2048 Wordle or Flappy 2048 Wordle exist?
        
       | jker wrote:
       | Fun game and snappy, delightful animation! Thanks for sharing
       | this.
        
       | gamerDude wrote:
       | Mine loads, but the keyboard never appears to guess letters. I
       | have no idea if there is a bug or if I am doing it wrong.
       | 
       | Mobile chrome on Google pixel 3.
        
         | sandGorgon wrote:
         | Same here
        
         | shubhamkrm wrote:
         | Same here. No keyboard in portrait mode. When I change to
         | landscape mode, I can see the first row of letters to guess,
         | but that's it.
         | 
         | If it helps, I'm using Chrome on OnePlus Nord.
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | I think I've fixed this (hopefully without breaking something
         | else). Give it another look if you can and let me know.
        
       | onemoresoop wrote:
       | It is very fun, I spent my commute playing this game today. Great
       | job!
        
       | neogodless wrote:
       | Playing on latest Firefox, Windows 10. Was doing the easiest one,
       | and at 1:14 in the fifth round after I typed in the letters for
       | the third row, it just froze up. Didn't say I won or ran out of
       | time. Not sure if that's how it ends or it bugged out.
       | 
       | I personally prefer games without time pressure, and I kept
       | trying to type the whole word, not just the missing letters. But
       | it's still a neat idea and an overall great execution.
        
         | armoredkitten wrote:
         | Definitely doesn't end like that -- when I finished, it gave
         | sort of a summary screen with the performance for each round
         | (kind of similar-ish to Wordle's summary screen). So sounds
         | like it bugged out for you.
        
       | andjd wrote:
       | I know that you're not copying the wordle vibe necessarily, but
       | the animations seem too over the top to me. They're pushing into
       | candy crush territory, and to me that a strong detractor. One of
       | the thing I appreciate about wordle is that it isn't trying to be
       | more than it is, and this feels too much like the free games that
       | fill app stores and employs a bunch of dark patterns to hook your
       | attention.
        
         | the_snooze wrote:
         | Seconding this. What's so refreshing about Wordle is just how
         | _respectful_ it is of the user 's time and attention. Beyond
         | the "one a day, and you're done" structure, Wordle's
         | presentation is clean, snappy, and completely relevant to the
         | task at hand.
         | 
         | I like Three Magic Words's gameplay, but yeah, the presentation
         | left a very sour taste in my mouth. I just want to solve a
         | puzzle and that's it. No need for superfluous animation or
         | scoring.
        
         | bonestamp2 wrote:
         | One improvement would be for the animations to at least happen
         | in parallel, having them sequential seems over the top. It's a
         | few seconds of waiting for a new puzzle to finish all of its
         | animations. It would be nicer if they all happened together in
         | about 500ms.
        
       | rkangel wrote:
       | Nice design. I like the stars as an extra feeling of success and
       | pressure beyond just getting the word right.
        
       | definitelyhuman wrote:
       | Well executed unique approach, great job! I've worked in games my
       | whole life, and that's hard to do!
       | 
       | Like others, I personally don't like the time pressure and have
       | really enjoyed the async one a day whenever format of wordle. It
       | largely depends on your target audience and objectives for
       | whether it's right for this game. Separate zen/challenge modes
       | would help players self select, but also muddies the onboarding.
       | Great job though, fun game!
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | Thanks! Not sure what to do with it, to be honest.
         | 
         | I had trouble finding the game satisfying without some goal
         | beyond just solving it. However, speed is not required unless
         | you care -- you can win without collecting the stars. Perhaps
         | it would be enough to have a well-worded checkbox on the play
         | page ("Chill mode," "don't pressure me", "I'll take my time",
         | something).
        
       | anentropic wrote:
       | Bug: if you click the next letter while the 'victory' animation
       | for the previous letter is still playing, it replaces the
       | previous correct letter with the new one you clicked, instead of
       | putting the second letter in the next empty space
       | 
       | Too much animation overall
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | I think I follow, thank you. Perhaps a reduced animation option
         | (or respecting prefers-reduced-motion setting) would help.
        
