dhim 2022-10-02 21:38
So many anagrams! Did you select words that have anagrams on purpose to make the game challenging? I'll come back after midnight to play again and rate!
Nice entry!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → Weirdo Words
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 231 | 3.45 | 62 | |
| Fun | 136 | 3.60 | 63 | |
| Innovation | 328 | 3.08 | 63 | |
| Theme | 189 | 3.70 | 62 | |
| Graphics | 398 | 2.84 | 60 | |
| Audio | 287 | 2.95 | 60 | |
| Humor | 307 | 2.23 | 53 | |
| Mood | 415 | 2.50 | 58 |
So many anagrams! Did you select words that have anagrams on purpose to make the game challenging? I'll come back after midnight to play again and rate!
Nice entry!
@dhim - Thanks! It is randomly seeded with your local date. In total, there are 468 words it can choose from. It is a word list I've had on my pc for a while for another project, I cleaned out some NSFW words and trimmed it down to words with a length between 3 and 10 characters. The anagrams are a bit of an issue that I didn't want to try and solve for the jam.
Nice, solid game. Works really well and had me challenged. I like the graphics and animations for getting things right + wrong. Feels super responsive and complete! Good Job!
Hey, really nice job! Had fun playing through the daily ones. I think the 10s theme might be a little at odds with the codebreaker/wordle mechanics - you don't really have time to analyse which letters are in the correct positions so mostly I was just quickly typing in alternative anagrams. Perhaps rather than show the correct positions in the guesses, you could just fix the correctly guessed letters in the right position on the grid and colour them green. That might cut the analysis time and make it more intuitive than underline = correct. I think a change of font could really upgrade the visuals too.
@dollcoded - Thanks, glad you liked it!
@anxiousgamedev - Great feedback and something I'll consider for future updates. I kind of agree that 10 seconds isn't enough time, I think in a release I'd probably do at least double that or maybe a timed mode that is Easy/Medium/Hard where the only real difference is time limit. The last word today is really difficult for 10 seconds :joy:
May be it is obvious, but you never tell the players, that word should consist from the letters they see on the screen.
@xpycm - I hadn't considered that a player might not know that but it is probably true. I had my mom play test it and usually if she doesn't ask questions then I'm good :laughing: I'll add it to the description above and add it to the instructions on the game after the jam ends. Thanks for playing!
Great game, I liked this more than wordle.
It would be nice to have more or less time based on how many letters there are. I didn't get much after 5 letters (not native English speaker).
@foggydude - Thanks, that is some high praise
@thebmxeur - I worried about non-native english speakers. Given a different theme, 10 second limit wouldn't have even crossed my mind. You do gain 2 seconds if you guess wrong but have at least one number correct. Implementing something like @anxiousgamedev idea would probably help that situation as well.
This is a cool little word game, the ding and spin when you get a word right is very satisfying, well done!
huh... this is a really great concept, I also love me some wordle before each hurdle so this was trefpec for me ;) also my score was shite so I'm not posting it :P
@smooches & @nullval - Thanks! I'm already planning out a full blown game and see if I can't make me $5.00 a year off some google ads :laughing:
not really into word games, but well executed and seems to have a lot of potential for that genre!
I really like the concept of the timer pressure on a word game like this. Nice job!
Pretty decent. I think it would be better if it didn't reset the timer when you got one wrong
Great little game! Was pleasantly surprised that you can backspace if you happen to miss type.
Really well executed. Excellent presentation!
@somecodingguy - Thank you
@arkinrev - I ended up liking the timer as well but 10 seconds is way too short
@soshjam - It shouldn't completely reset the timer though it could look like that if you are making your guesses within the first 2-3 seconds. Basically a wrong answer with a letter in the correct position results in +2 seconds to the timer.
@snesgaard & @actuallythemoon - Thanks! I tried to make it as intuitive as possible. You can drag & drop too and I added Tap clicking the letters near the end so would work for mobile devices too (though a bit more work on resizing needs to happen for mobile I think).
Nice! Fun and relaxing and the game also feels very polished to me. Also cool to see you already have future plans for this game so I'll definitely check it out again!
@lazzor - Appreciate the comments!
I enjoyed it. The ten second timer added to the challenge.
i like it a lot and in combination with the timer this mechanic really works - it would definitely be less compelling without it, and i think its a solid game for the theme
Very fun and amazing game!.
I like the game, although 10 seconds feel a bit too fast :) Also, it's a tiny bit frustrating when you figure out a correct anagram, but it's not the one chosen by the game. I think i might've enjoyed it a bit more if other anagrams were also accepted. Otherwise, fun game! And i love the fact that you made it entirely in HTML, JS and CSS :)
@ofiro @harrison-gowland @eugenik - Thank you!
