Clever idea. I like it.
Maybe visualization of the brackets could be improved a bit.
The overriding problem for me was the nonstandard keyboard. Would love to be able to use my device keyboard
Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
41–50 of 55 posts
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#42papa smurf is not the eldest smurf
Grandpa Smurf (original French name Vieux Vieux Schtroumpf)
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#43Anyone else have a problem where input on iOS is incredibly slow and keys are missed? Disabled content blockers and tried in privacy too and it was nearly unusable.
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#44This is very cool. My only complaint is I should be able to go up a level. e.g. I saw "unwelcome in a China shop" and instantly knew it was "bull" but still had to work through a few more clues before I got there.
have gone back and forth on this point -- so far I've decided that outer brackets should be a hint that guides on you inner brackets, but that you can't skip any clues but I hear you!
Two more suggestions after playing one or two more:
- There should be an easier way to know which brackets match.
- This game would probably be more fun with a 2-dimensional visualization of the layers. It would be more fun to see you knock off layers and see the progress you've made.
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#45Love it. I played about a dozen. Good construction. Daily crossword solver and immediately took to it. I sent it around to 4 others and they're all into it.
>scoring based on keystrokes is pretty unfair, especially given not-ideal custom keyboard on mobile! Still thinking through the best solution there.
Maybe just the enter key or a button on mobile to confirm. I think counting the letters is fair because we still have to think of the potential entries, and there's some strategy to that. (Like [___ in comparison] has several idiomatic answers, but you have to look at the context to determine it.)
You should plug your spot. Or send me an email. I'm always on the road and I'd like to stop by.
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#46Fun concept, but there are some really generation specific references here. Smurfs, Brady Bunch, Payphones...
There's kind of a crossword language, especially if you do NYT where there are regular callbacks. Some of them are pretty weak, actually, but they're shibboleths of sort to regular solvers. We complain about weak fill, but they're like clues in themselves.
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#47Hey! I was at the last puzzle night (lot's of fun) and everyone at my table loved the game when you came around and showed us the website. I've been playing it a few times a week since! Congrats!
Amazing convergence! Thank you for playing!
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#48Neat! I've been getting into crossword puzzles recently, does anyone know of nice places to play them, other than newspaper sites?
nm, found a nice open source one: https://github.com/downforacross/downforacross.com
This is an amazing site. My team at work used to do a Sunday together every Friday afternoon. It was a nice remote game to play.
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#49Delightful! Longtime NYT crossword solver here (when I'm in the mood).
What I REALLY like is that I got a 0 today and got 100 on the 16th. Variation like that is so solid; after a while doing the NYT you see how much answers (less so clues) repeat and it gets a bit repetitive.
Re: Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle
#50this is really fun. we have a group chat where we do a bunch of daily games (nyt, trainwreck labs, cinematrix) and this one fits in perfectly.