           | anentropic wrote:
           | I think, once you've put a letter in place, clicking another
           | letter should either be blocked until animations are finished
           | or should go ahead and fill the next available place
        
           | airstrike wrote:
           | While we're on the topic, I found the animations in between
           | puzzles too distracting, particularly given there's a timer.
           | If you're timing me, the puzzle better let me play as fast I
           | can!
        
       | phillc73 wrote:
       | I liked the game and have never played Wordle, so can't really
       | compare. However, I was stuck on one specific set of words for a
       | long time due to spelling issues. The word I couldn't grok was
       | "armor", whereas my brain would by default only recognise
       | "armour". It'd be a nice small enhancement to state clearly what
       | dictionary was being used for the spellings.
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | Yes, that should be explicitly stated. Thank you!
        
       | myfonj wrote:
       | You cannot start the game using keyboard. Its nice that game
       | itself supports it, just make that <div class="[...] play-pane
       | [...]"> a <button>, pretty please.
        
       | mathrall wrote:
       | I hope we can play this game with our friends
        
       | kawfey wrote:
       | Waiting for animations is killing my speed run drive.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | JPKab wrote:
       | I've never felt more disconnected from pop culture than now. The
       | quantity of posts that just ASSUMED people knew what the hell
       | Wordle was helped me realize that I do, indeed, live under a
       | rock.
        
         | woodgrainz wrote:
         | Do you not read HN that much? It's a worldwide phenomenon.
         | Wordle-related content has been on HN practically everyday
         | since mid January.
        
         | cookie_monsta wrote:
         | "I've never heard of wordle before" is becoming the most
         | tiresome humblebrag of 2022
        
       | antux wrote:
       | Great animations and game concept. Would be nice to make it
       | multiplayer and have people work on the same puzzle and race.
        
       | NKosmatos wrote:
       | Nice execution, a variation of Wordle but different enough so as
       | to not be taken as a clone :-) Quick feedback, why does the round
       | timer inside the yellow star starts decreasing while the letters
       | are still falling/appearing? Shouldn't it start the countdown
       | once all letters and the palying field is ready?
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | Thanks! Really, that star shouldn't appear so quickly. It
         | currently appears as soon as the new round comes into
         | existence. You get about 40 seconds to get the star from the
         | end of the last round, so I could certainly cheat and have the
         | countdown circle start at around 38 seconds so it wouldn't seem
         | unfair.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | nkrisc wrote:
       | I had only two letters left, K and L. Words: BUL_Y and PEE_S.
       | Each letter works fine in either spot, but only one way was
       | correct. That kind of annoyed me because I guessed wrong the
       | first time.
        
         | tonmoy wrote:
         | I don't think there can be any easy way around issues like that
         | in games like these. At least this game doesn't penalize you
         | for it
        
           | fsckboy wrote:
           | never generate a puzzle with two solutions, or accept both
           | solutions.
           | 
           | in this case that puzzle had more solutions because it
           | rejected keeps and bully as well
        
             | aceazzameen wrote:
             | This is the was way.
        
             | cookie_monsta wrote:
             | > never generate a puzzle with two solutions, or accept
             | both solutions.
             | 
             | I think there's a very popular game making the rounds at
             | the moment that flies in the face of this "wisdom"
        
           | nkrisc wrote:
           | Well I did lose some time trying to figure out why two
           | seemingly valid words didn't work, only after a bit did I
           | realize swapping the letters also worked and was the
           | "correct" solution.
        
       | peeters wrote:
       | I enjoyed this but I think it could use some refinement.
       | 
       | I feel like you should _either_ remove the timer, or accept any
       | correct three words. Being punished for coming up with three
       | words that fit, but aren 't the three words you expected, is kind
       | of frustrating.
       | 
       | To be honest I find the fact that it evaluates one word at a time
       | to be pretty jarring. I want to be able to try letters in spots
       | without the game yelling at me that they're wrong before I've
       | committed to them. Instead I basically need to replicate the game
       | board down below in the negative space.
        
