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 no point of having a “Play again” option for a Wordle style daily game, the thinking part is already done, so any replay is just an exercise in dexterity.
- It’s okay to be US-centric actually, doesn’t matter unless you are very serious about monetizing it, and even then being US-centric will work.
- Consider showing rules for first time users before staring the puzzle.
- Consider having some sort of overarching thing in your puzzle, so it’s not just five words on a specific topic to guess, but something more, like a hidden word across all five etc. This makes a delightful discovery moment and sometimes might work as a clue.
"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.
They do give the option in the settings for this reason but I think that's the best part about the mini specifically, it enables the daily leaderboards to work even for folks who's friend group doesn't sit down and do full Saturday level crosswords regularly. I think the midis/larges are a better balance if you're just looking for relaxing but short solo play and there I wouldn't really mind if the timer was off by default (or not, there is less competition at that point).
The timer makes it competitive. Every day I "compete" with a friend of mine across the country to see who can finish the mini crossword faster. Without that it wouldn't be fun (for me at least). I unwind with the bigger crossword and just ignore the timer at the top.
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
This is really good feedback I think. My puzzle has an overarching thing with down direction also forming words: https://squareword.org/
I think that would not work here as there are though as there are not enough combinations. I quite like this one though, combining the unscramble mechanic with a category. A bit like a combination of connections and waffle.
For the "play again" issue, in my latest game https://spaceword.org I made it an open-ended puzzle, where there is no correct answer, so people can keep improving as long as they want.
You got some fun games! I like your simple direction ui on spaceword. And I enjoyed the time it took to solve square word. It's good to have play again so players can get better. I implemented it on https://wordglyph.xyz for same reasons. It's nice to see players discover the stick strategy over time and get better.
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.
>There’s no point of having a “Play again” option for a Wordle style daily game, the thinking part is already done, so any replay is just an exercise in dexterity.
What if i'm handing it to a friend/spouse to play to beat my time?
>Consider having some sort of overarching thing in your puzzle, so it’s not just five words on a specific topic to guess, but something more, like a hidden word across all five etc. This makes a delightful discovery moment and sometimes might work as a clue.
That just sounds like your idea for a different type of game. I like his current idea for this game.
>What if i'm handing it to a friend/spouse to play to beat my time?
I generally find it more effective to improve the parts that concern most of the audience, like the timer that is seen by every player. The pass-and-play use case is valid but seems pretty rare.
>That just sounds like your idea for a different type of game. I like his current idea for this game.
Yes, it’s a part of giving feedback, the author might not like any of my comments and is free to ignore them, it’s their game. But why do _you_ seem so irritated about it?
> It’s okay to be US-centric actually, doesn’t matter unless you are very serious about monetizing it, and even then being US-centric will work.
As a European who on a typical day uses/watched/reads more English than my native language, I agree. Except sports teams and other more locally phenomena. Those are the worst.
Nah, it's very annoying to be country-centric. The NYT game clues are just so fucking American sometimes and it's very irritating.
It's difficult to avoid this altogether of course, but staying away from sports and politics helps a good bit.
Some crossword people like having their timers (see NYT Games app for example), but as I’ve mentioned the timers are counting up, not triggering any negative conditions, and can be turned off completely.
The OG Windows 3 solitaire has an option to disable the timer, it's one of the first things I uncheck. I did "speedrun" solitaire in my computer classes for fun, though. :)
> - Consider having some sort of overarching thing in your puzzle, so it’s not just five words on a specific topic to guess, but something more, like a hidden word across all five etc. This makes a delightful discovery moment and sometimes might work as a clue.
You've essentially described the Jumble puzzle, which appeared in daily newspapers. It's been around since 1954, but I'm not surprised to see it reinvented since few people get a daily newspaper anymore.
Reading comments about a puzzle game coming from a "product manager ex. game designer with a number of puzzle/word game in operation" is one of the main reasons why I come to HN.
