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It’s basically Ribbit from Puzzmo, which is fine because reimplementations let you experiment with different gameplay.
Came here to say this, Ribbit is a lot of fun, and Puzzmo in general is a really solid site.
Wow, this post blew up! Thank you everyone for all the helpful feedback. I’ve just deployed a few updates:
- Added a short playable tutorial for new players to learn how the game works.
- Added a timer below the grid. You can hide this in the settings if you don’t want the extra pressure!
- Fixed some bonus words based on your recommendations.
Tutorial was great! And I would like the option to give up.
A hint would maybe be good. You could highlight the first letter and a direction, for example.
The share functionality could be improved. Sharing the score and time to the specific puzzle would be nice.
Also I came back to this thread to comment that this is the most engaging, fun, and satisfying word puzzle game I've maybe ever played. My only complaint is that there aren't more puzzles!
Thanks for the fun :)
Wow, I found the Hacker News one way easier than normal (01:15). I'm devouring these, though—every day you release one, I'll play it!
If it was really an “HN themed puzzle”, all the letters would be A or I and the minimum word length would be 2.
I’m kidding of course - great game!
Very cool! Idea: show the definition of the word when you find it, so you can learn new words.
(edit: ah, I see they are shown later)
Congratulations on your launch! It’s cool seeing all the word games on here taking off
Bookmarked the site! It is a fun puzzle, NYT should add it to their games.
The playable tutorial is brilliant. It's a very fun game, well done!
Nice game! I found 20 words.
I was a bit stunned by the concept of "bonus words". I found that every word should count. Also because some words are just plural forms (e.g. stroke+s), so kinda cheep?!
Keep ups the good work!
This was definitely a challenge until I figured out how it works. I originally was confused by the connections and started off embarrassingly slow, but once I got a few words and letters started to disappear, I was able to power through it pretty quickly. A solid game. Suggest adding a timed option so users can brag/compare/share their time.
I enjoyed this and loved the minimal UI, good copywriting, and tasteful animations. My brain gets a little bit stuck on words that I can see but aren’t valid because of a missing connection, but I get that this is one of the main points of the puzzle. Anyway, great job!
Cool game. Snus isn't in the word list btw
Found six bonus words.
There are a couple of games like this on Android I play:
https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.vayunmathur.gam...
https://github.com/plhosk/wordtracer
They're both on FDroid
Great puzzle! Is there a way to give up and see all the answers?
After 20 minutes or so still have 8 words to find. (Not a native English speaker.)
I'm stuck. Does that mean I chose the wrong word earlier and used up an essential letter? Does the sequence of word guesses matter? Is there an Undo feature so I can back up and try a different order of guesses? Can I get a hint? Is there a way to give up and see the solution (order of word guesses)?
the score should include how many bonus words you found (out of how many there were in total) and instead of time it should count how many tries you made because technically you could brute force this and try all combinations. counting each try would eliminate that (for anyone trying to get a high score)
Fun! I like how the puzzle naturally gets easier as you solve it. How do you decide which words to include?
Pretty fun, took me about 10 minutes but found 24 words 10 of them bonus. This was #5 for future viewers.
Edit: welp, spent another 15 mins and managed to solve the previous 4. Currently whipping up a custom version for myself that gives a new set of words related to a theme on each solve, love it.
Having made a word game myself[0], this was highly entertaining! Thanks :)
What dictionary are you using?
This is so much fun. And something while playing reminded me of a this video I saw where someone asks her boyfriend "what does Y-E-S spell", and he said "yes". Then she asked him what "E-Y-E-S" spelled, and he couldn't figure it out (he kept saying "eee... yes?"). Anyway, I was looking at the remaining letters with just one word left to go. Four of them formed a word I had already guessed, plus one letter, but didn't make any sense with that additional letter. Until it did. I won't spoil which was it was, but it was in puzzle #1.
Love how the connections disappear once the letter is used up. Feels progressive
The rules should probably explicitly mention the minimum length of four letters. (It's a reasonable rule; it just wasn't obvious from reading the info in "how to play")
1:40 with (I think) two bonus words. It would be nice to have bonus words counted at the end. Maybe some way of setting a score based on time plus bonus words.
Cool that they list the definitions of the words afterwards. This makes it even more fun for non-native speakers, as it adds a free learning aspect to it.
How is the puzzle generation? can you fully automate generating good puzzles or do you tune them by hand?
I really enjoyed this, and hope to continue doing so.
Nive work! I solved all five puzzles and only annoyance was the quite a few singular+plural forms in the same puzzle. I expected all unique words.
The instructions are unclear for my input device. I'm on a macOS webkit browser, and I have to click each individual letter, _then click one last time after all letters are highlighted_ to mark the work as found. This falls way outside of the directions "Drag Play to start."
I found #6 unnecessarily difficult. While I personally really enjoy puzzles, primarily logic ones and spelling ones, this melted my brain. Maybe you could add a "hint" button that shows you which letter is the starting letter for a word in the remaining to-be-found list.
You should add a scoreboard! I got zanagram #5 in 3 minutes and 53 seconds. Also found two bonus words
I thought I was slow but now I see others took 10 minutes and 20 minutes! Maybe I'm not so slow!
Zanagrams #5 Complete in 03:53 https://zanagrams.com/
I like that it also handles words that aren't planned in. You get a nice "bonus word" popout.
Simple and fun, appreciate the definitions! Was wondering about ideas for creating a simple game using the vocab list from my koreader app, but will probably need to be a crossword type game where I need to match definitions with words. This just reminded me of that :)
Fun game! On iOS I frequently triggered a double-tap zoom accidentally, and it’s weirdly difficult to zoom back out once that happens (a second double-tap doesn’t work, and pinch to zoom out only works in some areas of the page).
Love the game.
I think it would be even better if each word had an edge only used by the word, such that each successful guess removes an edge and you couldn't guess words twice (assuming each word only has one path).
Zanagrams #5
Complete in 22:17
https://files.catbox.moe/fgmb4b.jpeg
Super fun, i found a tons of words and the last 3 ones were really hard to find
The only thing I would add would be to keep track of the words already found.
Very nice! I solved them all in the backyard on a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
It was fun! I like how unlike the nyt games one, you can get additional information from the edges' existence. Would advise removing having both plural/singular forms of a word. Great work!
Great game! I really like how it removes any possible letters or connections. I managed to finish two zanagrams without any wrong answers. It’d be great if there was a way to gain a “perfect” score.
Good game. I did not think I was going to be able to make it.
Zanagrams #5 Complete in 11:23 https://zanagrams.com/
Is there any way to lose? With the letters disappearing after they're no longer used, I feel this becomes an exercise in attrition instead of a game.
Zanagrams #6
Complete in 05:53
https://zanagrams.com/
Fun game. I found had trouble seeing the color contrast, so I modified the connection color by updating the CSS for .root.tile to #aaffff
I love it!
But the bonus word (a word most player would miss) on 29/7 was not very subtle. No spoilers, but you won't miss it >.<