         | jamincan wrote:
         | It seems that you can click on a box and add a letter, or click
         | a letter to remove it. It's only once you complete a word that
         | it registers a guess.
        
       | cookie_monsta wrote:
       | Echoing some thoughts here:
       | 
       | - The animations definitely detract for me. It feels like it's
       | about to start showing pop up ads or videos that I have to watch
       | for 30 seconds before continuing
       | 
       | - I just ignored the timer. Making it optional is a great idea
       | 
       | - I don't have any problem with multiple possible solutions.
       | That's just part of the game.
       | 
       | - Would I play again? TBH, probably not. The "fill in the blanks"
       | dynamic just doesn't feel very challenging. Maybe hard mode would
       | be better, but as I understand it I have to wait for later in the
       | week for that, and then presumably on Monday it will cycle back
       | to easy?
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | You can scroll down on the main play page to play the previous
         | challenges. You might like Thursday and Friday more.
        
           | cookie_monsta wrote:
           | Oh, yes - the first time I looked at it was on my phone and I
           | didn't even notice that you could scroll down. I think
           | because the links for Help, Contact, Privacy appear at the
           | bottom of the viewport and those are normally in the footer
           | of the page I just assumed there was nothing below.
           | 
           | I would play the weekend level again. Dunno if I will be
           | remembering to come back once a week, though.
        
       | moolcool wrote:
       | This is cool, but there's a bug when there's multiple possible
       | correct solutions https://i.imgur.com/S56AWWj.png
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | Not a bug! There are three specific words it's looking for. I
         | will find a way to make that more explicit.
        
           | moolcool wrote:
           | Do you think there'd be a way to generate the puzzles that
           | make a case like this is impossible? Like with this puzzle
           | it's a 50/50 gamble whether you get it all in one guess or
           | not
        
       | oceliker wrote:
       | Is this a bug or am I missing something here? Looks like I'm out
       | of vowels...
       | 
       | https://imgur.com/a/D57IgjE
        
         | SamBam wrote:
         | Seems like a bug to me. The first word of the last puzzle
         | starts with the C, not the V.
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | Yeah that's a bug - should be impossible. Thank you for
         | posting, kinda important that that doesn't happen. I will check
         | it out.
        
           | oceliker wrote:
           | Wish I could tell you exactly what I was doing at the time,
           | but I don't remember :( I only remember I was entering
           | guesses as fast as possible even while the slow return
           | animations were going on, maybe it has something to do with
           | that.
        
         | atuladhar wrote:
         | I have a possible solution but I can't figure out how to post
         | it here without spoiling it immediately. If you tell me it's
         | OK, or if somebody tells me how to post text with a black
         | background (so you have to select the text to see it), I'll
         | post it.
        
           | airstrike wrote:
           | Paste it to, I don't know, https://dpaste.org
        
             | atuladhar wrote:
             | Using dpaste is a great idea! But I just realized that I
             | was reading the clues wrong -- I thought the gray tiles
             | were the user's attempts, not clues that the game gave you
             | as already correct. It does indeed look like a bug or it's
             | using a very obscure word. Sorry!
        
       | honkdaddy wrote:
       | This was a lot of fun. Really great work!
        
       | pwillia7 wrote:
       | I've been enjoying this one too -- https://nytimes-
       | spellingbee.com/
        
       | evanb wrote:
       | I finished about 20 seconds slower than I would have if the
       | animation hadn't lagged as much.
        
         | oceliker wrote:
         | I think that's part of the game:
         | 
         | > Repeated bad guesses incur a time penalty.
        
           | evanb wrote:
           | I made guesses and paid for them in the last round. But my
           | 2nd and 3rd rounds were just
           | 
           | slowly
           | 
           | animated
        
       | mlcrypto wrote:
        
       | the_biot wrote:
       | It uses massive amounts of CPU even when idle.
       | 
       | I realize this is common in games, but don't let anyone tell you
       | any different: this is shit code.
        
