7 ms·

Show HN: Bracket City – A daily, exploded (?) crossword puzzle

109 points by brgross 2y ago

Hi hn - I co-own a diner where I co-host a puzzle night that is kind of like a diner-themed escape room. At the last one, I made a puzzle that was crossword-like clues nested in brackets. People at the diner seemed to like it, so I resolved to make it a real game and Bracket City was born: https://bracket.city https://bracket.city. I love crosswords, so it's been fun to write crossword-like clues: [it contains MSG] as well as clues that would not make it into a crossword: [___ <=== you ===> hard place] I write all the puzzles and post a new one at midnight ET every day of the week. Still working on a lot of features/fixes. I'm aware that scoring based on keystrokes is pretty unfair, especially given not-ideal custom keyboard on mobile! Still thinking through the best solution there. Also fun fact: if you sign up for the email list, you get a special "Word of the Day" email written by James Somers (of https://jsomers.net https://jsomers.net). The only way to sign up for the email list is to finish a puzzle! ** (answer key: NYC, ROCK)

laomai 2y ago
Clever idea. I like it. Maybe visualization of the brackets could be improved a bit. The overriding problem for me was the nonstandard keyboard. Would love to be able to use my device keyboard
rbergs 2y ago
Love this and play daily! Needs to have a submit button for better tracking your guesses and grading you each day.
dhberger 2y ago
Love this game, I’m addicted. It’s the new Wordle
tsunego 2y ago
cool idea, especially the newsletter so i don't need to visit the website every day
showerst 2y ago
Fun concept, but there are some really generation specific references here. Smurfs, Brady Bunch, Payphones...
- brgross 2y ago
  fair! I do think today's puzzle betrays my elder millennial status more than most...
  - mckn1ght 2y ago
    As someone that does lots of crosswords, this doesn’t seem at all out of the ordinary. I guess the difference is that in a regular crossword, these cultural unknowns can be worked around if you can get the crosswords, but that’s no guarantee either.
- ibejoeb 2y ago
  There's kind of a crossword language, especially if you do NYT where there are regular callbacks. Some of them are pretty weak, actually, but they're shibboleths of sort to regular solvers. We complain about weak fill, but they're like clues in themselves.
m_ppp 2y ago
Was really fun, quite enjoyed it, did think some of the references were a bit too nuanced for me
dnel 2y ago
I could really get into a UK version of this. As it is I'm at a handicap with most of these clues. Great puzzle though!
johnfn 2y ago
This is very cool. My only complaint is I should be able to go up a level. e.g. I saw "unwelcome in a China shop" and instantly knew it was "bull" but still had to work through a few more clues before I got there.
- brgross 2y ago
  have gone back and forth on this point -- so far I've decided that outer brackets should be a hint that guides on you inner brackets, but that you can't skip any clues but I hear you!
  - e28eta 2y ago
    Same frustration, exacerbated by the mobile keyboard. I played on an iPad with large attached keyboard, but had to hunt & peck at the on screen buttons.
  - mckn1ght 2y ago
    I used the context as part of the clue in that way. I like it that way and don’t think it should change.
  - binary132 2y ago
    It would mean that if you can sort it out on your own you can reduce the minimum number of keystrokes by a lot
  - xg15 2y ago
    Same here with the smurfs. I get the idea, but it becomes a bit awkward sometimes when the only reason you can't skip a clue is that the script won't let you. I think it might be because this format puts the words into a strict hierarchy of clues, meta-clues, etc, while in a traditional crossword puzzle, the words form more sort of a network, where you can choose the order by yourself. I wonder if you could restore that property somewhat by arranging the clues into a graph structure instead of a hierarchy. E.g.: (slightly nonsensical example) [#1: Famous software company] Inc announced a revolutionary new implementation of binary search [#2: The #1 does not fall far from the ___]s today, as well as an improved type of cryptographic [#3: algorithm that needs a [#4: origin of #2, purpose of #1], 3 words]. The ideas are said to have originated from a recently discovered high school notebook of [#5: Co-founder of #1, 2 words] himself.
1-more 2y ago
Delightful! Longtime NYT crossword solver here (when I'm in the mood).
- 1-more 2y ago
  What I REALLY like is that I got a 0 today and got 100 on the 16th. Variation like that is so solid; after a while doing the NYT you see how much answers (less so clues) repeat and it gets a bit repetitive.
flick 2y ago
Hey! I was at the last puzzle night (lot's of fun) and everyone at my table loved the game when you came around and showed us the website. I've been playing it a few times a week since! Congrats!
- brgross 2y ago
  Amazing convergence! Thank you for playing!
joseda-hg 2y ago
Cool game, some references made it a bit hard for me like the Brady Bunch one or the cost to call someone who cares, but I don't know to what extent there's a culture barrier vs a generational one
- wbobeirne 2y ago
  I think the format here is pretty brilliant, because you can look at what's outside of the brackets to try to fill in a reasonable answer. The Brady Bunch one was followed by ]orian, which made for a useful hint.
  - devilbunny 2y ago
    But there are few of those that are so cleanly nested. I know where it’s going, but the requirement to solve every individual step slows you down. Of course, I’ve been a steady cruciverbalist for 35+ years, so learning a new puzzle style will always take a while. Do agree that until OP settles into a smoother rhythm, adding the length of the solvable answers would help.
- tgv 2y ago
  For me too. It's both cultural and generational, I guess. It's pretty hard to find references that are widely understood. One usually writes from one's own frame of reference; knowing what others know isn't easy. Just like I don't know the names of Saturday Night Live hosts (something that slowed me down in an NYT puzzle recently), a puzzle maker in New York has a hard time imagining the things I do know about (in this case) US culture. Across ages might be a bit easier, because there's more material at hand in your own language, but I do notice a considerable distance between me and my daughter in all kinds of knowledge. E.g., I haven't keep up with pop since ages. But it's a nice, and nerdy, game format.
_diyar 2y ago
Tons of fun
