Show HN: Omiword – A daily, sector-based word puzzle | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Omiword – A daily, sector-based word puzzle

omiword.com

Hi everybody. I occasionally make little browser-based games, and this is my latest attempt. It's not quite done, but it's quite playable (note: it does include audio):

https://www.omiword.com/

This has been my occasional tinker target for ~5 years now, starting in the early days of Covid. The objective is to drag letter tiles within certain boundaries to spell four common American-English words.

It hasn't got ads or anything, it's just supposed to be fun for its own sake. If people happen to like it, I might add an option for folks to make a small, one-time payment to unlock access to the archive.

I'm happy to hear any feedback, or about any shortcomings that you might discover.

Open articleView on HN

I gave up on the puzzle because it was too hard for my end of the week brain.

But, a couple of UX suggestions:

a) It shouldn't be possible to drop tiles on the grid outside of the word boundaries

b) Dropping one tile on another should swap their positions.

With both of these implemented, it'd make it easier to move all of the letters onto the grid and then try different options, without too much fiddling.

Along these lines, I suggest throwing the letters in random order on the word boundaries for the player instead of forcing us to do it.

Dragging the letters to the word spots was the first thing I did to start visualizing, which was busy work I found no value in doing.

Otherwise, interesting and challenging!

I agree with B but disagree with A. Allowing dropping tiles outside of the word boundaries lets you arrange your "workspace" for thinking, like placing multiple candidate letters next to the spot where they might appear in the word. It could be useful to have tiles that are dropped within the word boundaries highlighted in some way to distinguish them, though.

My UX feedback: it isn't clear that the icon on the top-right opens up some instructions. Perhaps replace with the more standard question-mark in a circle?

I noticed on mobile (Chrome on Android) when I tried to drag one of the tiles on the left boundary, my browser executed the page back action instead. You should be able to override this behavior with JavaScript by intercepting the default. I think this is one of the rare cases where that would be appropriate!

Agreed with this comment and the one above it - I think the difficulty is spot on but the UI was a bit frustrating on chrome/android and I may have given up sooner but for my love of solving puzzles.

Ah, I am on iOS, which doesn't seem to have this (or I've turned it off). I'll see if I can replicate it on a friend's phone. Thanks!

The QU have to mesh, and there is only one pair of them in the upper half. PIQUED fits.

The rest of the upper left only makes sense as SHIN, which gives SHINGLED going down on the left side.

From there, I got ELIXIR on the bottom cross-piece. ELECTION fit going down on the right.

I liked being able to reorder them outside boundaries, but I'd suggest some additional visual cues that might address the same issue:

1. Place an outline around the tile when it's on a word square.

2. Make the quadrant backgrounds a different color, shade, or texture. That will make it easier to see which tiles belong to which quadrant.

Agree on B.

> Dropping one tile on another should swap their positions.

This seems to be a common sentiment, so I plan to implement it. Thanks!

> It shouldn't be possible to drop tiles on the grid outside of the word boundaries

I've heard mixed opinions on this one. About 2/3 of people who have commented on it say that they like that the tiles can be dropped in the outside space, so they can rearrange and sort. About 1/3 dislike it (among those who say anything about it). But it's not a very large sample size, so I'll need to seek further feedback.

I played the game again today and easily found a solution. It told me I found an alternate solution. It'd be nice to be able to see the official solution.

Just click/tap on the emoji eyes to see the intended solution.

Pretty fun and challenging! That Q really had me stumped for a bit. May I suggest removing the audio all together or making it mute by default? It was a bit startling. Otherwise, good stuff!

The Q is what gave me the solution. A U in an adjacent quadrant? They must be adjacent.

You did a great job, the game is very polished .. (the misspelling feature!). The cross word constraint makes it a bit easier than the regular Jumble.

I wish there could be some sort of "reveal hint" button for each sector or something, similar to how a crossword puzzle has clues (With some sort of 'points' penalty or something for using a hint). I couldn't figure out any of the words on my first attempt. But it seems like a neat game overall.

I think I'll add a hint button that identifies one letter that isn't yet placed correctly, and it puts it in place (and doesn't allow it to be subsequently moved). Thanks!

Love the game and really like that any valid solution works. Would certainly pay a nominal fee for the archives or a way to randomly generate a puzzle w/ seed so my wife and I can play the same puzzle together. Thanks for sharing!

Nice, thanks! I'm still working out how much the one-time fee should be (and of course I still need to code the archive access).

I really enjoyed your game during the last 4 days and i'm definitly willing to pay a small fee for archive access and gratitude.

Thanks! I hope to have the archive feature working within the week.

I absolutely love the sound effects and music. Made me smile. I look forward to more puzzles :)

One thing I'd say is that dragging from the edge of the screen makes it really easy to accidentally trigger the back gesture on my phone.

Thanks! That edge-of-screen bug is something that several people have encountered. I'll need to find an Android phone to test on so I can replicate it.

I played the second game, and your dictionary might need to be adjusted. Asse is certainly not a word.

Pretty fun game you got here though. I would like a retry capability so I can try to find another (read: the real) solution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_fox

This game's dictionary is similar to Scrabble; it includes as many valid words as possible, even when they are obscure. It turns out that "asse" is a kind of fox:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/asse

It's a sticky wicket with these obscure words. I've made other word games before, and people get upset when oddball-but-valid words are rejected. It feels more fair to be permissive, but that's just me.

What does it mean when the letters become “straight”? I thought it meant they were in the correct spot but it was for what seem impossible letter combinations.

They also seem to become straightened out when not on the bounding boxes, and they seem to be straightened out even when not making real words. But also even when making real words they sometimes show as “broken”.