@jeppetp - Completely agree and thanks for the feedback! I think at least 15 seconds maybe 20 or 30 event. I have a semi-functional version where it will accept any anagram that exists in the dictionary. On a large library it is a bit slower than I'd like. Thinking of maybe reducing points if you get the anagram but not the real word or possibly have it as a "hard mode" type option.
I had a lot of fun playing this one! At first I was much too slow, but when I figured out that I can also just click on the letters instead of dragging them, it worked quite well (my bad for not reading the whole description before... oops). Apart from loving word games in general, I especially liked that this one is controlled by clicking, so I don't have to move my eyes (or even scroll) back and forth between the game at the top and a keyboard that's often way too far down in other word games.
I'd like to play more of it, but I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow...
@flauschzelle - Wow, great feedback thank you! You can also type the letters if you prefer. More to come for sure, I want to add some additional modes where you can play forever for instance.
Nice game. Aweome gimmicks. Just the fact that it give away the solution kills replayability.
@thesnide - That was sort of intentional, the idea to be like Wordle in the end where you can only play once a day (in that mode). Eventually I'll setup localSettings to pseudo prevent replay in Daily mode. But still good feedback, I keep thinking I should have a Easy/Normal/Hard mode and maybe Easy would be the only one to show you the word.
Love to see a puzzle game in Ludum Dare. :relaxed: On my first try I was so bad it was frustrating, but then I got the hang of it and enjoyed it! (Somehow I couldn't figure out the word "WHO" from "HOW" lol)
I like the idea with the daily play inspired by Wordle, so you can compare your results with other people. I wish it actually showed your highscore for the day somewhere!
I really like that you considered different input methods. That's often an overlooked aspect in game jams. It was very intuitive that you could either user the keyboard, drag the letters or click on the letters. But I think because it's so intuitive the text in the beginning wouldn't have to be that long and it would have been nice if the correct letters would have been shown directly on the word and not only in the word list.
Overall it's really cool game, I would love to see how the post-jam version would look like (a non-timed version would be appreciated haha)
@finntastico - Thanks for the feedback! Instruction text is always something I struggle with, am I giving too much/not enough/etc... Probably some simple instructions with a "view help" option or something for those that need more. Definitely a mode without being timed is planned and saving scores to local storage or something of that nature, just stuff I didn't want to deal with for the jam :)
Okay, that was pretty fun word game, like the sound effects used. Sometimes you can make more than one word with the letters given but only one word actually counts, I think 10 seconds was perfectly fine and challenging for this type of game.
this was a really fun game. I got anxious trying to do the words faster and faster but that was also the fun part. I could see myself playing something like this more often just to do the daily words
awesome puzzle. very cool. i'd like to see that there is more than one correct way to answer. e.g:
E P E K
Can be: KEEP and PEEK
i want both of them be accepted because both can be correct. but in general it's very cool and challenging. Good usage of jam theme.
@nickpick - Agreed, I have a fix for anagrams in what will eventually be a release version.
@barret - Thanks! I'm hoping others feel the same after I get a release out there
I tired the webgl version of this game on my phone and it worked quite well by clicking each letters! I liked the fact that you added the support for multiple ways of typing the word, which allowed me to play it on my mobile device.
The game itself is good : it is a simple idea but well executed! Well... English is not my main language so I sucked really bad at it but it's still quite fun and stressful!
You could have added some color and feed a make playing the game more exciting however.
One more thing, I liked the idea of daily challenge! That is great to motivate us to keep on coming back to your game!
@furano - Excellent feedback, thank you. I'm interested in doing some sort of localization for it in a future release.
This was fun.
There are some issues to iron out - I personally wasn't a fan that words automatically "entered" when they were full - I lost points to a last second switchup of letters (goign instead of going, for example) and that could be frustrating.
There also is the issue that I found a few actual words that weren't the "right" word and got penalized for it. Dealing with this issue though is, I'd imagine, far beyond the scope of a game jam game.
Those issues aside, the game is fun, it's well executed, and I had a blast.
Thank you. :D
Thanks for the link :) I love these sorts of word games and this was a cool take on it. I noticed that your game probably takes a word and scrambles the letters, so theres always just one correct answer. I found that a bit annoying when i for example tried the word "Newt", but the correct answer was "Went". Wouldve loved to see both of those words being correct, but ofcourse thats a lot more work to do.
Loved the sound effects, it was surprisingly satisfying to guess a word correctly. Well executed, nice job!
@otterfaelure & @jonrei - Regarding the anagram issue, yeah it wasn't an issue I wanted to tackle during the jam but I am working a new version of the game that already handles this.
@otterfaelure - Excellent feedback on the word immediately being entered. I initially forced you to hit "Enter" but that ended up meaning I needed a "Submit" or some such on screen button for those playing without a keyboard so I abandoned it for the jam. I'll keep it in mind for the release version.