angry_moose 2y ago
Pretty fun overall. I really think it at least needs to give you the number of letters though. Some of the clues get really tough since you don't get any information - either number of letters or a few "given" letters from other clues like you get in crosswords. Especially if you get "penalized" for keystrokes - there are some clues that end up as a lot of random guessing because so many things can solve them. A good example - on Feb 19; I was guessing "New York" and "New York City" over and over because I was pretty convinced that's what it was. When I finally had to reveal it, finding out it wanted "NYC" was pretty frustrating.
- tuukkah 2y ago
  Perhaps the number of letters should be another hint in addition to the first letter. However, I think it's quite obvious that the answer is a TLA when the clue is in the TLA format.
jasonpeacock 2y ago
An annoyance is not accepting "close enough" answers, I was working an older puzzle from a few days ago and the answer was `pulls` and I was trying `pull`. I tried a few other things, clicked for the clue (first letter was `P`), tried `pull` again (does that count against my characters when I repeat failed answers?), tried `pulled`, then finally got `pulls`. Echoing angry_moose's suggestion, a hint about the # of letters (on mouseover?) would help a lot. Or maybe that would make it too easy?
- tarentel 2y ago
  At least in this case, by crossword conventions, the answer has to match the tense of the clue. At least all the ones I did followed this convention including the one you're talking about. I did not see the one angry_moose is talking about but in a normal crossword, even without seeing the number of letters, if the clue was like, "Most populous city in the US" -> NYC vs "Most populous city in the United States" -> New York City. Again, not sure if that was the case here since I didn't see it. (edit: I went and saw it, the clue had MSG vs Madison Square Garden hence, NYC, not New York City) Cool puzzle though.
carlos-menezes 2y ago
This is a really fun game. Well done.
tsieling 2y ago
Really fun and a fresh format. Well done!
annjose 2y ago
This was super fun! The bracket format is brilliant. It's like going on a treasure hunt, you solve one clue and the next one reveals itself. Well done!
binary132 2y ago
This is very nice but it would be lovely if I could just skip to the higher level solutions once I figure them out instead of having to go through the whole tree of solutions
palsecam 2y ago
That’s a fun variation of crosswords! I like it. Btw, a self-plug, for the polyglots out-there: https://paul.fragara.com/cw.html https://paul.fragara.com/cw.html Poly-alphabets crosswords, mixing Latin and Cyrillic letters!
Chinjut 2y ago
I'm enjoying this a lot! Thanks for making it!
SoftMachine 2y ago
Nice job creating this interesting game. Whatever changes, have a classic mode to keep it as is!
joemi 2y ago
I think it'd be interesting to see this implemented more like a crossword, with everything on a grid (though a 1D grid in this case). Then you could see how many letters you're looking for (which helps avoid some ambiguities that I see mentioned here in the comments), and the clues could be moved out of the solving area. The wrapping of the areas that I was trying to solve really threw me, especially when the final result was so much shorter.
prideout 2y ago
Neat! I've been getting into crossword puzzles recently, does anyone know of nice places to play them, other than newspaper sites?
- prideout 2y ago
  nm, found a nice open source one: https://github.com/downforacross/downforacross.com https://github.com/downforacross/downforacross.com
  - 1-more 2y ago
    This is an amazing site. My team at work used to do a Sunday together every Friday afternoon. It was a nice remote game to play.
- devilbunny 2y ago
  Brendan Emmett Quigley (just search his name, you will go right to it) publishes puzzles for free on his website, in addition to the ones he sells to NYT, WSJ, and others. You can get PDF's, solve on the site, or download in the Across Lite format.
FujiApple 2y ago
Great concept. I was on mobile and agree the custom keyboard is far from ideal. As others have said I also found it to be overly US-centric. Keen to see how this develops, feels like a winning idea!
sunnyba 2y ago
Really creative game! Great work. Echoing the suggestions in the other comments to provide some clue on the number of letters.
dewert 2y ago
Love it! I'd appreciate a copy text button rather than the current share behaviour. I'll also weigh in and say that solving sub-clues when you can see the higher-level answer is a good feature, and makes the game more crossword like. I wouldn't allow skipping that
fsckboy 2y ago
papa smurf is not the eldest smurf Grandpa Smurf (original French name Vieux Vieux Schtroumpf) https://smurfs.fandom.com/wiki/Grandpa_Smurf https://smurfs.fandom.com/wiki/Grandpa_Smurf
voisin 2y ago
Anyone else have a problem where input on iOS is incredibly slow and keys are missed? Disabled content blockers and tried in privacy too and it was nearly unusable.
ibejoeb 2y ago
Love it. I played about a dozen. Good construction. Daily crossword solver and immediately took to it. I sent it around to 4 others and they're all into it. >scoring based on keystrokes is pretty unfair, especially given not-ideal custom keyboard on mobile! Still thinking through the best solution there. Maybe just the enter key or a button on mobile to confirm. I think counting the letters is fair because we still have to think of the potential entries, and there's some strategy to that. (Like [___ in comparison] has several idiomatic answers, but you have to look at the context to determine it.) You should plug your spot. Or send me an email. I'm always on the road and I'd like to stop by.
catpennies 2y ago
this is really fun. we have a group chat where we do a bunch of daily games (nyt, trainwreck labs, cinematrix) and this one fits in perfectly.
AnIrishDuck 2y ago
Hey! This is a lot of fun, thank you for putting it out into the world! My wife is a public librarian that creates puzzles for a Summer Game that her library runs. She'd like to re-use this idea with book titles for their 2026 Games (too late for this year unfortunately). How would you like to be credited if she's able to pull this off?
xamount 2y ago
Today, I somehow ended up with 96 keystrokes vs. the ideal of 95. Not sure when that happened, but I assume it was a mistake that I deleted? Does backspace not count as a stroke maybe? Otherwise, how is it possible to be one keystroke off?
jikahn 2y ago
[dead]
hiichbindermax 2y ago
I love this kind of puzzle! How long does it take you to make one?

