[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a web game that makes practicing bas...
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Show HN: I made a web game that makes practicing basic arithmetic
fun
Hey, maker here. After launching a daily word search game, I
randomly thought of this math game while driving. Finally got
around to making it and I think it turned out pretty cool. It's a
math search game that's meant to help you practice your quick
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. I'm
hoping it'll help people (even those like me who aren't big on
math) learn and increase their speeds. (There are also some
settings you can enable to make the game harder) If you try it
out, please let me know if you found it fun, if you have anything
you'd like me to add, or if you have any other feedback. And if
you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. Much appreciated.
Author : dylanhouli
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-06-09 12:04 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.worchle.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.worchle.com)
| leke wrote:
| That's a fantastic concept. I did pretty badly so it looks like I
| need to practice more.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Thanks for trying it out!
| rnicholus wrote:
| This is pretty cool. My 6 year old is into word searches and
| math, so this seems like it will be a fun game for him.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Awesome, if he tries it out, let me know his thoughts! Hoping
| to make this fun for all ages.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Fun, great concept.
|
| Getting an error for pressing the addition button "2+" is a bit
| confusing.
| gigglesupstairs wrote:
| Yeah it was confusing. Idea is to press first and the last
| number of the equation as far as I have understood. UX is wonky
| but I love such math challenges so it's all cool.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Hey yeah so you need a full expression (at the least, a start
| number, operator, and end number) for it to be a valid
| highlight. Will try to make the instructions more clear for
| this
| GordonS wrote:
| Could you change it so pressing the operator is a no op then?
| That way, press it or not, the result is the same.
|
| Even knowing the instructions, I'm finding it very difficult
| _not_ to press the operator tiles, as it just feels like a
| natural thing to do.
|
| Love the game BTW, I'm getting my son on this tomorrow too,
| he'll love it :)
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Yup added this to the todos. Thanks for playing and
| appreciate the feedback!
| denton-scratch wrote:
| Nice.
|
| I encountered a couple of screens where there was no correct
| answer available; MN=2, and there were no 1s on the grid. I
| suspect my 6-year-old granddaughter would protest.
| martinflack wrote:
| Oh, interesting. I just assumed a MN was selected by randomly
| selecting a path on the board and presenting the answer; that
| removes the possibility of being impossible. I wonder how it
| does work.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| That's exactly how it works so this is quite
| interesting...looking into it
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Hmm that is odd, shouldn't be possible. Just to be sure, you
| were playing with just addition operators right?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| OK, so:
|
| 1. I think I only got _one_ grid that was unsolveable.
|
| 2. That was my first grid.
|
| 3. I was only playing with addition.
|
| 4. I completed exactly one round.
|
| Because the "unsolveable" grid was my very first, I may well
| have pressed on without investigating too much, because
| perhaps things would become clearer; and indeed, all
| subsequent grids were easy to solve.
|
| So please don't treat my comment as a bug report! If you've
| taken trouble to avoid that outcome, then almost certainly
| the error is me.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Thanks for the additional info! Glad to hear you at least
| didn't run into it again. I'll definitely do some more
| testing just incase
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| This is cool. When it's in 'all operators' mode it's challenging!
|
| One thing that I noticed is that there's a timer. Depending on
| your target audience, you might want to make that optional.
|
| My son is 7 and finds the timer on Zetamac creates unnecessary
| stress. So I made something simpler for him that just shows a
| fixed number of problems (with no time limit), and uses a cookie
| to track the streak length: https://math.twilam.com/
| dylanhouli wrote:
| If you want another tough challenge, try division operators
| with longer equations and advanced division enabled. Quite evil
| at times.
|
| Thanks for feedback on the timer, that seems to be common so
| I'm going to work on getting an alternative option out soon.
| mysterydip wrote:
| I want to share this with my daughter who needs some practice
| with these, but the timer just causes anxiety. Could you add a
| mode with unlimited time but three "lives"?
| faitswulff wrote:
| Exactly what I came to the comments to request.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Thanks for feedback! Same question for you as well: would you
| want separate statistics for this type of mode?
| faitswulff wrote:
| I can't think of any use case for statistics, personally or
| for my kids.
| nacs wrote:
| I'd want separate.
|
| Check out monkeytype (free typing practice thing) that has
| a nice stats-over-time/personal-best scores.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Thanks will check that out!
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Hey, thanks for checking it out! I had the idea for a "zen"
| mode where you could play forever with no timer. Didn't think
| of adding lives though. Cool idea.
|
| Would you want separate statistics for these "lives mode"
| games?
| mariocesar wrote:
| Count the streaks until you click "pass" and then display the
| highest number of streaks.
| thih9 wrote:
| Open your browser's JS console and run:
| gameTracker.timeLeft = 9999999999
|
| This will add ~300 years of playtime.
| coolThingsFirst wrote:
| it is not enough
| ant6n wrote:
| That timer is brutal. Do you even ,,get" any time for solving
| anything? Or is this just meant to run for a minute and then u
| lose?
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Haha ya that's how it works atm.
|
| My idea was that you could run a few rounds to practice
| certain operators and watch how your average scores improve
| over time. And since the rounds are only a minute, it's low
| commitment.
|
| Going to add other modes though based on feedback
| acl wrote:
| Neat! I played for a while with my 10yo son. The timer is a bit
| of a drag. My suggestion is to either implement a lives mechanism
| like the other poster suggested, or to make the timer reset after
| each success.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Thanks for playing and for the feedback! Definitely going to
| work on getting out an calmer alternative mode.
| Sandworm5639 wrote:
| You can choose a diagonal segment but it doesn't count even if
| the concatenated digits give the M.N.
| squarefoot wrote:
| You need to have an operator in the middle, that is, 12 would
| be satisfied by a string of "5+7", not just by adjacent 5 and
| 7.
| CaptainOfCoit wrote:
| What about if there is a `1` next to a `2`, shouldn't you be
| able to click `1` and then `2` and it concatenates to `12`?
|
| I think that's what parent meant.
| squarefoot wrote:
| I didn't think of that, but wouldn't that be more about
| string operations than math?