       | joeframbach wrote:
       | This isn't a logic game, this is a game of "guess what word I'm
       | thinking of".                   - - G G Y         - E E - S
       | - - - - Y                  O P U         B F K L L
       | 
       | Possible solutions:                   b u G G Y         p E E k S
       | f o l l Y              f o G G Y         p E E k S         b u l
       | l Y              f o G G Y         p E E l S         b u l k Y
       | 
       | I wrote down the solutions ahead of typing them in, in this
       | order, and was extremely frustrated that the answers I came up
       | with, which were correct, did not read your mind. Even more
       | frustrating because when coming up with the solutions I discarded
       | "PEELS" because it's just a four-letter-word with an S at the
       | end, not a proper five-letter-word. It shouldn't have been a
       | solution.
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | It ought to do a better job of explaining that there are
         | specific words it's looking for. Originally I did explore the
         | game you thought that this game was -- create any 3 words using
         | all the loose tiles -- but the problem is, there are around 12K
         | five-letter words in standard word game play. My game has an
         | imperfect list of less than 33% of these that can be recognized
         | by most people. It would be too easy to guess an acceptable
         | word, only to have the remaining words technically legal, but
         | not among the remaining guessable words, and worse, possibly
         | offensive. If I limit it to only the guessable words, then for
         | many people, words they reasonably expected to be accepted
         | would be inexplicably rejected.
        
           | yunwal wrote:
           | Requirements imo, should be 1) All used words are guessable
           | 2) There are no possible alternate solutions with unguessable
           | words
           | 
           | I haven't done the math, but I suspect there are plenty of
           | solutions like this, you'll just have to calculate them.
        
         | Spare_account wrote:
         | > _I discarded "PEELS" because it's just a four-letter-word
         | with an S at the end, not a proper five-letter-word_
         | 
         | Did you discard "PEEKS" on the same basis?
        
           | joeframbach wrote:
           | Good point, I missed that one.
        
       | so_serious wrote:
       | Looks like the game can get itself into invalid states:
       | https://imgur.com/a/3Wktj10. Don't want to spoil this board, but
       | there are incorrect letters accepted as green here.
       | 
       | * edit: just saw that oceliker ran into the same issue.
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | Yeah I am trying to figure this out. I have not been able to
         | reproduce it. It should not be possible; I think the UI state
         | is getting out of sync with the true puzzle state. It looks
         | like you tried VIALS - do you know if you interacting pretty
         | quickly? Using the keyboard or not? Another person reported
         | weirdness with tiles that were supposed to be getting locked in
         | place instead being replaceable. I wonder if the final row was
         | merrily animating its lock into place sequence, then you typed
         | VIALS, and it permitted those to moved, falsely locking them
         | into place in the other word?
        
           | so_serious wrote:
           | I was using the mouse to drag around letters, not the
           | keyboard. It was my first time playing and I was still
           | wrapping my head around basic game concepts, so it's unlikely
           | that I was interacting quickly.
        
       | funwares wrote:
       | Works absolutely flawlessly on mobile for me (Android Firefox).
       | 
       | The animations are very satisfying and the game is very fun.
       | 
       | Fantastic work!
       | 
       | edit: This is on OxygenOS 11.1.2.2 and FireFox 96.3.1
        
         | albert_e wrote:
         | on my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note10+, Chrome) ... the layout is
         | broken ... the "keyboard" / available tiles at the bottom are
         | off screen and invisible / inaccessible
        
       | doodpants wrote:
       | I like it! But my one criticism is that it wastes too much time
       | on animation, especially when transitioning from one round to the
       | next. I'm anxious to get started, but have to wait at least 5
       | seconds for the current puzzle to dissolve, and then all the
       | tiles for the next round to move into place one by one.
        
