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Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

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Re: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

#131

Post by djmips »

mk_stjames wrote: post #21
brgross wrote: post #2

I posted Bracket City to HN on February 24th and the game went live yesterday on The Atlantic (!) The game will stay free to play (and not require logging in). Also, I'm still making all the puzzles! HN provided the first real infusion of players that weren't my mom's friends. So thanks everyone. FWIW The Atlantic's team is amazing and got this live exactly 2 weeks from when we signed the deal. This happened quick an…

My constructive crit: I'd really like to be able to just answer the puzzle without answering any of the intermediate stages. It is a much more challenging feat to just hold it all in your head and then type out the one long answer than to answer the individual stages. It promotes some real mental modelling skills that way. The game, played as-is, is almost no challenge at all. It just feels like busywork.

Consider the challenge being: how to get from here to there.

Re: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

#132

Post by tibbar »

chgs wrote: post #113

Stupid question but I assume this licensing actually invoked being paid real money for it? I’m assuming this wasn’t 7 figures. Clearly you made it as a labour of love, but if you were honest with yourself would you have made more as an uber driver, or maybe a tech employee, for the time you invested.

The payoff for this kind of creation needs to be evaluated over time. The creator not only makes money for the puzzle, but they also gained e.g. a worldwide audience and a great resume booster. In the future, if they want to launch another puzzle or write a book or get a job doing this, the door is wide open. There is no such upward path as an uber driver, unfortunately.

Re: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

#134

Post by Laremere »

Chinjut wrote: post #58

Re: many comments: The puzzle (as I think of it) is NOT to get the top-level answer. The puzzle is to get all the answers. If you figure out an outer answer earlier, that acts as a clue for an inner answer, just as inner answers act as clues for outer answers. A crossword isn't speedrun by just filling in the bottom-rightmost word.

I've been playing and enjoying this game since it was first posted on hn. Doing this is absolutely key to getting a good score. Eg, for the final answer in today's puzzle, I had the outer answer, and had to work backward 3-4 layers. The other good thing to do is, if you have an answer to work forward a couple layers. Once you know that an answer makes the next couple questions make sense, you're much less likely to give an incorrect guess.

Re: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

#135

Post by purple-leafy »

brgross wrote: post #2

I posted Bracket City to HN on February 24th and the game went live yesterday on The Atlantic (!) The game will stay free to play (and not require logging in). Also, I'm still making all the puzzles! HN provided the first real infusion of players that weren't my mom's friends. So thanks everyone. FWIW The Atlantic's team is amazing and got this live exactly 2 weeks from when we signed the deal. This happened quick an…

Hey congratulations!

Did you approach Atlantic, or did they approach you?

I’ve had a word game in-mind for years, and several attempts to implement it. It’s a tricky one but I’ll crack it one day :)

My plan is to be acquired by a news company.

So, how did you go about this? I have some ideas myself

Re: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

#136

Post by no_wizard »

purple-leafy wrote: post #135
brgross wrote: post #2

I posted Bracket City to HN on February 24th and the game went live yesterday on The Atlantic (!) The game will stay free to play (and not require logging in). Also, I'm still making all the puzzles! HN provided the first real infusion of players that weren't my mom's friends. So thanks everyone. FWIW The Atlantic's team is amazing and got this live exactly 2 weeks from when we signed the deal. This happened quick an…

Hey congratulations! Did you approach Atlantic, or did they approach you? I’ve had a word game in-mind for years, and several attempts to implement it. It’s a tricky one but I’ll crack it one day :) My plan is to be acquired by a news company. So, how did you go about this? I have some ideas myself

>My plan is to be acquired by a news company.

I feel like this is going about it the wrong way. This puzzle game licensed by The Atlantic for example, was made because they wanted to provide a fun game experience for their patrons.

With games, the best games come from an organic experience. Its almost worse to have a preset plan.

Not to mention, making a game is work - you have to have approachability, rules think through alot of scenarios even for "simple" games to make sure things make sense etc - and if you haven't even done it before I highly suggest you actually try and make a game first

Re: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

#137

Post by supportengineer »

Chinjut wrote: post #58

Re: many comments: The puzzle (as I think of it) is NOT to get the top-level answer. The puzzle is to get all the answers. If you figure out an outer answer earlier, that acts as a clue for an inner answer, just as inner answers act as clues for outer answers. A crossword isn't speedrun by just filling in the bottom-rightmost word.

Next you'll say I can't speed run 2048 by shoving everything down and to the right.

Re: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

#138

Post by reassess_blind »

hidelooktropic wrote: post #115

Exciting news! I recently launched a daily puzzle game I created based on an idea I had in the shower: ( https://everything.io ) I’ve been seeing lots of people here sharing their projects, and it’s been inspiring—some seriously cool ideas out there! My game is a bit different—it’s all about combining emojis to find the hidden emoji. Sometimes it’s wordplay, sometimes conceptual, and sometimes just plain silly. Congr…

How did you score that domain?

Re: Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

#139

Post by karaterobot »

This is cool, I immediately did 4 puzzles in a row.

In addition to saying congratulations, I wanted to ask, since you say you're the one writing the puzzles: how do you define a puzzle? What does it look like from your perspective? Do you literally just write all the nested clues out with brackets and everything, and then validate that it works—because that would drive me nuts, I think—or is there some tool you wrote to help?

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