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Comment by npilk | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t this just the numbers game from Countdown? This team could have come to the same idea on their own, but it’s a bit suspicious how similar it is…

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The article in fact acknowledges this. (It says that it came from both Countdown and Des Chiffres et des Lettres, without saying that Countdown itself was based on Des Chiffres et des Lettres. There's also an Australian version, inspired by Countdown but reverting to the French name, called Letters and Numbers.)

The renaming in Australia is likely due to a conflict with an old but very popular tv show with the name Countdown (a music tv show)

Yes, it is. For an ad-free experience, I play it at https://www.countle.org, which has a daily puzzle similar to Wordle.

Several of my friends and family members are playing Countable, which is completely ad-free on iOS (https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/countable-daily-numbers-game/i...) and Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pibbon.cou...).

Full disclosure: I developed this app during Christmas '22 with the idea of offering only one challenging new puzzle/level each day. I believe that the focus on the level of difficulty makes a huge difference.

In fact, the numbers game is a copy of Countdown, which is itself a copy of "Le Compte est Bon", a french TV game started in 1965.

I'm no expert on French television, but according to Wikipedia, "Le compte est bon" is a phrase used on the TV show "Des chiffres et des lettres", not a game or show in itself.

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