I see that it references multiple solutions but I’m still confused how that tracks.

EDIT: I ended up “solving” the puzzle but one of the words isn’t a real word, not even in a scrabble dictionary.

If you fill in a whole word and it doesn't appear broken, that means that it's a word found in the game's word list. It's a very permissive word list, including some pretty obscure words. Do you recall what the questionable word was?

It was ASSI

According to Merriam-Webster, "assi" is a synonym for yaupon, a kind of holly plant native to the southeastern U.S.:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/assi

It's quite obscure, but valid.

TIL! Will have to try Yaupon tea some time as well.

This is a fun game, nicely put together! I wished for a button to clear the board while I was playing. I love the menu UI. I think it cleverly parallels the game.

Several people have requested a button to move the tiles to their starting positions. It's on the to-do list. Thanks!

I like it, will play again. It felt challenging but not impossible.

Will there be consideration for other languages in the future?

I agree with the other commentor's suggestions on the UI.

Hooray! I may add other languages, if it gets some traction as-is, and if I can find someone to help assemble a dictionary for another language. Code-wise it wouldn't be prohibitively difficult.

I'm not sure PYRUS should be in the word list, and fairly sure YACK shouldn't; but also it'd be nice to avoid generating puzzles with multiple legal solutions. Look up the old HN thread on HueWords for some discussion of Wordle-style "valid" versus "target" word lists and their applicability to this sort of puzzle-game design.

I'd agree. I got stuck after getting SYRUP because I just assumed YACK wasn't a word.

FYI

yack n 1: noisy talk [syn: {yak}, {yack}, {yakety-yak}, {chatter}, {cackle}]

      v 1: talk incessantly and tiresomely [syn: {yack}, {jaw}, {yack
           away}, {rattle on}, {yap away}]

Yeah I thought it was just a slang term. It's not a common word in Britain at all.

This game has a fairly comprehensive dictionary, kind of like Scrabble. The idea is that words should not be rejected merely for being uncommon.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Pyrus

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/yack

Basically, if a respected dictionary includes a word, this list does as well. I do understand the appeal of omitting weird words, but that would be a considerable and subjective undertaking.

But I'll see if I can find that thread, perhaps it will change my mind. Thanks!

I wondered if you were working to assure there is only one solution; from today's puzzle I see not, since I found "another."

It would be great to be able to start over.

It would be great to keep track of how many distinct solutions you have found.

It would be great to know how many solutions there are.

> I wondered if you were working to assure there is only one solution; from today's puzzle I see not, since I found "another."

In a perfect world there would be just one solution per puzzle, agreed. But the pool of possible puzzles would be so much smaller.

> It would be great to be able to start over.

Agreed, I think I'll add a "reset" feature that puts all of the tiles back in their starting positions (and allows replay if the puzzle is already solved).

> It would be great to keep track of how many distinct solutions you have found. / It would be great to know how many solutions there are.

Something like "you've found X of Y possible solutions", perhaps? Not a bad idea.

Yeah, I figured that restricting to puzzles with only one solution would be a significant constraint; I'm not advocating for it.

Hey what'd you use for your drag-n-drop? It works well, I'd like to use it for something too. Perusing your code, it looks like you wrote it from scratch actually? Really minimalistic, I'm impressed it works this well.

You are correct, it's my home-grown solution.

2:12 27 moves, my first guesses for words were correct. The Q was the key for me. Fun game!

Nice! It was hard, and I really liked the break-in (spoilers) with the Q and U.

That's really fun. I play a lot of word games online and I will be adding yours to my daily regimen. Clever use of sound too. I may want to turn it off at times but for now at least I'm leaving it on.

In case you didn't already notice, there is a volume slider in the game's menu.

My thoughts:

Add option to eliminate sounds and light show when dragging letters.

Add ability to select the difficulty. A difficult puzzle on a gray Saturday morning during breakfast is more than I can handle.

Too hard (and i help my wife with crosswords).

Hint mode (put one letter in place) would be the best UI

Yeah, I think you're right that it needs a hint mode, especially on the harder puzzles later in the week.

Quick and fun and well polished. The audio and visual fx are satisfying. Nice!

I am pleased that you like it.

my 2 cents : please kill the light-show and music while moving letters effects. I think you want your users to be able to concentrate. Unless this effect is there to make this game harder for some reason ?

Hmm, the light show is meant to highlight the sector boundaries, so it's clear where a given letter tile can be dragged. I could tone it down if it's too much, my goal was to give it some personality.

Regarding the sound, if you don't care for it, there is a volume slider in the menu that can disable it.

Thanks for trying it out!

I like the idea but I gave up :( pretty challenging

This game is designed to follow the tradition of puzzle games that are easiest on Mondays, and harder through the week. Friday/Saturday/Sunday puzzles can be quite tricky indeed.

I have no idea how to play. Am I alone here? Baffled.

Perhaps I did not make it sufficiently self-explanatory. The play area is divided into sectors (some puzzles have 2, others have 4). Each sector contains some letter tiles. You can drag the letter tiles onto the dotted-line-bordered boxes, with the goal of spelling four valid English words. If you spell a word that is not in the game's dictionary, it will appear "broken."

Well done. That was tricky and fun.

Thanks!

nice!!

Thanks!

I’d pay for the archive. This is great. Really nice work.

Thanks! Do you have any thoughts on what a fair one-time price for the archive would be? At this moment there are puzzles going back to 1/1/2025, so about 100 (and growing daily). I've been leaning toward something on the order of $3-$6 (but of course I still need to code the archive access).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com