       | donkarma wrote:
       | why is it 3 MB?
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | The heavier bits: about 800k of that is the .webp animations
         | showing how to play. The actual game has a bunch of image
         | resources -- including font sprites for the timer and the tiles
         | -- that are probably a few hundred k as well. The regular site
         | stuff is sveltekit.
         | 
         | The game script is around 300k. I used Phaser [0] -- I
         | originally wrote the game in Swift for iOS and utilized one of
         | that platform's gaming frameworks(SpriteKit). I rewrote it in
         | TypeScript for the web and wanted a similar framework to ease
         | the porting.
         | 
         | [0] https://phaser.io
        
       | mgas wrote:
       | Game Play: maybe you want it this way, but the animations are an
       | impediment to gameplay. I like to type the words, and in a timed
       | situation, typing quickly should be an asset to the player. The
       | animations make good players worse, even on first guesses before
       | you slow the animations. I like slowing the player after multiple
       | bad guesses, but don't hamstring us from the start.
       | 
       | Word Lists: far too many plurals. Especially in the games you
       | rate as more challenging, plurals render the game dull. There are
       | plenty of interesting and difficult 5-letter patterns in English
       | that make this type of game better.
       | 
       | Stars: this seems like an afterthought. I had done four or five
       | of these puzzles before I realized what the mechanism for the
       | stars was. Even when the summary screen showed that I finished
       | with x number of stars, I really only cared about how quickly I
       | was able to complete the puzzle. It is good that time is the
       | overall measure in your game, but I found that I cared very
       | little about stars in the end.
       | 
       | Overall a nice iteration on the Scrabble/Boggle/Wordle paradigm.
        
       | geoduck14 wrote:
       | Doesn't work on android
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | OK I think I've fixed this. Please take another look if you
         | can.
        
         | kermi wrote:
         | It worked on my Android device when I rotated the screen to
         | landscape mode, though not with optimal UI anymore. The bottom
         | character row is invisible in portrait mode on my device. Great
         | fun though!
        
           | beepy wrote:
           | Thanks - I did struggle with getting the game to size
           | properly under different conditions. I sorely lack deep
           | knowledge of the matrix of Android browsers/OS version
           | quirks.
        
         | arbol wrote:
         | In brave browser on Android I can't see any blue tiles to drag
         | up / keyboard doesn't open. Not sure what the functionality is
         | meant to be.
        
           | arbol wrote:
           | Looks good though
        
         | beepy wrote:
         | Urk - what browser/version please?
        
           | efaref wrote:
           | On Chrome on Android (whatever is latest on the Play store)
           | in portrait mode, the bottom letters are off the bottom of
           | the screen. If I rotate everything is small but I can see it.
        
             | beepy wrote:
             | Thank you, that's super helpful.
        
       | beepy wrote:
       | Here's a free, fun, novel five-letter word game for the web! It's
       | a game I originally wrote for the iPhone in 2010, but wasn't able
       | to finish before my first child was born. When I left my senior
       | web developer job in September 2021 I figured I would postpone
       | looking for work and finish the game before another 11 years
       | passed, and expose myself to new skills doing it (in this case,
       | Swift). I released it on the App Store in December, then turned
       | my attention to doing a web version -- when suddenly Wordle was
       | in The NY Times, and then everywhere.
       | 
       | Perhaps foolishly, I plowed ahead and here we are. Like Wordle
       | and some other NY Times word games, there is a single daily
       | puzzle, but like traditional crossword puzzles, it gets harder
       | throughout the week.
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | The game seems to expect a particular solution even when there
         | are multiple possibilities of forming correct words. For
         | example, I tried "peeks" & "bully" but the game only accepted
         | "peels" & "bulky". This is frustrating, as one has to "mind-
         | read" the game.
         | 
         | Another thing to improve is to reduce the frequency of plural
         | forms. Plurals are just a cop-out to turn four-letter words
         | into five-letter words. ;)
        
           | x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
           | I encountered _the exact same thing_. I immediately closed
           | the game after that.
        
