[HN Gopher] Show HN: Killer Crossword - A crossword puzzle varia...
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Show HN: Killer Crossword - A crossword puzzle variation with no
clues
Author : danieltait
Score : 97 points
Date : 2022-08-04 13:45 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (killercrossword.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (killercrossword.com)
| pwinnski wrote:
| Excellent. This focuses on word recognition, which is a large
| part of vocabulary, omitting the need for meaning. I suppose it
| also provides chances for people who don't know words to work out
| new words based on phonetic patterns and which letters remain.
|
| Great stuff!
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| Kind of the inverse of a diagramless crossword. Nice concept,
| well executed.
|
| Reminds me of Knotwords.
| waxpancake wrote:
| Knotwords is a delight, highly recommend checking it out if
| anyone likes this concept.
| https://noodlecake.com/games/knotwords/
| vehementi wrote:
| I despaired until I saw that it actually confirms something is
| right and locked in. Nice!
| _dain_ wrote:
| It doesn't let me enter the letter P.
| scottlu2 wrote:
| Love it - my wife and I enjoying playing that - on an iPad.
| Nicely made.
| eterm wrote:
| Fun but very frustrating controls. If you mis-type a letter in
| one box and it's the only letter left of that letter then you
| can't type it elsewhere which gets me right in a muddle. Also the
| delete key doesn't appear to work, only the backspace.
|
| Tab really ought to tab through the words as well as arrow keys,
| which don't cursor to filled in letters which is also
| frustrating.
|
| I'd like to be able to type a whole word, including over-typing
| the letters provided.
|
| I'd recommend playing around with the guardian crossword for
| inspiration of a control scheme.
|
| But fun core idea!
| pixxel wrote:
| Nice job.
| fcoury wrote:
| It's really a lot of fun, well done!
| naet wrote:
| Kind of fun the first time, but I think I prefer a normal
| crossword. Seems like the only way to progress is to pick an
| unfinished word and then do tons of guesses back to back of all
| the possibilities until one turns green, which starts to get
| boring when there are a lot of possibilities.
|
| Feels more like stenography or data entry than playing a game at
| that point where you're just typing 10+ guesses without any
| investment in any one of them.
|
| For example, when I tried the larger version, I got to a point of
| a 2/3 filled word: _ET.
|
| I then had to sit and enter:
|
| -bet -get -jet -let -met -net -pet -set -vet -wet
|
| and finally, I got to the word: yet. And that's not even
| including some less common but still valid words I would guess
| like ret and tet, which I'm not sure are off the table as
| possibly valid entries. It just felt like a chore more than a
| puzzle to get that word, and I have to repeat it over and over
| for the other words. Maybe as you get to a close the letter pool
| gets a bit smaller so you have less guesses, but that's only
| after you've guessed out a significant portion of the puzzle.
|
| Wordle avoids this by giving you information on your guesses,
| making them feel less like a huge string of purely random
| guesses. Crosswords give you cryptic clues that aren't obvious,
| but make you feel like any guess was based on deductive reasoning
| rather than some brute force attempt.
|
| Still, nice job on building and releasing the project! And it
| sounds like other commenters are enjoying it more than I am, so
| maybe I'm just a stick in the mud or I like word games too much
| and have too much time invested in them.
| sbf501 wrote:
| I agree with this. Three-letter words that dangle by one letter
| are just a chore. There needs to be a balance between
| discoverability and guessing. Perhaps the auto-generator needs
| to evaluate the discoverability somehow...
|
| Also, why no cookie keeping your trend? That's what keeps me
| coming back: not wanting to break a streak! (Not to promote
| dark patterns or anything.)
|
| Also also, nice UX. I found it easy to navigate, edit, and
| delete.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Knotwords is a much better variation on this I believe:
| https://playknotwords.com/
| akudha wrote:
| One way to make it more enjoyable could be to do it by topic -
| this way the universe of words would be much smaller, instead
| of the entire dictionary. Topics could be - music, baseball,
| food etc
| nkrisc wrote:
| Kind of like one clue for the whole puzzle, instead of
| individual ones. That sounds much more fun than simply
| nothing.
| someguy5344523 wrote:
| This is a very neat idea! My problem is with the layout: why is
| there a black area below the crossword, where if I drag the
| crossword there the crossword disappears? That area should be a
| lot smaller
| 0xC0ncord wrote:
| My girlfriend and I just did this and had a lot of fun!
