Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Three Magic Words

threemagicwords.app

111–120 of 143 posts

Re: Show HN: Three Magic Words

#111
post #31
post #15

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

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.

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.

Re: Show HN: Three Magic Words

#112

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 jus…

You can scroll down on the main play page to play the previous challenges. You might like Thursday and Friday more.

Re: Show HN: Three Magic Words

#113
post #80

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 m…

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.

Re: Show HN: Three Magic Words

#114
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?

Re: Show HN: Three Magic Words

#116
post #112

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 jus…

You can scroll down on the main play page to play the previous challenges. You might like Thursday and Friday more.

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.

Re: Show HN: Three Magic Words

#117
post #93

Is this a bug or am I missing something here? Looks like I'm out of vowels... https://imgur.com/a/D57IgjE

Yeah that's a bug - should be impossible. Thank you for posting, kinda important that that doesn't happen. I will check it out.

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.

Re: Show HN: Three Magic Words

#118
post #68

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. ;)

You realize that this is exactly how wordle works right?

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.

Post reply on HN