I do have another version where it accepts ANY word but I found it quite unsatisfying when I survived by randomly spamming combinations and finding a really obscure word.
So am currently running it against a 20,000 word wordlist instead of my larger 300,000 wordlist
I'm normally terrible at anagrams.
The internet is a magical place.
If I could magically get a feature by request, it would be to give me infinite time even if that meant my score came with an asterisk. Maybe just call it Relax Mode vs. Challenge Mode.
By the way: I really like the overall design of Zanagrams and 18 Words. These are small puzzle games with very simple, clean UIs. They work crisply and I've noticed you've been tidying up Zanagrams, adding minor features and settings. They have a very Classic Web feel to them. It's not like you're trying to get me to watch ads or subscribe to your newsletter or are just breadcrumbs to some for-profit thing. I like having a handful of very easy to pick up puzzles/toys when I need to fidget. They help keep me away from TikToks and Shorts.
I got stuck on the word corner of all words. Ugh
Maybe the game can always progress to the next word with your total score being reduced. So if you get all within 30 seconds you score 18/18. That way everyone can play the whole game and share with their friends how far they got:
|X|o|X|X|X|o|o|o|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|o|X| 13/18
Good job, I got 15/18
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40536488
Edit: I believe it was transferred to a new domain at https://wordnerd.co/
I'm load a short wordlist first and then the longer version async so it doesn't really affect how long until you can start playing.
Waste of bandwidth is true. Cloudflare pages hates me
1. For a version without the timer what would you like to happen if you are just completely stuck on a word? Hints to reveal letters or skip the word?
2. For those who like the timed version would you prefer to continue when you miss a word and then get a final score out of 18?
To answer #1, I'd like a 'shuffle' button that re-shuffles the order of the letters.
I'd also appreciate the ability to "bank" the surplus time from the prior words.
As for the second, that's more suggestive and I don't care as much either way. Personally me for me I've just been going down the archive trying each day. I enjoy competitive games, so once I miss a word I don't have much interest in continuing on.
Also a version in which your unused time is accumulated for future rounds would be interesting
Definitely not any less valid or unsatisfying than "zebra".
Given that those two don’t have the same letters, isn’t that the expected outcome?
EARLS was not accepted, and I had already decided not to try REALS. (is there a rule against plurals?) what it was looking for was LASER which has a more tenuous claim on being a word than those two.
Granted, there are also people who get annoyed when the game seems too accepting of unusual words, but if you can point them to a valid dictionary definition for that oddball word, they usually accept it without argument.
While I agree that for some people games with a time limit are not fun, I don't think the challenges and difficulty should be classified as "purposeless" and "dumb". For many the challenge/difficulty IS the fun part, and they serve a genuine purpose. If you don't like that, then play a different game, but that doesn't mean the game you don't like is useless.
Or maybe don’t even keep score. That’s one of the features which makes be skip these daily games. Not every game needs to be a competition!
Maybe if it counted up I would be less annoyed by it. I like how the NYT does it with their crossword app. If you complete it under some threshold you get a gold star but there's no upper limit on the time.
PS anyone have any other fun, simple games like this and Zanagrams? I found https://maptap.gg/ recently and that also gives me the same Classic Web feeling that OP mentioned.
Thus, he always includes a relaxed mode to let someone practice without any stress. Incidentally, he realized that some people only ever play in the relaxed mode!
In one sense I really enjoy the timer up to the point that I lose, but it feels very unsatisfactory, especially if I lose early, & I'm acutely aware the difficulty level it's set at will be experienced radically differently by different players (to the exclusion of most I would imagine).
Having a timerless mode is very much needed as an option - there's no real risk of "cheating" with these cookie-based browser games anyway since I could just have infinite retries in a private tab if I felt like doing that.
Or alternatively every word still has the timer and then at the end if you finish, it tells you how many words you completed under the timer and gives you a score based on that.
And then maybe an option for those who don't want the timer to show at all, since maybe it adds a bit of pressure. You can have just a simple option that removes the timer entirely from view
But if this game was called “Do A Word Puzzle While Being Distracted By Animated Numbers in Your Peripheral Vision”, that would be alright.
2. I don't have a preference.
Very cool and well done.
semiquaver•1h ago
pompomsheep•1h ago