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Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

hisorty.app

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Re: Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

#51

Post by vunderba »

damiannn wrote: post #21
steinvakt2 wrote: post #19

This, as well as the NYT game, is heavily inspired by https://www.timdle.com ?

i was HEAVILY inspired by wordle, wanted to create a daily game with similar mechanics. This concept came to my mind, but yeah, after it came to my mind i checked if something like that already exists and bumped into thing you just posted. UX seemed kinda complicated to my, my idea was to make it as simple as possible, drag & drop, so people can play it while commuting daily (tram, metro, bus), and will take like 2 m…

Timdle's UI is a bit wonky but the NYT puzzle is very straightforward - you just drag and drop each event into the timeline. The reason it's weekly is because they likely are curating them by hand.

Re: Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

#53

Post by Jordan-117 »

damiannn wrote: post #28
matt_daemon wrote: post #16

NYT has a weekly version of this for those interested https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/04/17/upshot/flashb...

imagine waiting a week lol

The benefit there is that the events are hand-curated with interesting historical facts and link to articles on the topic if you want to read more. Also real photographs, not extremely obvious AI imagery. The mechanics are also nicer -- placing events one by one ramps the difficulty up rather than trying to one-shot it and correcting mistakes.

Re: Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

#54

Post by Jordan-117 »

damiannn wrote: post #38
coder97 wrote: post #35

Nice game. I can see myself playing this daily. How do you plan to feed the questions? Is it with AI or manual work?

AI - I created a custom prompt to generate those event, so that the difficulty is just right, not that easy, but not that hard also. Took some iterations to polish it, now it kinda feels just right. Same with the image generation - custom prompt so they have this specific style.

I noticed the images are from Gemini, but what's with the rectangular blurring in the bottom-right corner? It only covers part of the logo, so I assume you weren't trying to hide it. Is there some kind of embedded identifier? I remember DALL-E images having something similar, but does Gemini actually link it to your account or something?

Re: Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

#55

Post by Jordan-117 »

damiannn wrote: post #6
jordanscales wrote: post #5

Nice work! I'd consider ditching the AI art though, it was distracting.

I love those :D took me some time to come up with the custom prompt to make those images have that specific art style, but yeah, I understand that not everyone like s AI art

You might want to tinker with the prompt a bit to get a different style; the AI vibe is very noticeable as-is, especially at a smaller scale.

Re: Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

#57

Post by damiannn »

Jordan-117 wrote: post #53
damiannn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imagine waiting a week lol

The benefit there is that the events are hand-curated with interesting historical facts and link to articles on the topic if you want to read more. Also real photographs, not extremely obvious AI imagery. The mechanics are also nicer -- placing events one by one ramps the difficulty up rather than trying to one-shot it and correcting mistakes.

fair point, my images are not meant to be realistic anyway, I actually prefer this semi-realistic, high-contrast, rich in color style - that's why I generate them having that specific style. anyways, isn't it great that there are different takes on the concept so everyone can pick what fits them best? :)

Re: Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

#58

Post by damiannn »

vunderba wrote: post #51
damiannn wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i was HEAVILY inspired by wordle, wanted to create a daily game with similar mechanics. This concept came to my mind, but yeah, after it came to my mind i checked if something like that already exists and bumped into thing you just posted. UX seemed kinda complicated to my, my idea was to make it as simple as possible, drag & drop, so people can play it while commuting daily (tram, metro, bus), and will take like 2 m…

Timdle's UI is a bit wonky but the NYT puzzle is very straightforward - you just drag and drop each event into the timeline. The reason it's weekly is because they likely are curating them by hand.

yeah, that drag & dropping event into timeline one by one definitely has something to it, I was also considering this concept

it’t just about which style and mechanics people wanna do more

Re: Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

#59

Post by damiannn »

Jordan-117 wrote: post #54
damiannn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI - I created a custom prompt to generate those event, so that the difficulty is just right, not that easy, but not that hard also. Took some iterations to polish it, now it kinda feels just right. Same with the image generation - custom prompt so they have this specific style.

I noticed the images are from Gemini, but what's with the rectangular blurring in the bottom-right corner? It only covers part of the logo, so I assume you weren't trying to hide it. Is there some kind of embedded identifier? I remember DALL-E images having something similar, but does Gemini actually link it to your account or something?

tbh I didn’t want to hide the gemini watermark at all, i’m just processing images (size, optimization) using CC, and for some reason it decided to blur them - and did a pretty shitty job at it, haha

Re: Show HN: Built a daily game where you sort historical events chronologically

#60

Post by damiannn »

lgcmo wrote: post #36
jordanscales wrote: post #5

Nice work! I'd consider ditching the AI art though, it was distracting.

I believe pulling art/media from Wikipedia would be cooler and less controversial. I also believe the licensing allows it.

yeah, got your point. i still find the style of my generated images pretty nice and consistent.
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