7 ms·
Hello! I am the creator of Don’t Wordle. Really excited to see this took off today. I thought I would share some background about the game, some of the iterati
by dontwordle 4y ago
Hello! I am the creator of Don’t Wordle. Really excited to see this took off today.
I thought I would share some background about the game, some of the iterations I went through, and some of the future features I would like to add.
Background:
Like many others, I have been playing Wordle daily. Recently, my Wordle win streak hit 99. I was admittedly very careful with my guesses on Day 100, not wanting to ruin my streak. Then I began to wonder…even if I wanted to lose intentionally, could I do it? Obviously, I could make intentionally bad guesses, but that would take the fun out of it. So I decided to build Don’t Wordle.
Iterations I have gone through:
The first version of the game was simpler and much worse IMO. I did not display the “Valid Words Remaining” at the top, and there was no concept of “Undos". Initially, I actually displayed the Wordle word at the top throughout the entire game! To be honest, that doesn’t change the difficulty of the game that much. However, given that the spirit of the game is not to guess the Wordle word, it seemed like the right decision to hide it.
I created the “Valid Words Remaining” feature when I realized how challenging the game was. I kept getting stuck and wondering whether there were even any words left besides to Wordle word. When I saw how fast the count shrinks, I felt the game was a lot more interesting.
I then added the concept of “Undos” when I realized the game was still too challenging. It’s particulary lame if you’re playing the game for the first time and you get eliminated after just 1 or 2 guesses.
Current Tech Stack:
-Route53 + Cloudfront + S3 + Create React App
Unexpected challenges:
1. The animations. I obviously copied all the concepts from the original Wordle, but I failed to appreciate the complexity.
2. The nuances of the repeat letter words.
3. What makes a Wordle square yellow? The answer is not so simple
4. Trying to get www.dontwordle.com and dontwordle.com to take you to the same URL (either www.dontwordle.com or dontwordle.com) and still support TLS and only use the tech I mentioned above. I actually still don’t have it working perfectly. I know of a solution, but it’s overly complicated
Features I would like to still add:
1. I have heard from multiple people that it’s annoying how you could get the game in an unwinnable state without realizing it. For example, maybe 20 valid words remain, but there is no valid sequence of words remaining to finish the puzzle. While the “Valid Words Remaining” feature is nice, it would also be cool to have a “Valid Solutions Remaining” feature
2. I would like to build a brute force solver that you can watch attempt to play the game in real-time. I have built something similar for a crossword puzzle and really enjoyed watching the computer try to fill the grid. I think it would be cool to do that same thing with this game.
Question I don’t yet know the answer to:
Do any words exist that would not have a single valid solution in this game?
- ghaff 4y ago>What makes a Wordle square yellow One thing I had wondered--but not enough to figure out what the code does... Let's say you enter Mamma for example. And there is one M in the word but in the second position. Which M square does Wordle choose to turn yellow? (But maybe it doesn't matter?) There may be other cases like that as well.
- moron4hire 4y agoFrom experience, the first M.
- drooglyman 4y agoYep, it's the first M. I think in general the rule is this: - Any Ms in the correct position turn green (duh) - If there are X Ms remaining in the answer, turn the first X (non-green) Ms in the guess yellow
- julianwachholz 4y agoFor yellow squares, the particular order in which they turn yellow doesn't matter. The remaining grey Ms tell you the same thing (that those positions don't have an M).
- gweinberg 4y agoThat's true for Wordle, but I think according to the dontwordle rules you are allowed to make a guess with an em on one of the grey squares anyway.