Hi HN —

Bracket City is the word puzzle game I made earlier this year and (in part thanks to this community, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43622719) managed to license to the Atlantic in April.

The game has been growing a lot and I wanted to share the latest: a tool that lets anyone make a Bracket City puzzle — specifically a “Bracket Suburb”!

I made this tool to help me construct puzzles, and I’ve been using it every day for months.

After the Atlantic launch, I started to get the occasional inquiry about whether there was a way to make your own puzzle. One guy wanted to make a Bracket City puzzle part of a puzzle hunt he made to propose to his girlfriend (he did it!), and that convinced me it would be fun to make something publicly available.

I got the Atlantic on board with the idea, and we are launching it today with an "example" custom puzzle: a Halloween/horror-themed puzzle by my pal Wyna Liu of NYT Connections fame.

https://suburbs.bracket.city/wyna

And we've got few other fun "celeb" puzzles lined up for later this year.

The thought is that folks can use the builder to make custom puzzles for birthday wishes/event invites/insults/proposals/break ups in addition to “normal” Bracket City puzzles.

I'm also hoping to learn more about the potential of the format – crossword puzzles have benefited so much from the creativity of constructors – I'm hoping bracket puzzles do the same.

The good news is that it’s way easier to construct a bracket puzzle than a crossword. Once you try it, you’ll see why: you have many more degrees of freedom. In a crossword, each added word increases the level of constraint exponentially — every new entry sharply reduces the remaining options for completing the grid. Bracket puzzles are the opposite: as you add clues, you expand the available fodder for new ones.

Anyway, I would love any/all feedback and to try puzzles created by folks here. I’m hoping we will figure out a way to highlight the best community puzzles on the Atlantic soon!

PS and please keep playing the main game / sending me feedback / denouncing me on the subreddit

First Impressions of the Advertising Context Protocol (AdCP)