|
| There were a lot of times where I thought I figured a word out
| but ended up having to go through about 5 or 6 really good
| guesses before landing on the right one. Sometimes little word
| games like these really can test my vocabulary.
| joe__f wrote:
| Seems like the pool of words is quite small; for example with
| T_RN it was clear that o or u would be the answer, even though a
| and e also give valid words
| benji-york wrote:
| I really like it!
|
| I feel like it could use some scoring mechanism. I want to feel
| friction against just making guesses until something works.
|
| Post-completion edit:
|
| It does have a time-based scoring mechanism. That didn't register
| with me at first. I continue to feel that it could use come
| mechanism to dissuade low-effort guessing.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| This is really fun! Seems like I'll enjoy this more than a
| regular crossword puzzle because it has less of a focus on
| cultural references.
| danieltait wrote:
| Thank you!
| mcdonje wrote:
| Seems like a lot of commenters like it, so there's probably an
| audience.
|
| I don't think it'll be a hit with the main crossword community
| because the crossword constructors put a lot of humor and
| cleverness in the clues, which is a major draw. The personal
| touch makes it seem like you're in a community of clever people
| who are trying to entertain each other.
|
| I suppose this would be a good learning aid for students who are
| learning vocabulary.
| [deleted]
| adwi wrote:
| Suggestion: allow user to click the area with the clue to switch
| between down/across typing, ala NYT
| antonymy wrote:
| I did very little guessing on the regular puzzle, which took me a
| little over 6 minutes, but the master-level one did require some
| brute force at first and took me much longer to finish. Once I
| got rolling, though, I was able to solve it intuitively. It's
| more like a sudoku but instead of mathematic logic you rely on
| your knowledge of English vocabulary and spelling. It may not
| have traditional clues but by giving you the pool of letters for
| all words it gets progressively easier as you fill in the grid
| and eliminates certain possibilities out of hand.
|
| The only real issue is getting your initial foothold, especially
| if the grid's pre-filled letters are mostly common and not
| helpful in placement. Having a pre-filled J is much more useful
| than, say, a prefilled E.
| bombcar wrote:
| Very nice! But the white for a placed letter and gray for a
| original letter is too close - I was trying to figure out why no
| word would work when I realized I had placed the T - it wasn't an
| original letter.
| danieltait wrote:
| Good feedback thanks, I'll try some different colours or ways
| to mark the originals.
| TylerE wrote:
| Not sizing properly to my screen
|
| https://i.imgur.com/CdIkpVA.png
| danieltait wrote:
| Thanks for the report. What device / browser is this? You
| should also be able to zoom the puzzle in and out with mouse
| wheel, trackpad two fingers or touch screen pinch in the
| meantime
| TylerE wrote:
| Chrome on a Macbook
| guimonz wrote:
| Nice concept, but at some point you get forced into brute forcing
| your solution, which isn't as much fun.
| benji-york wrote:
| The keyboard control is quite nice.
| criddell wrote:
| Except I wish I could delete a letter using the delete key (on
| my Windows keyboard).
| pekim wrote:
| Backspace works for me.
| nmstoker wrote:
| How is the Share feature meant to work? It seems to be failing
| within Android Firefox Nightly (nothing gets copied and for a
| split second the positioned letters blink away then return)
| sleepypizza wrote:
| Just did the basic one :) Going to ask my girlfriend to bring her
| laptop to my apartment tonight and race her on the hard one.
|
| Not sure if that's a piece of observable behavior that helps you
| figure out a market / how you want to grow this, but definitely
| speaks to the kind of delight I've got out of your prototype!
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| A lot of comments seem as if they believe this to be a novel
| crossword type? I thought I'd seen the exact format in The Times
| (of London)?
| te wrote:
| Very fun. Didn't realize I was being timed? When did the timer
| start? Maybe show it on screen real-time? Increases the pressure!
| jciochon wrote:
| Really enjoyed this.
|
| One issue: sharing my results was not great. Pasting in iMessage
| gave the result text and the image; pasting in discord only gave
| the text; pasting in telegram only gave the image.
|
| Not sure if this is even your fault, but it doesn't have as nice
| of an experience there as Wordle (which I assume you're trying to
| emulate).
| maxique wrote:
| If the link had https:// before it, Discord and Telegram would
| do the same link preview that iMessage does
| ianferrel wrote:
| Fun.
|
| Should probably not let people delete the initially-provided
| letters. I did so accidentally at one point and got very confused
| for a long time.
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(page generated 2022-08-04 23:01 UTC)