109 points by brgross 2y ago

laomai 2y ago

Clever idea. I like it. Maybe visualization of the brackets could be improved a bit. The overriding problem for me was the nonstandard keyboard. Would love to be able to use my device keyboard

rbergs 2y ago

Love this and play daily! Needs to have a submit button for better tracking your guesses and grading you each day.

dhberger 2y ago

Love this game, I’m addicted. It’s the new Wordle

tsunego 2y ago

cool idea, especially the newsletter so i don't need to visit the website every day

showerst 2y ago

Fun concept, but there are some really generation specific references here. Smurfs, Brady Bunch, Payphones...

brgross 2y ago
fair! I do think today's puzzle betrays my elder millennial status more than most...
- mckn1ght 2y ago
  As someone that does lots of crosswords, this doesn’t seem at all out of the ordinary. I guess the difference is that in a regular crossword, these cultural unknowns can be worked around if you can get the crosswords, but that’s no guarantee either.
ibejoeb 2y ago
There's kind of a crossword language, especially if you do NYT where there are regular callbacks. Some of them are pretty weak, actually, but they're shibboleths of sort to regular solvers. We complain about weak fill, but they're like clues in themselves.

m_ppp 2y ago

Was really fun, quite enjoyed it, did think some of the references were a bit too nuanced for me

dnel 2y ago

I could really get into a UK version of this. As it is I'm at a handicap with most of these clues. Great puzzle though!

johnfn 2y ago

This is very cool. My only complaint is I should be able to go up a level. e.g. I saw "unwelcome in a China shop" and instantly knew it was "bull" but still had to work through a few more clues before I got there.