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.
I really dislike your suggestion to eliminate the timer. You frame it like it’s objectively the better choice since you’re a professional - however it’s not. It’s a design decision that leads to a sense of urgency that many players enjoy. Games don’t need to be for everyone. This drive towards the most universally appealing, milquetoast design decisions neuters games.
Ads aside, I'm curious to know what you think would be a good monetizing strategy for this kind of games (simple, online): subscriptions, sponsorship, donations..?
Unfortunately, I think ads is the most realistic way to go.
Sponsorships and/or donations would be a nice “beer money” bonus.
Subscriptions are PITA and too much hassle unless you’re doing them via some third party and they won’t bring a good amount of money at the “online daily puzzle in a browser” scale.
There are more exotic ways like licensing your puzzles to other sites, like online newspaper puzzle pages, Puzzmo is going in this direction IIRC.
If you want a general overview try finding a book called “Fundamentals of Fame Design” by Ernest Adams. It is a sensible intro, after that - just dive into thematic communities and do your own things.
I know nothing about formal game design education sorry.
Nice concept, but US-centric short/slang sports teams' names is a bit misjudged as the very first puzzle when introducing your new game to an international audience. I solved them because they're (mostly) words rather than them having meaning to me.
I wish there was a more internationally friendly version of NYT Games, they're so fun and I play them daily but a lot US cultural knowledge is required at times
For those of you who are put off from trying the game by the category for today’s puzzle being sports, note there are other puzzles from prior days with more general topics.
Click the calendar icon at top of page for the archive.
These are short little words that are not uncommon even if you are not familiar with sportsball teams. If you struggled unscrambling these words, I'd suggest your vocab is just in dire need of expansion.
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.
My first wrong answer was an international spelling issue. It would be nice if it accepted then silently corrected based on equivalent international spellings, but I can also understand why it doesn't, sometimes it might be more crucial to the solution.
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.
You've had better luck spreading it than I have it sounds like. Everyone I've mentioned it to has said "It's too hard" and I don't think has really even given it a shot.
I thought this was way too hard. I didn't figure out a single word and even failed the tutorial. Seeing everyone loving it makes me feel really stupid.
I do think it is something that is a bit of a learned skill. I've done around 30 of them and the earlier ones I did rather poorly on, and even within the last 15 puzzles I had one where I scored 0. But the last 3 puzzles I've scored 100 on.
It's not for everyone I'm sure, especially if you are unfamiliar with common English phrases (like "bang for the buck").
First off, I love the game. Your mom isn't just placating you. It is fun.
Second, I think given all this advice a real clear example can be seen by looking at NYT's Wordle[0]. Instructions are the first thing you see and cover the puzzle. You then click start.
Importantly, the instructions have an example. While the puzzle is extremely intuitive, an example can eliminate almost any ambiguity (intuitive for most people but maybe not kids, non-native English speakers, or just things like someone shoves the game into their friends face. Who knows). There can be a button on the side to show instructions again, which should cover the puzzle and stop the timer.
> Having a timer (urgency) is usually not a very good idea for thinky games.
Personally, I like the timer. The game is simple and clearly meant to be played in a small fast setting, so I think this works. Can also reduce pressure (as well as induce) since someone might think "oh, I got 5 minutes to play" instead of having to "sit down".
There's plenty of "thinky games" that have timers: Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are two good examples. Almost any TV game is timed. I don't think there's a problem with this and the pressure can make it fun while also conveying that it won't take a person all day.
> There’s no point of having a “Play again”
Could be good to show solutions. If not, maybe also count "attempts"? IDK
For the benefit of the audience watching, not the player. You wouldn’t want someone consuming the whole show because they do not make a move. There’s little reason to care about time limits on a game someone plays by themselves.
There's a 5 minute timer you can effectively guess all permutations in that time. Ignore the timer. The only real limitation is coming from you.
