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Show HN: 5 minute word game
- pcmaffey 9y agoBuilt this game in React in ~ 20 hrs. Thought I'd share a few things I learned: 1. You can disable React Dev Tools in Prod, by including this script before React loads. Because this game is 100% client side, fiddling with component state made cheating much too easy. ` if (typeof window.__REACT_DEVTOOLS_GLOBAL_HOOK__ === 'object') { __REACT_DEVTOOLS_GLOBAL_HOOK__.inject = function() {}; } ` 2. A good dictionary of English words is not easy to come by. I first tried a 25k word list, and then when I play tested for the first time, half the words I spelled weren't in there. Looking around, larger lists were in the 300k range. Eventually I found one at 70k words... I'm hashing it for easy search of words, though it makes for a slightly heftier initial load (I was hoping for 40-50k words), and it still doesn't include plurals. I'd thought about using a spell-check API, but wanted the game to be playable offline...especially if I make it into a mobile app (not sure yet). 3. There's a fun little bonus round you unlock if you score enough points. This wasn't at all part of my initial concept, but I realized it'd be neat to use the words spelled during the game to create something (it still needs work, but as they say, constraint is the mother of creativity).
- sushid 9y agoRegarding #2, shouldn't you be using a prefix tree? And even if you're using a hash, you can remove the s suffix and check to see if it's a word (i.e. check if it's a word first, if not, remove the 's' and check again). There are edge cases of course, but at this point it's probably better to have a few false positives than a bunch of false negatives.
- pcmaffey 9y ago[searches "prefix tree"] Sweet! Thanks for the tip, that does indeed look like what I should be using. As for plurals, that's not a bad idea. But I think the # of false positives would be > false negatives.
- sushid 9y agoQuite possible. How about importing the Scrabble dictionary? Looks like there are implementation on Github that's easily <1 MB. Loved the game, btw.
- averagebear 9y agoPretty fun. 5 minutes is a bit long - I think I would have the hang of it and wouldn't have gotten tired of it in a 3 minute session. Also, plurals generally (but not always) don't work. Good job!
- ganashaw 9y agoMy bonus round poem: Wise goat lay rat wash paw rise air bee! Soar! Laws lag slay lust bash.
- s369610 9y agoNice one! Poem: fat rat sad, get vet dad, fast... lag.... dead
- JakDrako 9y agoHere's my Pulitzer winner: Miner toe jam pure crime mam
- aldo712 9y agoUmm.. She piss bed, pussy busy red! Men run cab, nun sip pill, deer led pig hit lip, tie tin cap! Dig mud ball, fin gig!
- pcmaffey 9y agoHey all, a few updates: 1. You can now check out the top 100 poems (as you can see, these are all in good fun): https://www.pcmaffey.com/01100111011000010110110101100101/poems https://www.pcmaffey.com/01100111011000010110110101100101/po... 2. I updated the dictionary. So it now should fully support plurals and conjugations. Happy word-smithing!