brgross 2y ago
have gone back and forth on this point -- so far I've decided that outer brackets should be a hint that guides on you inner brackets, but that you can't skip any clues but I hear you!
- e28eta 2y ago
  Same frustration, exacerbated by the mobile keyboard. I played on an iPad with large attached keyboard, but had to hunt & peck at the on screen buttons.
- mckn1ght 2y ago
  I used the context as part of the clue in that way. I like it that way and don’t think it should change.
- binary132 2y ago
  It would mean that if you can sort it out on your own you can reduce the minimum number of keystrokes by a lot
- xg15 2y ago
  Same here with the smurfs. I get the idea, but it becomes a bit awkward sometimes when the only reason you can't skip a clue is that the script won't let you. I think it might be because this format puts the words into a strict hierarchy of clues, meta-clues, etc, while in a traditional crossword puzzle, the words form more sort of a network, where you can choose the order by yourself. I wonder if you could restore that property somewhat by arranging the clues into a graph structure instead of a hierarchy. E.g.: (slightly nonsensical example) [#1: Famous software company] Inc announced a revolutionary new implementation of binary search [#2: The #1 does not fall far from the ___]s today, as well as an improved type of cryptographic [#3: algorithm that needs a [#4: origin of #2, purpose of #1], 3 words]. The ideas are said to have originated from a recently discovered high school notebook of [#5: Co-founder of #1, 2 words] himself.

1-more 2y ago

Delightful! Longtime NYT crossword solver here (when I'm in the mood).

1-more 2y ago
What I REALLY like is that I got a 0 today and got 100 on the 16th. Variation like that is so solid; after a while doing the NYT you see how much answers (less so clues) repeat and it gets a bit repetitive.

flick 2y ago

Hey! I was at the last puzzle night (lot's of fun) and everyone at my table loved the game when you came around and showed us the website. I've been playing it a few times a week since! Congrats!

brgross 2y ago
Amazing convergence! Thank you for playing!

joseda-hg 2y ago

Cool game, some references made it a bit hard for me like the Brady Bunch one or the cost to call someone who cares, but I don't know to what extent there's a culture barrier vs a generational one

wbobeirne 2y ago
I think the format here is pretty brilliant, because you can look at what's outside of the brackets to try to fill in a reasonable answer. The Brady Bunch one was followed by ]orian, which made for a useful hint.
- devilbunny 2y ago
  But there are few of those that are so cleanly nested. I know where it’s going, but the requirement to solve every individual step slows you down. Of course, I’ve been a steady cruciverbalist for 35+ years, so learning a new puzzle style will always take a while. Do agree that until OP settles into a smoother rhythm, adding the length of the solvable answers would help.
tgv 2y ago
For me too. It's both cultural and generational, I guess. It's pretty hard to find references that are widely understood. One usually writes from one's own frame of reference; knowing what others know isn't easy. Just like I don't know the names of Saturday Night Live hosts (something that slowed me down in an NYT puzzle recently), a puzzle maker in New York has a hard time imagining the things I do know about (in this case) US culture. Across ages might be a bit easier, because there's more material at hand in your own language, but I do notice a considerable distance between me and my daughter in all kinds of knowledge. E.g., I haven't keep up with pop since ages. But it's a nice, and nerdy, game format.

_diyar 2y ago

Tons of fun

angry_moose 2y ago

Pretty fun overall. I really think it at least needs to give you the number of letters though. Some of the clues get really tough since you don't get any information - either number of letters or a few "given" letters from other clues like you get in crosswords. Especially if you get "penalized" for keystrokes - there are some clues that end up as a lot of random guessing because so many things can solve them. A good example - on Feb 19; I was guessing "New York" and "New York City" over and over because I was pretty convinced that's what it was. When I finally had to reveal it, finding out it wanted "NYC" was pretty frustrating.

tuukkah 2y ago
Perhaps the number of letters should be another hint in addition to the first letter. However, I think it's quite obvious that the answer is a TLA when the clue is in the TLA format.

jasonpeacock 2y ago

An annoyance is not accepting "close enough" answers, I was working an older puzzle from a few days ago and the answer was `pulls` and I was trying `pull`. I tried a few other things, clicked for the clue (first letter was `P`), tried `pull` again (does that count against my characters when I repeat failed answers?), tried `pulled`, then finally got `pulls`. Echoing angry_moose's suggestion, a hint about the # of letters (on mouseover?) would help a lot. Or maybe that would make it too easy?

tarentel 2y ago
At least in this case, by crossword conventions, the answer has to match the tense of the clue. At least all the ones I did followed this convention including the one you're talking about. I did not see the one angry_moose is talking about but in a normal crossword, even without seeing the number of letters, if the clue was like, "Most populous city in the US" -> NYC vs "Most populous city in the United States" -> New York City. Again, not sure if that was the case here since I didn't see it. (edit: I went and saw it, the clue had MSG vs Madison Square Garden hence, NYC, not New York City) Cool puzzle though.

