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Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

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Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#131

Post by tolien »

linsomniac wrote: post #11

A coworker and my wife and I have recently been really enjoying https://bracket.city which is a crossword-clue inspired word game with daily puzzles. It does take a little while to figure out, I'd recommend starting off asking for hints fairly often to decrease frustration, but after a couple weeks my wife and I are on a streak of 3 days of scoring 100.

I'll quite often wind up solving this by a sort of parallel construction, as in rather than getting the hint I can work out what word is supposed to be there based on what's around it. Some of the clues can be really cryptic.

Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#132

Post by skupig »

Nice UI, but I think someone needs to say it: there's no novel concept here, I've seen the exact same game printed in magazines and on kids' menus. If you're trying to catch people's attention, you need a clever gimmick that they haven't seen before.

Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#133

Post by HenryBemis »

xyst wrote: post #106
Y444 wrote: post #71

Product manager ex. game designer with a number of puzzle/word game in operation here. - Having a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games. If you insist on having a timer consider making it count upwards. - Additionally as other commenters mentioned is the game is a time trial it needs an explicit “Start” button. Also stop the timer when user is not playing e.g. reading the rules. - There’s n…

This is 90% of my thoughts as well. Another note I had is: keep the words to a specific category rather than a broad category. For example: the today’s puzzle of “professional sports teams” had 4/5 of the teams from the NBA. The 5th answer was either the Detroit “Lions” (a professional _American football_ team) or more likely the London “Lions” (a _British_ professional basketball team).

I live in the EU. I have no idea about US hand-egg teams. As long as these are proper words (e.g. Bucks, Lions) and they are not "rizzz" (or whatever other moronic sound comes out of people with 45 IQ) then people will play the game.

Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#134

Post by FlamingMoe »

Y444 wrote: post #71

Product manager ex. game designer with a number of puzzle/word game in operation here. - Having a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games. If you insist on having a timer consider making it count upwards. - Additionally as other commenters mentioned is the game is a time trial it needs an explicit “Start” button. Also stop the timer when user is not playing e.g. reading the rules. - There’s n…

"a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games" 100% agree. I hate the timer on the NY Times mini puzzle. I like these types of simple games for unwinding, and a timer makes it more stressful.

Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#135

Post by binarymax »

FlamingMoe wrote: post #134
Y444 wrote: post #71

Product manager ex. game designer with a number of puzzle/word game in operation here. - Having a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games. If you insist on having a timer consider making it count upwards. - Additionally as other commenters mentioned is the game is a time trial it needs an explicit “Start” button. Also stop the timer when user is not playing e.g. reading the rules. - There’s n…

"a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games" 100% agree. I hate the timer on the NY Times mini puzzle. I like these types of simple games for unwinding, and a timer makes it more stressful.

Contrarily, I love the mini timer, because it’s something to beat. The mini is too easy of a puzzle. The NYT crossword is more for the thinking type - it also has a timer, but its less in your face and I don’t feel the pressure.

Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#136

Post by mkate »

iandanforth wrote: post #19

First clue of "Professional Sports Teams" and I noped right out. Sportsball is a pretty big red flag that the content presented is not for me.

there are actually other categories available. Check it out tomorrow and it won't be about sports :D

Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#138

Post by fiddlerwoaroof »

FlamingMoe wrote: post #134
Y444 wrote: post #71

Product manager ex. game designer with a number of puzzle/word game in operation here. - Having a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games. If you insist on having a timer consider making it count upwards. - Additionally as other commenters mentioned is the game is a time trial it needs an explicit “Start” button. Also stop the timer when user is not playing e.g. reading the rules. - There’s n…

"a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games" 100% agree. I hate the timer on the NY Times mini puzzle. I like these types of simple games for unwinding, and a timer makes it more stressful.

This reminds me a bit of Boggle which really needs a timer. If anything, the timer on this is too long: I did it in 0:32 and was better than 53% of other users, which suggests to me the timer should be about a minute

Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#139

Post by ohnoabigshark »

Y444 wrote: post #71

Product manager ex. game designer with a number of puzzle/word game in operation here. - Having a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games. If you insist on having a timer consider making it count upwards. - Additionally as other commenters mentioned is the game is a time trial it needs an explicit “Start” button. Also stop the timer when user is not playing e.g. reading the rules. - There’s n…

The overarching "thing" in the puzzle is a great idea. Choose a column that spells another answer when you get them all right. Works even if you expand the size of the word grid.

Re: Show HN: I built a word game. My mom thinks it's great. What do you think?

#140

Post by zwnow »

bdhcuidbebe wrote: post #95
megadata wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and even then being US-centric will work. The world has sadly changed a lot in recent months.

What did I miss, did Trump replace the english language now?

English? Did you mean USAlish?
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