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Ya so as others have mentioned the M.N. needs to be made with a
| full expression (at the least, a starting number, operator,
| ending number). Going to try making this more clear on the
| instructions.
|
| Thanks for your feedback!
| ModernMech wrote:
| Reminds me of Number Munchers: https://classicreload.com/number-
| munchers.html#
|
| You could add in some elements that game uses to make it more
| appealing to kids.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Number Munchers is neat. Thanks for sharing!
| zi_ wrote:
| Love this!
|
| I also made a math game 3 years ago.
|
| https://github.com/zineanteoh/clean-the-river
|
| I called it "Clean the river". It is a web-based game that lets
| children practice forming and solving basic mathematical
| expressions by "cleaning the river".
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Thanks for checking it out! Clean the River looks great
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| You have to account for fat fingers on mobile. Twice have I
| pressed the 4th square instead of the 3rd, and I don't even have
| "fat" fingers. Just remove the ending squares if they are
| operators.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Hey so the ending squares can still be used vertically which is
| why they're there.
|
| Example:
|
| 1 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 9
|
| Here you could use the left side to do 1 + 3 vertically.
|
| For a larger grid to prevent misclicks, try going to settings
| and changing the "grid size" setting to a larger option.
|
| Hope this helps! Thanks for playing.
| fuzzythinker wrote:
| I don't think you understood the issue I'm pointing. I'm
| saying I pressed "3 + 1 +" due to fat finger. When the input
| has starting and/or ending operators, remove them before
| evaluating.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Ah my bad, I see what you're saying now. Adding this to my
| todos
|
| Only potential problem I can see is if the grid line is for
| example:
|
| 3 + 4 + 3
|
| And they accidentally press "3 + 4 +"
|
| Hard to tell if they meant to press 3+4 or 3+4+3
|
| If they meant to press 3+4+3 and the program auto removes
| the ending operator and submits it as 3+4, and it's
| incorrect, that might be more upsetting than having to
| quickly re-tap the equation they meant to submit
| mariocesar wrote:
| I have a premonition that within three months, someone (a
| newspaper) will purchase this beautiful game to add ads or offer
| subscriptions. Then, thousands of copycats will appear, and
| finally, there will be an open-source version.
|
| What a beautiful game, congrats!
| dylanhouli wrote:
| That would be absolutely wild, really appreciate the words!
| abbadadda wrote:
| Cool game. "7 +" is the start of a valid equation so making it
| error out can be confusing for 7 year olds that you need to
| "jump" over the operator. Great otherwise!
| panxyh wrote:
| 7 year olds are fast learners ;)
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Going to try making this more clear in the instructions,
| thanks!
| upmostly wrote:
| I tapped a number, then an operator and was told it wasn't valid.
| Wordle and other games let you tap each tile to build up your
| answer.
| panxyh wrote:
| The walkthrough tells you to only tap the start and the end of
| the equation.
| GordonS wrote:
| Shouldn't it just ignore clicks on the "plus" squares then? I
| found it quite annoying.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Good point. Added to my todos. Thanks for your feedback!
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Going to work on implementing this, thanks for playing and
| commenting!
| LeChuck wrote:
| Very nice, love it. I play the chess version of this pretty
| often. You might like to take a look at Lichess' Puzzle Storm
| (and Puzzle Streak/Puzzle Race) for some inspiration on other
| game modes.
|
| https://lichess.org/storm
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| Reminds me of the venerable https://arithmetic.zetamac.com/
| (disclosure: I know the author)
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Saw this game when looking at other fast math games. Definitely
| a good one for more precise intentional practice!
| le-mark wrote:
| Feature request; my third grader needed to work on certain
| numbers like 3's and 9's, also the random number generation
| seemed limited when I played. Also agree zen mode is needed. Also
| how about adding n seconds when a correct answer is entered?
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Adding options for practicing specific numbers is a neat idea,
| will brainstorm some ideas for this.
|
| Sorry the random generation seemed limited, I'll see what I can
| do. Right now it generates the grid numbers randomly just
| picking from 1-9, and the magic number is selected based on
| what's available on the grid.
|
| Zen mode + lives mode are on the todos!
|
| Adding some seconds to the clock for a correct answer is a cool
| idea. Will experiment with this one.
|
| Thanks for your feedback!
| Rebellos wrote:
| Amazing little game, thank you!
|
| Being able to swipe over the equation instead of tapping would
| improve playability a lot! Also I sometimes feel like the first
| tap is not registered right after the new MN appears.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Thanks :D
|
| Will add swipe controls to my todos, I decided against adding
| it because the other word search games on the site will
| occasionally overflow off-screen (so swiping is required to
| move around the grid) but might add it as a toggle for this
| game.
|
| Will look into the tap problem, thanks for reporting!
| ximeng wrote:
| Slightly confusing rounding to 2dp. E.g. 1/8 displays as 0.13.
| Maybe show another decimal or display target as fraction.
| dylanhouli wrote:
| Good point thank you! I'll add another decimal point
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(page generated 2024-06-09 23:01 UTC)