carlos-menezes 2y ago

This is a really fun game. Well done.

tsieling 2y ago

Really fun and a fresh format. Well done!

annjose 2y ago

This was super fun! The bracket format is brilliant. It's like going on a treasure hunt, you solve one clue and the next one reveals itself. Well done!

binary132 2y ago

This is very nice but it would be lovely if I could just skip to the higher level solutions once I figure them out instead of having to go through the whole tree of solutions

palsecam 2y ago

That’s a fun variation of crosswords! I like it. Btw, a self-plug, for the polyglots out-there: https://paul.fragara.com/cw.html https://paul.fragara.com/cw.html Poly-alphabets crosswords, mixing Latin and Cyrillic letters!

Chinjut 2y ago

I'm enjoying this a lot! Thanks for making it!

SoftMachine 2y ago

Nice job creating this interesting game. Whatever changes, have a classic mode to keep it as is!

joemi 2y ago

I think it'd be interesting to see this implemented more like a crossword, with everything on a grid (though a 1D grid in this case). Then you could see how many letters you're looking for (which helps avoid some ambiguities that I see mentioned here in the comments), and the clues could be moved out of the solving area. The wrapping of the areas that I was trying to solve really threw me, especially when the final result was so much shorter.

prideout 2y ago

Neat! I've been getting into crossword puzzles recently, does anyone know of nice places to play them, other than newspaper sites?

prideout 2y ago
nm, found a nice open source one: https://github.com/downforacross/downforacross.com https://github.com/downforacross/downforacross.com
- 1-more 2y ago
  This is an amazing site. My team at work used to do a Sunday together every Friday afternoon. It was a nice remote game to play.
devilbunny 2y ago
Brendan Emmett Quigley (just search his name, you will go right to it) publishes puzzles for free on his website, in addition to the ones he sells to NYT, WSJ, and others. You can get PDF's, solve on the site, or download in the Across Lite format.

FujiApple 2y ago

Great concept. I was on mobile and agree the custom keyboard is far from ideal. As others have said I also found it to be overly US-centric. Keen to see how this develops, feels like a winning idea!

sunnyba 2y ago

Really creative game! Great work. Echoing the suggestions in the other comments to provide some clue on the number of letters.

dewert 2y ago

Love it! I'd appreciate a copy text button rather than the current share behaviour. I'll also weigh in and say that solving sub-clues when you can see the higher-level answer is a good feature, and makes the game more crossword like. I wouldn't allow skipping that

fsckboy 2y ago

papa smurf is not the eldest smurf Grandpa Smurf (original French name Vieux Vieux Schtroumpf) https://smurfs.fandom.com/wiki/Grandpa_Smurf https://smurfs.fandom.com/wiki/Grandpa_Smurf

voisin 2y ago

Anyone else have a problem where input on iOS is incredibly slow and keys are missed? Disabled content blockers and tried in privacy too and it was nearly unusable.

ibejoeb 2y ago

Love it. I played about a dozen. Good construction. Daily crossword solver and immediately took to it. I sent it around to 4 others and they're all into it. >scoring based on keystrokes is pretty unfair, especially given not-ideal custom keyboard on mobile! Still thinking through the best solution there. Maybe just the enter key or a button on mobile to confirm. I think counting the letters is fair because we still have to think of the potential entries, and there's some strategy to that. (Like [___ in comparison] has several idiomatic answers, but you have to look at the context to determine it.) You should plug your spot. Or send me an email. I'm always on the road and I'd like to stop by.

catpennies 2y ago

this is really fun. we have a group chat where we do a bunch of daily games (nyt, trainwreck labs, cinematrix) and this one fits in perfectly.

AnIrishDuck 2y ago

Hey! This is a lot of fun, thank you for putting it out into the world! My wife is a public librarian that creates puzzles for a Summer Game that her library runs. She'd like to re-use this idea with book titles for their 2026 Games (too late for this year unfortunately). How would you like to be credited if she's able to pull this off?

xamount 2y ago

Today, I somehow ended up with 96 keystrokes vs. the ideal of 95. Not sure when that happened, but I assume it was a mistake that I deleted? Does backspace not count as a stroke maybe? Otherwise, how is it possible to be one keystroke off?

jikahn 2y ago

[dead]

hiichbindermax 2y ago

I love this kind of puzzle! How long does it take you to make one?