There needs to be some limit like how wordle limits the number of guesses. The timer is good in that it can put pressure in especially considering how simple the game is. The long length means almost everyone has enough time
Just worked through a lot of the puzzles. I love the concept, and I also like how the timer doesn't reset when you switch between them.
3 pieces of feedback:
1. Since your time matters, a start button before a new puzzle is presented would be nice.
2. I wanted to play more puzzles but didn't realize the calendar button up top switched puzzles till reading comments. I think fading the screen with an overlay with the existing buttons and adding a "Play Another?" button would hook people in more.
3. Some of the scrambles are too easy. Maybe that's by design, but an example is "PAWSN" in the apr 4th chess puzzle, it's stupidly obvious compared to the other words.
But again really awesome content and would make an amazing mobile website or app.
- It gave me “TCAAN” which stumped me. Afterwards I pasted it into the Internet Anagram Server, which failed to find any acronyms for it. So I can say with some confidence I don’t think it’s a valid word. Suggest making sure you’re using a dictionary similar to Wordle’s one.
- The game should reveal the solution at the end if the player fails to guess any words.
The game ought to make it explicit that proper names are allowed.
But, personally, I would remove proper names, to make it more like most other word games (wordle, spelling bee, jumble, etc.). Crosswords do have proper names, but they've got the clue context to go with them.
Today's challenge ("Sports Teams") was particularly easy because each one was plural. That made each one "unscramble a 4 letter word" instead of a 5. Might be a consideration for the future.
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.
Yeah, I don't really get it. Five unrelated anagrams? I was expecting something to happen but it's just the anagrams that I did in a fraction of the time given despite not having a clue what sports those teams play, assuming they exist.
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- 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 no point of having a “Play again” option for a Wordle style daily game, the thinking part is already done, so any replay is just an exercise in dexterity.
- It’s okay to be US-centric actually, doesn’t matter unless you are very serious about monetizing it, and even then being US-centric will work.
- Consider showing rules for first time users before staring the puzzle.
- Consider having some sort of overarching thing in your puzzle, so it’s not just five words on a specific topic to guess, but something more, like a hidden word across all five etc. This makes a delightful discovery moment and sometimes might work as a clue.
I think that would not work here as there are though as there are not enough combinations. I quite like this one though, combining the unscramble mechanic with a category. A bit like a combination of connections and waffle.
For the "play again" issue, in my latest game https://spaceword.org I made it an open-ended puzzle, where there is no correct answer, so people can keep improving as long as they want.
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).
What if i'm handing it to a friend/spouse to play to beat my time?
>Consider having some sort of overarching thing in your puzzle, so it’s not just five words on a specific topic to guess, but something more, like a hidden word across all five etc. This makes a delightful discovery moment and sometimes might work as a clue.
That just sounds like your idea for a different type of game. I like his current idea for this game.
I generally find it more effective to improve the parts that concern most of the audience, like the timer that is seen by every player. The pass-and-play use case is valid but seems pretty rare.
>That just sounds like your idea for a different type of game. I like his current idea for this game.
Yes, it’s a part of giving feedback, the author might not like any of my comments and is free to ignore them, it’s their game. But why do _you_ seem so irritated about it?
Deleted Comment
then that works better with his suggestion for a timer rather than a countdown
you could retain a challenge aspect by showing average time to solve (or your result compared to others; “You did better than 94% of people!” etc)
As a European who on a typical day uses/watched/reads more English than my native language, I agree. Except sports teams and other more locally phenomena. Those are the worst.
Getting the answer wrong when trying to spell the correct answer in British English spelling ruins the game.
You've essentially described the Jumble puzzle, which appeared in daily newspapers. It's been around since 1954, but I'm not surprised to see it reinvented since few people get a daily newspaper anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumble
You can complete this by just starting words with the letters available of which there are only so many combinations.
The world has sadly changed a lot in recent months.