@dxk2294 - Glad to hear it, thanks for playing!
@simplepotential You are a legend! :D
Wow, that was more fun than expected.
Although "English" is not my native language, I was able to solve 9/10 words. Thank you for the kind of vocabulary lesson :laughing:
@melektaus - Thanks for playing! Definitely need to look at some localization in the future.
bit hard for non-native speaker, still a fun game!(rate back plz）
A fun use of the 10 second theme, i'm a sucker for word based games so i thoroughly enjoyed this. Great entry!
@projectcolorball @anchry - Thanks for playing!
Simple and cool word game! Love the sound when you get a word right. It gives a feeling of satisfied. I also agree with that putting the time pressure on a word game is a great idea. This tension improve my game experience.
@tao-yuanyue - Thanks for the feedback!
Weirdo words are the words that i sometimes use to speak.
Simple, but fun! The sound fx are minimalistics, but work well. I love the idea of a timer for new words to appear. I feel that you could make a pretty addictive game on this concept.
Good job!
@asfdfdfd @chocolat-endive - Thanks for playing!
good idea! since english is not my native language, i had some trouble with some words, but i liked the idea and how you achieved it!
I really enjoyed the game, sadly my vocab is a little bit rusty and im dyslexic so i wasnt able to get much done Impressive that you didnt use a game engine like 99.9999% of the others (us included)
@amarokczukay - Yeah a common comment that being only English hurts game play for non-native English speakers. Definitely something I want to look at in the future. Thanks for playing!
@der-finski - In the past I used Unity for these almost exclusively but that last couple I've used just raw HTML/JS to do it all. My job as a full stack dev has come in handy since JS is fresh on the mind. Not sure I could do anything for dyslexics, but if you have any suggestions please let me know. Thanks for playing!
Nice game! Works well, and fits the theme perfectly. The sound and visual effects were pretty goofy but it made the game very satisfying to play.
Hey, thanks for making the game! I played through it and recorded my thoughts.
https://youtu.be/QIpXIi-tPWM
@vykri - Great feedback and good to see it played, and I'm glad you are harsh. I agreed nearly completely and there is a lot of polish needed for certain. I had in my head that I wanted to do a word game long before the theme was announced and wanted to keep it simple since I only had about 8 hours I could dedicate to the jam.
Hitting some specifics from your video:
The production release will take any valid word in the game's dictionary, I planned it for the jam too but it was causing odd lag, so I cut it. I have it working locally just fine now. The dictionary for the jam was a bit small too (~500 words). It picks the words using the current date as a seed.
Time limit will move to a Hard Mode, I shoehorned it in to fit the theme. I was thinking about removing it entirely but comments suggest they really like it and so do some play testers. But I think 10 seconds is to little in any case.
Score absolutely is weird, probably dropping completely and just give the number of guess for each word, the lower the guesses for the daily round the better you did. For context though, the 1455 score you received would be 100 x 10 = 1000 points for get all words in one guess, plus 5 bonus points for each second left on the clock for each word. So it took you about 9 seconds to guess all 10 words netting you 5 x 91 = 455 + 1000 = 1455. Like you said, doesn't feel right or even needed.
Rules are a mess, written out at end of compo and meant to be part of a "Help" screen rather than the title screen.
It actually works even better for mobile play in terms of placing letters. You don't have to drag, you can just tap the letters to place/remove them. Generally faster than typing even. But the resizing is a bit funky and need play with that some more.
Again, thank you for the detailed and honest feedback! It is immensely helpful. It isn't something I see getting as popular as Wordle by any means though the traffic on my site has been through the roof, that particular page having >2300 views versus the ~50 ratings I've received and there are 412 unique visitors. So somebody is coming back for seconds (or 5ths in this case).
Simple idea but very effective. Nice entry.
Always love those type of small games ! good job
Cool game, words are pretty accesible for non English speakers too, 10 seconds seems enough to find the word.
Great entry!
Great game! I think allowing anagrams would make a good 'easy' mode, but I like the idea of having to guess the correct word (like it is now) for a 'hard' mode. To make it more 'fair', you could give some wordle/mastermind style feedback on an incorrect guess. Obviously none of the guessed letters won't be in the word, so maybe something like a heatmap based on how far away it is from the desired position would be better (e.g. green = correct, yellow = 1 off, grey = 2+ off). And maybe the timer could paused for some amount of time for each letter you got right.
@chansmith - Excellent thoughts, I will certainly consider those suggestions.
Good game! I think it might be a bit too challenging with only 10 seconds, though.
Man, I'm so terrible at this kind of game! x) But having the letters helped a bit, and I did not do too bad actually. The UX is very clean, both for the presentation and the use of sounds. Maybe the way the attempts and the solution are displayed could be improved, but it's already functional. Overall playing this was very satisfying!