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pompomsheep 2 hours ago [-]
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.
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 :)
nicbou 24 minutes ago [-]
The playable tutorial is brilliant. It's a very fun game, well done!
srdjanr 1 hours ago [-]
Tutorial was great! And I would like the option to give up.
jasonpeacock 19 hours ago [-]
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.
mgianluc 13 minutes ago [-]
Its addictive :-) Well done
ollybee 1 hours ago [-]
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.
pompomsheep 1 hours ago [-]
I have it semi automated but I've found they need to be manually reviewed to make fun puzzles.
Basically I start with an 8, 9 or 10 letter word as the core of the puzzle. I then have a generator add random letters and paths around this until it makes a grid with a good number of valid words.
I then run the words though GPT 5.5 which scores them on how "common" the word is to the average person. This is very subjective as everyone has very different vocabularies.
I then manually decide which words to include as core required words or bonus words.
Finally the puzzle is tested by my wife and mum to see if it is "fun" or it goes in the bin haha.
ollybee 4 minutes ago [-]
That is how I imagined it. It felt there must have been some human element. I appreciate your effort.
Initially I thought I would feel cheated and the solution must require knowledge of some obscure scrabble player only words. I was pleased the solutions felt honest. For that reason I don't think you should offer an option to give up and reveal the answers.
2 hours ago [-]
sumul 8 hours ago [-]
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!
lblume 2 hours ago [-]
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).
dpfu 17 hours ago [-]
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!
frotaur 16 hours ago [-]
I think the board (and disappearing letters) are made with a list of words in mind. Thus, to complete the puzzle (dissolve all letters) you cannot count the bonus words as they were not accounted when creating the letter graph.
stevage 12 hours ago [-]
"bonus words" are often obscure or embarrassing in some way, so you're not required to find them to win
scamdrill 14 hours ago [-]
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.
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.)
jllyhill 3 hours ago [-]
+1 for this. Also not a native speaker and can't for the life of find the two last words in the #5
jllyhill 21 minutes ago [-]
Damn it, it was the longest word I've already found in plural form :/
Not sure this is good puzzle design to be honest
acrophiliac 17 hours ago [-]
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)?
pfg_ 16 hours ago [-]
You're not stuck, the board only removes letters and connections that are not used by any other word (probably excluding "bonus words"). So the word(s) you're missing are still on the board.
No hint feathre though, the hints are the letters going away. You'll probably have to use a scrabble search or something.
pompomsheep 1 hours ago [-]
This was helpful feedback thank you. I've tried to make this more clear with a new tutorial and updataed instructions
blfr 16 hours ago [-]
Gemini can solve them if you need a hint or want to give up and see the solution.
laszlojamf 5 hours ago [-]
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 >.<
pompomsheep 1 hours ago [-]
Haha just a common bird family. Get your head out of the gutter!
oytis 4 hours ago [-]
Small songbirds apparently
trinari 5 hours ago [-]
so i found two bonus words today
em-bee 19 hours ago [-]
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)
quuxplusone 7 hours ago [-]
You might make a wrong guess add a little penalty time to the clock.
I agree that the "share" representation should include the number of bonus words found. Or just the triple of "total words / tries / wall-clock time."
It would also make sense to share some kind of metric for "how early did you find the longest word."
iKlsR 18 hours ago [-]
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.
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")
saghm 15 hours ago [-]
I also must have a weird vocabulary. "Fete" was treated as an uncommon bonus word, which doesn't seem particularly esoteric to me, but "tarragon" was one of the ones I needed to finish a certain puzzle, and I had never heard of that before.
prawn 13 hours ago [-]
Bonus words for me just now included NITS and TITS! I think the explanation about them being lesser known just confuses; it's more that they're not essential to completing the puzzle.
almara 20 hours ago [-]
Fun! I like how the puzzle naturally gets easier as you solve it. How do you decide which words to include?
pompomsheep 20 hours ago [-]
Thanks. I use a combination of AI to first score the words by obscurity and then manually decide which ones to include based on this score and my own judgement.
I then manually test each of the puzzles and throw out any that I feel weren't "fun" to solve for whatever reason
wkjagt 17 hours ago [-]
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.
ggaswint 17 hours ago [-]
Love how the connections disappear once the letter is used up. Feels progressive
slybot 14 hours ago [-]
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.
ctenb 18 hours ago [-]
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.
bigboss2700 3 hours ago [-]
Nice, keep up the good work!
rybosome 6 hours ago [-]
Loved this, cleared all the puzzles available in one go. Thanks for making and sharing!
azeirah 16 hours ago [-]
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!
wow, that was fast. it took me 11+, but found 7 bonus ones.
jcheng 14 hours ago [-]
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).
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!
a-l-e-c 17 hours ago [-]
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 :)
abnry 15 hours ago [-]
Very nice! I solved them all in the backyard on a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
blfr 20 hours ago [-]
I like that it also handles words that aren't planned in. You get a nice "bonus word" popout.
msla 20 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I got "TUNS" as a bonus word.
philsnow 18 hours ago [-]
Yeah tuns (a word well known to homebrewers) is not as esoteric as yttria (a word known to.. chemists?)
smitty1e 19 hours ago [-]
Not sure how to vote for it, though.
20 hours ago [-]
Cyclone_ 16 hours ago [-]
The only thing I would add would be to keep track of the words already found.
jgilias 16 hours ago [-]
It’s there, click on “words”
bbx 16 hours ago [-]
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.
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 :)
https://www.puzzmo.com
I really enjoyed this, and hope to continue doing so.
Basically I start with an 8, 9 or 10 letter word as the core of the puzzle. I then have a generator add random letters and paths around this until it makes a grid with a good number of valid words.
I then run the words though GPT 5.5 which scores them on how "common" the word is to the average person. This is very subjective as everyone has very different vocabularies.
I then manually decide which words to include as core required words or bonus words.
Finally the puzzle is tested by my wife and mum to see if it is "fun" or it goes in the bin haha.
Initially I thought I would feel cheated and the solution must require knowledge of some obscure scrabble player only words. I was pleased the solutions felt honest. For that reason I don't think you should offer an option to give up and reveal the answers.
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).
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!
What dictionary are you using?
[0] https://jcuenod.github.io/phrase-maze-poc/
Found six bonus words.
No hint feathre though, the hints are the letters going away. You'll probably have to use a scrabble search or something.
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 >.<
I agree that the "share" representation should include the number of bonus words found. Or just the triple of "total words / tries / wall-clock time."
It would also make sense to share some kind of metric for "how early did you find the longest word."
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.
I then manually test each of the puzzles and throw out any that I feel weren't "fun" to solve for whatever reason
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/
https://files.catbox.moe/fgmb4b.jpeg
Super fun, i found a tons of words and the last 3 ones were really hard to find
Zanagrams #5 Complete in 11:23 https://zanagrams.com/
https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.vayunmathur.gam...
https://github.com/plhosk/wordtracer
They're both on FDroid