[HN Gopher] Show HN: Tidy Baby is a SET game but with words
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Show HN: Tidy Baby is a SET game but with words
Hi HN -- Tidy Baby is a new game made by me and Wyna Liu (of NYT
Connections!) that is inspired by the legendary card-based game SET
that we assume many of you love (we too love SET). In SET, you've
got four dimensions: shape, number, color, and shading, each with
three variants. In Tidy Baby you only have to deal with three
dimensions: - word length (3, 4, or 5 letters) - part of speech
(noun, verb, or adjective) - style (bold, underline, or italic)
Like in SET, you are trying to form sets of three cards where,
along each dimension, the set is either all the same or all
different. If you've never played SET there are more
details/examples at "how to play" in the game. The mechanics of
Tidy Baby are sort of inspired by a solitaire/practice version of
SET I sometimes play where you draw two random cards and have to
name the third card that would make a valid set. In Tidy Baby you
are presented with two "game cards" and a grid of up to nine
candidates to complete a valid set - your job is to pick the right
one before the clock runs out. Unlike in SET, you get points for
"partial" sets where your set is valid on one or two dimensions
(but not all three). It's actually a pretty fun challenge to try to
get only sets that are invalid along all three dimensions. In
building the game, we were sort of surprised that the biggest
challenge was ensuring that all words were unambiguously one part
of speech. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find three-letter
adjectives that are not also common verbs or nouns. We did our
best! We've got three "paces" in the game: Steady, Strenuous, and
Grueling (s/o MECC!) Let us know what you think!
Author : brgross
Score : 25 points
Date : 2025-12-30 15:57 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tidy.baby)
(TXT) w3m dump (tidy.baby)
| furyofantares wrote:
| Really neat. Part of speech is quite easily the hardest
| dimension, kind of interesting to have a SET game with such a
| difference in the dimensions.
|
| I'm curious about the decision to do it showing 2 words and you
| find the 3rd. It's trivial to identify which length and text
| decoration you're looking for, usually leaving only a couple
| options and you have to work out which one is the right part of
| speech. I guess that's why you're meant to level up your pacing.
|
| But I'm surprised it's not more like the original set, where
| you're searching around the board for a group of 3 rather than
| presented with 2 that have a known 3rd that you're meant to find.
|
| The share result is really clever. I guess maybe that answers my
| questions actually, it's designed around a playtime that's more
| like a daily puzzle game.
| zahlman wrote:
| > Part of speech is quite easily the hardest dimension
|
| Many English words can be used as two (or all three) of
| noun/verb/adjective. Including, er, "set".
|
| > The share result is really clever. I guess maybe that answers
| my questions actually, it's designed around a playtime that's
| more like a daily puzzle game.
|
| That's table stakes for this kind of game now. I think the main
| way people learned about Wordle must have been from their
| friends spamming their results on Discord/Twitter/etc.
| furyofantares wrote:
| > That's table stakes for this kind of game now.
|
| Haha, well yes - I've put quite a number of these games out
| myself. I was a little surprised I didn't realize at the
| start that it was going to be this type of game, probably
| because of SET being a PVP game I've played tons of (well,
| you can play it solo but I haven't) so I wasn't really seeing
| this as a daily puzzle game at first.
|
| But anyway, some of these games do a better job with their
| share result than others, often depending on if it's tacked
| on at the end or if the game is designed with it in mind. I
| was commenting that I liked this specific share result.
| zahlman wrote:
| > We've got three "paces" in the game: Steady, Strenuous, and
| Grueling
|
| I hope nobody in the wagon gets dysentery.
|
| > In Tidy Baby you only have to deal with three dimensions... two
| "game cards" and a grid of up to nine candidates
|
| So it's just recognizing which candidate completes the set?
|
| > - word length (3, 4, or 5 letters) - part of speech (noun,
| verb, or adjective) - style (bold, underline, or italic)
|
| "Style" seems artificial here. Couldn't it be something else to
| do with the word itself?
| messe wrote:
| > Wyna Liu (of NYT Connections!)
|
| The blatant rip off of a round from the BBC quiz show Only
| Connect?
| dilap wrote:
| It's neat!
|
| Suggestionms:
|
| A version where you actually need to find sets -- "have two, find
| third" is way too easy.
|
| Monospaced font -- it's too hard visually to see difference in
| word length right now, w/o counting letters.
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