Ads aside, I'm curious to know what you think would be a good monetizing strategy for this kind of games (simple, online): subscriptions, sponsorship, donations..?
Sponsorships and/or donations would be a nice “beer money” bonus.
Subscriptions are PITA and too much hassle unless you’re doing them via some third party and they won’t bring a good amount of money at the “online daily puzzle in a browser” scale.
There are more exotic ways like licensing your puzzles to other sites, like online newspaper puzzle pages, Puzzmo is going in this direction IIRC.
I know nothing about formal game design education sorry.
Dead Comment
Nobody needs rules for this game.
Cryptic Crosswords are almost impenetrable from the US as they're so deep in UK specific words, spellings, and trivia.
Really like the idea though.
Click the calendar icon at top of page for the archive.
Deleted Comment
My first wrong answer was an international spelling issue. It would be nice if it accepted then silently corrected based on equivalent international spellings, but I can also understand why it doesn't, sometimes it might be more crucial to the solution.
I’ve showed it to my friends, and it’s stuck. My brother shared it with all of his coworkers and they’re now playing too.
It’s fun watching it “spread” amongst my social group
It's not for everyone I'm sure, especially if you are unfamiliar with common English phrases (like "bang for the buck").
But pretty creative game. Thanks for sharing!
Deleted Comment
Second, I think given all this advice a real clear example can be seen by looking at NYT's Wordle[0]. Instructions are the first thing you see and cover the puzzle. You then click start.
Importantly, the instructions have an example. While the puzzle is extremely intuitive, an example can eliminate almost any ambiguity (intuitive for most people but maybe not kids, non-native English speakers, or just things like someone shoves the game into their friends face. Who knows). There can be a button on the side to show instructions again, which should cover the puzzle and stop the timer.
Personally, I like the timer. The game is simple and clearly meant to be played in a small fast setting, so I think this works. Can also reduce pressure (as well as induce) since someone might think "oh, I got 5 minutes to play" instead of having to "sit down".There's plenty of "thinky games" that have timers: Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are two good examples. Almost any TV game is timed. I don't think there's a problem with this and the pressure can make it fun while also conveying that it won't take a person all day.
Could be good to show solutions. If not, maybe also count "attempts"? IDK[0] https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html
For the benefit of the audience watching, not the player. You wouldn’t want someone consuming the whole show because they do not make a move. There’s little reason to care about time limits on a game someone plays by themselves.
Personally, I hate the timer. It makes me feel stressed. I guessed the first word then decided to stop playing because of the timer.
It's clear while some people appreciate it, many people won't play the game if it has a timer. So, make it optional.
There needs to be some limit like how wordle limits the number of guesses. The timer is good in that it can put pressure in especially considering how simple the game is. The long length means almost everyone has enough time
3 pieces of feedback:
1. Since your time matters, a start button before a new puzzle is presented would be nice.
2. I wanted to play more puzzles but didn't realize the calendar button up top switched puzzles till reading comments. I think fading the screen with an overlay with the existing buttons and adding a "Play Another?" button would hook people in more.
3. Some of the scrambles are too easy. Maybe that's by design, but an example is "PAWSN" in the apr 4th chess puzzle, it's stupidly obvious compared to the other words.
But again really awesome content and would make an amazing mobile website or app.
Deleted Comment
- It gave me “TCAAN” which stumped me. Afterwards I pasted it into the Internet Anagram Server, which failed to find any acronyms for it. So I can say with some confidence I don’t think it’s a valid word. Suggest making sure you’re using a dictionary similar to Wordle’s one.
- The game should reveal the solution at the end if the player fails to guess any words.
But, personally, I would remove proper names, to make it more like most other word games (wordle, spelling bee, jumble, etc.). Crosswords do have proper names, but they've got the clue context to go with them.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Today's challenge ("Sports Teams") was particularly easy because each one was plural. That made each one "unscramble a 4 letter word" instead of a 5. Might be a consideration for the future.
I didn't spot this :-)