           | kamranjon wrote:
           | You realize that this is exactly how wordle works right?
        
             | Edd314159 wrote:
             | In Worldle you need only guess one word. The player can do
             | whatever they want to get there, but there is only one
             | valid solution. Having two (or more) valid solutions to a
             | game, but only accepting one of them, is unfortunately a
             | recipe for frustration.
             | 
             | The equivalent would be if Worldle made you also guess each
             | intermediate word to get to the solution.
        
         | Graffur wrote:
         | I honestly thought you had copied wordle. Well done on powering
         | through. Finishing a project like this is an accomplishment in
         | itself and the fact it is polished adds to it.
        
         | msoad wrote:
         | I really like the execution on this. One piece of feedback is
         | that the timer gave me anxiety and I closed it. I do puzzles to
         | phase out from stress not to challenge myself in a time bound
         | environment
        
           | iainmerrick wrote:
           | I agree... I think there are actually a couple of niggles
           | that work together:
           | 
           | - there's a timer
           | 
           | - solutions are not always unique
           | 
           | Often in Wordle, you'll have three or four green letters,
           | which leaves several possible answers, and you just have to
           | guess which one is correct. Some days you'll be lucky, some
           | days you won't! But it feels OK because you're not working
           | against a clock; so you have time to mull over the
           | possibilities and decide which one feels better.
           | 
           | In Three Magic words, because you're racing against the
           | clock, once you see a solution you immediately want to put it
           | in. But sometimes it gets rejected! For example, on Tuesday's
           | puzzle:
           | 
           | Gur pbeerpg fbyhgvba jnf CRRYF naq OHYXL, ohg V gevrq CRRXF
           | naq OHYYL juvpu V guvax jbhyq nyfb unir orra inyvq.
           | 
           | Somehow that feels more unfair than the Wordle case. I wonder
           | if it might be better just to accept any valid solution that
           | uses known common words?
        
             | beepy wrote:
             | There are a few reasons I didn't pursue that -- one of them
             | that comes to mind because of having to deal with repeats -
             | for example, let's say in round 1 you have TRIAL and in
             | round 2 you have TRAIL. You see TR---, guess TRAIL in round
             | one and the game marks it correct. In round 2, you see
             | TR--- and guess TRAIL again.
             | 
             | I think that solution lock you experience - it's a little
             | uncomfortable, but once you learn to wriggle your way out
             | of it, you get that "aha" feeling I'm going for.
        
               | mattmcknight wrote:
               | I actually think it would be much more fun if it could
               | accept multiple solutions. You could even have 5 words
               | and a letter bank. That part of it, quickly finding ways
               | to use the letters, is fun. The speed bonus would make a
               | lot more sense then.
               | 
               | > I think that solution lock you experience - it's a
               | little uncomfortable, but once you learn to wriggle your
               | way out of it, you get that "aha" feeling I'm going for.
               | 
               | This is the part that gives me the "ugh" experience.
        
           | m12k wrote:
           | The timer also really doesn't mesh well with the slow
           | "letters falling down" animation between rounds. The UI is
           | sending very mixed signals with "how quickly can you do
           | this?" and "hold on, gotta wait here for a bit" at the same
           | time.
        
             | lbriner wrote:
             | Yeah, if you want the dropping animation and you can't
             | start typing before then, then don't start the timer before
             | the animation finishes.
             | 
             | There is also the age-old argument about British-English vs
             | American English e.g. Armor is not spelled that way in
             | British English so it takes a lot more effort to work these
             | out.
             | 
             | Pretty slick though.
        
             | jointpdf wrote:
             | I like the time pressure aspect, but I agree the animations
             | should be snappier. Different TOKES for different FOLKS, I
             | GUESS.
             | 
             | I'd also enjoy some form of global leaderboard of some sort
             | (maybe a scatterplot comparing time and accuracy?), so I
             | can assess how inferior/superior I am to others.
        
