4 ms·

Hey HN! This is a game I originally wrote as a training tool for my friend who was going to appear on a TV talent show. I’ve written an accompanying blog post

Hey HN! This is a game I originally wrote as a training tool for my friend who was going to appear on a TV talent show. I’ve written an accompanying blog post that tells that story. Read it here: http://blog.danieljanus.pl/2020/01/03/word-champions/ http://blog.danieljanus.pl/2020/01/03/word-champions/

hizanberg 7y ago
IMO it should have an option to stick with dictionary words, I spent a long time on puzzles that had 'zdnet' and 'vsnet' as words which were basically impossible to work out without trial & error since there are no english words in the dictionary that starts with `vs` or `zd`. If includes cryptic abbreviations, brand and product names the number of possibilities open up exponentially and you can no longer rely on English rules to help solve the puzzle, it basically becomes a trial & error permutations game.
- nathell 7y ago
  Thanks! This has been suggested to me before, and integrating a better wordlist is #1 on the TODO.
  - pimlottc 7y ago
    Also consider screening out proper names, they are not allowed in many common word games (e.g. Scrabble, Boggle) so I got kinda stumped when one of the answers was “Tyler”.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - JimTheMan 7y ago
      Same here! Either that or make it super obvious the kinds of words that are allowable in the Tutorial example.
  - aidenn0 7y ago
    https://github.com/elasticdog/yawl https://github.com/elasticdog/yawl is a good starting point for word games.
  - sandyarmstrong 7y ago
    Yeah, I just got "sluts", which was unfortunate. "Penis" didn't bother me but if you want wider appeal you might consider a more conservative list. EDIT: I only found these because I'm having so much fun playing the game! Great work!!!
- pgt 7y ago
  Yes please! I got "msgid". No way I would have guessed that was valid.
  - smrq 7y ago
    Ha, I also got "msgid". Glad I read your comment first :) FWIW, the same puzzle also included "penis", and as I'm at the office right now, I filled that one in last.
sc4ramouche 7y ago
Hey, thanks for sharing this. Looks good! How is your experience been with ClojureScript? It seems enticing to me now, considering giving it a try (I’m coming from JS realm).
- nathell 7y ago
  Overwhelmingly positive. There've been rough edges, and the learning curve is rather steep – especially if you haven't used Clojure before – but it's worth it. Re-frame [0] in particular has been a joy to use; I've developed a few large apps in it and they've been quite easy to maintain. [0]: https://github.com/day8/re-frame/ https://github.com/day8/re-frame/
  - thom 7y ago
    My one recommendation going through the code would be to try and separate the game logic out a bit more. There are things spread between the subs, events and db namespaces that could be abstracted out, and ideally separated from any knowledge of the re-frame db or other external concerns. This might just be my taste, but quite often I'd like to get to the point that I can unit test all of a game's logic, or even play a version of the game in the REPL, before hooking up what are then very thin subs and event handlers.
- vga805 7y ago
  I will echo the other repely. in particular, reframe has been a joy to work with and imo made me a better js & react developer

hizanberg 7y ago

IMO it should have an option to stick with dictionary words, I spent a long time on puzzles that had 'zdnet' and 'vsnet' as words which were basically impossible to work out without trial & error since there are no english words in the dictionary that starts with `vs` or `zd`. If includes cryptic abbreviations, brand and product names the number of possibilities open up exponentially and you can no longer rely on English rules to help solve the puzzle, it basically becomes a trial & error permutations game.

nathell 7y ago
Thanks! This has been suggested to me before, and integrating a better wordlist is #1 on the TODO.
- pimlottc 7y ago
  Also consider screening out proper names, they are not allowed in many common word games (e.g. Scrabble, Boggle) so I got kinda stumped when one of the answers was “Tyler”.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - JimTheMan 7y ago
    Same here! Either that or make it super obvious the kinds of words that are allowable in the Tutorial example.
- aidenn0 7y ago
  https://github.com/elasticdog/yawl https://github.com/elasticdog/yawl is a good starting point for word games.
- sandyarmstrong 7y ago
  Yeah, I just got "sluts", which was unfortunate. "Penis" didn't bother me but if you want wider appeal you might consider a more conservative list. EDIT: I only found these because I'm having so much fun playing the game! Great work!!!
pgt 7y ago
Yes please! I got "msgid". No way I would have guessed that was valid.
- smrq 7y ago
  Ha, I also got "msgid". Glad I read your comment first :) FWIW, the same puzzle also included "penis", and as I'm at the office right now, I filled that one in last.

sc4ramouche 7y ago

Hey, thanks for sharing this. Looks good! How is your experience been with ClojureScript? It seems enticing to me now, considering giving it a try (I’m coming from JS realm).

nathell 7y ago
Overwhelmingly positive. There've been rough edges, and the learning curve is rather steep – especially if you haven't used Clojure before – but it's worth it. Re-frame [0] in particular has been a joy to use; I've developed a few large apps in it and they've been quite easy to maintain. [0]: https://github.com/day8/re-frame/ https://github.com/day8/re-frame/
- thom 7y ago
  My one recommendation going through the code would be to try and separate the game logic out a bit more. There are things spread between the subs, events and db namespaces that could be abstracted out, and ideally separated from any knowledge of the re-frame db or other external concerns. This might just be my taste, but quite often I'd like to get to the point that I can unit test all of a game's logic, or even play a version of the game in the REPL, before hooking up what are then very thin subs and event handlers.
vga805 7y ago
I will echo the other repely. in particular, reframe has been a joy to work with and imo made me a better js & react developer