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Show HN: A 45x45 Connections Puzzle To Commemorate 2025=45*45
It's a a long puzzle, somewhat akin to a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Solving it collectively with others is encouraged.
If you are the sort that likes rules, the rules are you can use Google or whatever external sources you like for help. View page source, however, is cheating.
Hat tip to Octagon and the TND crew for help in play testing and proposing categories.
- baubino 9mo agoI clicked straight through without reading your directions and I liked figuring out the puzzle of the puzzle. I really appreciate a long puzzle. This is great! edit: Now I see that the bigger challenge is finding the small collections again after I’ve grouped a few together.
- eastoeast 9mo agoThis is a lot of fun! Works decently well on mobile too. One suggestion (although, take it with a grain of salt)- I didn’t notice the deselect since header disappears on zoom. Might be better that way, but might be useful sticked top. Nice work!
- russdill 9mo agoGeez, last time the year was a square was 1936. And it won't be again until 2116.
- madsushi 9mo agoThanks for sharing. Although 'Boromir' and 'One does not simply' should absolutely be a match!
- Uvix 9mo agoInteresting idea. One note: sometimes after I connect two items it'll reselect the combined item, sometimes it won't. I'd prefer if it never did, but at least if it was consistent I could get used to having to click "Deselect" each time... EDIT: Also, would be helpful if the items where I've created a category were somehow grouped (column on the left?) so when I find a third item, it's easier to find the ones I'd already joined.
- jweather 9mo agoI think the click logic may be a little twitchy. My trackball button worked okay, but my footpedal button frequently did what you describe here - possibly due to a longer-duration button press? And yes, that would be helpful, but would remove part of the memory challenge. Maybe an optional feature?
- scubbo 9mo agoThis is magnificent <3
- nhhvhy 9mo ago5 hours into “just checking it out”.. very nice puzzle.
- huydotnet 9mo agovery nice! would be nicer if it can be playable on mobile, i know where i'm gonna spend my time waiting for my wife at the mall now.
- vessenes 9mo agoThomas, I love this! I vibe coded a bunch of quality of life improvements to this and put it up here: https://vessenes.github.io/2025is45x45/ https://vessenes.github.io/2025is45x45/ . Note - you didn't license your original page; I've released my modifications under CC0 and linked back to you -- if you hate it, I'll take it down. I just thought it was fun but I wanted something that was a little easier to engage with. Quick summary of features - some font and ui design, "S" to shuffle, "R" to reset, "/" to search, Esc works throughout, pinned boxes so you can scroll and search.. that's the main stuff.
- 0xsn3k 9mo agofyi, it appears that if you search for a category name like "sports" or "instrument" it will just show you every item for that category lol
- vessenes 9mo agointeresting. the javascript had a category name - I'm guessing my vibe employee added in category search as a feature.
- thomaswc 9mo agoThis is great! I totally authorize anyone to copy the puzzle, as long as they link back to the original, as you did.
- sam_bristow 9mo ago2025 had a bunch of bits of fun mathematical trivia: 45² = 45 x 45 = 2025 Also, 9² x 5² = 2025 40² + 20² + 5² = 2025 My favourite? 1³+2³+3³+4³+5³+6³+7³+8³+9³ = 2025
- thomaswc 9mo agoHa! I really should have known that last one, given that I once wrote a paper about the sum of cubes. https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/1378446.1378486 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/1378446.1378486
- v9v 9mo agoThe connections are too easy to the point where the main challenge for me was to remember/locate where I had stored the nodes of that category. I think the fun in a connection puzzle comes from trying to figure out what the link is that connects different nodes, and resolving any red herrings by deduction (which is what makes OnlyConnect's connection wall great and NYT's knockoff mediocre). In this one I can spot the intended category for each node without even looking at the others.
- scubbo 9mo agoHave you actually completed it? There are plenty where the category is obvious, sure - but also many ambiguous entries. It's not trivial to fully complete if you're aiming to keep errors low! E.g. in ROT13: Cuvynqrycuvn pbhyq unir orra n zrzore bs "H.F. Pvgvrf", "Purrfrf", be "Gbz Unaxf zbivrf"
- eichin 9mo agoThat aspect makes it kind of a massively parallel "startup name or fantasy sword" challenge, once you get past the obvious ones (whether that helps or hinders I wouldn't claim either way, but it rhymes?)
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 9mo agoThe connections are too hard. I'm at 1761 and 1144 mistakes and I'm guessing, I have no idea what most of these things are
- knuckleheads 9mo agoWonderful game! Really, really well made, lots of fun. Might I ask, who are the Octagon and TND crew? I've seen a lot of these puzzles but nobody has ever just made a bigger connections before, brilliant!
- thomaswc 9mo agoTND stands for Thursday Night Dinner, a Boston area potluck group that has been around since 1995. Octagon is a friend who did a lot of the playtesting and also contributed the fabric and flowers categories.
- knuckleheads 9mo agoThat's so awesome. Working on my own take on this now, it's really a great puzzle!
- jweather 9mo agoVery challenging and fun. Score 1695 and mistakes 315 when I gave up and started Googling things. Did not do so well on (rot13)Nzrevpna ICf, pnegbbavfgf, be FAY pnfg zrzoref. Pbzcyrgryl zvffrq gur ncbpelcuny obbxf bs gur Ovoyr nf jryy. Gung jnf zrna!
- cabidaher 9mo agoMy brain overheated just reading the words at first. Great puzzle!
- eichin 9mo agoNice afternoon of puzzling, thanks for sharing it. (The one feature I could have used was either dragging items around - maybe only already-grouped ones - or the ability to pop back to the one that got merged, since I'd noticed something in the neighbors but had to pick only one of them :-) (minor spoiler) Fess up, how many of you tried to figure out if "Google Lips" was ever a thing? :-)
- syockit 9mo agoNow I know that grouping J with APL is a mistake.
- mikewarot 9mo agoMost of a day into it, still haven't googled anything yet... but it's soooo tempting Current score 1670 with 764 mistakes Thanks for such a fun puzzle!
- gus_massa 9mo ago> Make 45 groups of 45! (By combining two at a time.) Score: 1980 Mistakes: 6531 I was even until 1500, but for the last 500 I had to use brute force.
- jweather 9mo agoSo... got any more of these?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 9mo agoIf it's Italian, it's pasta. If they have 3 names or a middle initial and sound old, they're a politician. If they have a suspiciously common name, they're a comedy actor. If they have two names and they're old, they're a writer. If they're young, they're a cartoonist.
- bradfitz 9mo agoWell, this has sucked up a couple days of my free time so far... :)
- conglom72 9mo agoThis is delightful. Having a lot of fun and I'm addicted. Any way to save progress? I'm quite anxious about accidentally closing the tab as I chip away at it a bit each day.
- jweather 9mo agoIt appears to save to browser-local storage. Mine is still there after having the tab closed for at least 24 hours.