           | beepy wrote:
           | I hear you. I personally found the game less interesting
           | before I added the "threat" of losing stars -- it felt to me
           | more like trial-and-error work. However, I think there is
           | value in embracing its more meditative side and offering
           | untimed (and I supposed, star-less) play as well.
        
             | cush wrote:
             | The stars could stay if the timer is removed. You'd just
             | lose them only if you get a red guess on them
        
             | bonestamp2 wrote:
             | A "Competitive" mode and a "Zen" mode.
        
             | jamincan wrote:
             | I think you could keep the timed aspect, but the current
             | format of the game makes it too prominent for those of us
             | who are primarily interested in reducing the guesses. The
             | first thing I'd do is get rid of the sad faces for missed
             | stars at the end. As silly as it sounds, it feels like
             | being penalized for approaching the game more methodically.
             | 
             | If you just show the number of stars the player got at the
             | end without emphasizing what they missed, those who are
             | playing for speed are rewarded with more stars, those who
             | are playing for low guesses are rewarded for a low number.
        
             | woodgrainz wrote:
             | The casual nature of Wordle is one of its biggest
             | strengths. Don't underestimate the allure of the
             | zen/meditative angle of the game. It's something to look
             | forward to everyday because of it.
        
             | criddell wrote:
             | Definitely get rid of the timer or make it something you
             | can turn on. As soon as you have a clock ticking, it adds
             | an element of stress to it. Part of the charm of games like
             | Wordle is that it's all about delight. Casual is good. Get
             | rid of the threat.
             | 
             | If you really want something to formulate a score, count
             | the number of guesses.
        
           | cush wrote:
           | Completely agree. You could simply remove the timer and it
           | would instantly be a better game. People can compare scores
           | by number of guesses
        
         | furyofantares wrote:
         | Very well done. I almost love it, but the timed nature bothers
         | me, as does the existence of multiple wrong board solves. With
         | this game, I don't want to type in guesses without solving the
         | whole board first, I like the logic puzzle, but if I solve the
         | whole board first and it's wrong, that's too big a chunk of
         | work to throw out for maybe one green or yellow square.
         | 
         | I could be in the wrong here, haven't played it much yet!
         | Congrats on showing it off, very cool.
        
         | iainmerrick wrote:
         | Very nice! It's a fun game, and looks really nicely
         | implemented.
         | 
         | Congratulations especially on finding the energy to push
         | through and finish this. It must have been a bit disheartening
         | to see Wordle's massive success, and it could have been an easy
         | excuse not to bother finishing your own game (or at least to
         | radically re-think and simplify it into yet another me-too
         | Wordle clone).
        
           | beepy wrote:
           | Thanks! I was mostly worried that Wordle's initial press
           | tended to give the impression that Wardle had invented the
           | game (and I grumbled about that here and elsewhere) -- so I
           | feared I would be accused of copying his work.
        
         | lucretian wrote:
         | i appreciate the challenge this offers compared to wordle.
         | 
         | NYT's spelling bee has a feature that i think you should
         | consider implementing: a button and/or key press (e.g. space)
         | that shuffles the remaining, unused letters.
        
           | beepy wrote:
           | I like that, thanks!
        
       | tluyben2 wrote:
       | The Play button doesn't work for me under Safari 15.2 on OS X.
        
       | carlmr wrote:
       | On Samsung A52s in Chrome I couldn't see the letters to insert in
       | portrait mode, and I couldn't zoom out to see them.
        
       | yhoneycomb wrote:
       | This game is simultaneously more stressful, less challenging, and
       | less fun than wordle. I especially hate the timer
        
       | twox2 wrote:
       | It's too easy.
        
         | criddell wrote:
         | Is Wordle too easy? Right now, that's a benchmark for these
         | kinds of games.
        
           | twox2 wrote:
           | A few of the Wordle's I had to think for several minutes, but
           | this game is pretty instant.
        
       | f00zz wrote:
       | Great execution, love the juicy animations!
        
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       (page generated 2022-02-08 23:01 UTC)