Show HN: One More Letter

(playonemoreletter.com)

51 points | by hmate9 3 hours ago

18 comments

  • coldcache 9 minutes ago
    I really enjoyed this! I do agree with the other comments that a larger vocabulary would be nice. The way some games handle this is by giving bonus points for words that are unintended by the author but are perceived as valid. Or maybe giving extra time? IMO, keep the vocab a bit limited, though (maybe top 30k words or similar).
  • wrs 3 hours ago
    It seems to disallow valid words made with the same letters, which doesn't feel fair. (I don't want to spoil an answer, but -- especially when the word it insists on is arguably French!)
    • rokob 31 minutes ago
      None of those are French words. How many letters is the word you say is French?
    • jimbob45 2 hours ago
      Felt the same way. Failed the last three like that with legitimate words.
  • propter_hoc 1 hour ago
    I tried "KITERS" and "TRIKES" at the 5 letter level, but the app specifically wanted "STRIKE." It kinda demoralized me to have come up with two answers and not be able to proceed, I realized that it wasn't worth trying to guess before the clue came up so I quit out.
    • ryhanshannon 1 hour ago
      Same thing here happened with 'irks' and 'risk'
    • shshsjsj 1 hour ago
      wtf is kiters?
      • luipugs 1 hour ago
        kiters = kiteboarders. Welcome to Australia, the country where the words are made up and meanings don't matter.
      • what 1 hour ago
        People flying kites?
  • ethanpil 3 hours ago
    I opened the tab in the background and when i got around to it later somehow i lost the game.... i think you need an official "start" button to prevent this.
    • paularmstrong 2 hours ago
      Also some instructions. I had no idea what I was supposed to do at first.
    • BrenBarn 2 hours ago
      Yeah this happened to me too. A timer with auto-start is a bad combination.
  • scubbo 40 minutes ago
    I guess I'll check back later and try to remember that I can't have the tab open in the background? :)

    EDIT: OK, I found the previous puzzles link. Cute! Though I got a bug on the second one - (ROT13 for spoilers) apparently the answer was "tenavgr" but I put in "grnevat" and it still accepted it (but other prompts had not accepted alternate-but-valid words)

  • thrtythreeforty 3 hours ago
    It reminds me of Wordflower. I like this! With one caveat:

    The word games that have been posted in the last few days feature a timer component, and it's game over when you miss the timer. I think they'd be more rewarding if it weren't sudden death. Instead it should just let you play through and give you a score out of 5. Especially if it is going to pick obscure words (as another commenter says - arguably one word isn't English and that feels like a bad reason to "lose").

    • thrtythreeforty 2 hours ago
      More feedback:

      - I was intently staring at letters and didn't notice you get a definition as a hint! Maybe the hint UI needs a tweak.

      - it needs to allow permutations that are also words, or at least provide an additional reward for finding those (maybe an extra half point).

      - there should be a "clear" button next to shuffle.

      - there should be a "pause" button which hides everything and stops the timer. My waitress came by as I was playing and I lost.

  • baking 32 minutes ago
    All I get is this: "Today's run is over."
  • fabioricardo7 3 hours ago
    This is great! I've been looking for an alternative to this for a while: https://g1.globo.com/jogos/dito/ This is definitely the kind of game I'd play on a flight.
  • jadenzaleski 53 minutes ago
    Unlike everyone else here, I enjoyed this. A good hit for the day, see you tmrw
  • RickS 3 hours ago
    Really rewarding keyboard UX on this. Typing felt great. I couldn't figure out how to shuffle or give up via the keyboard. Shuffle with escape would make sense.
    • jihadjihad 3 hours ago
      I’d vote shuffle with space bar.
  • gfat 2 hours ago
    The staggered entry animation of the letters on page load is lovely. The typing also felt rewarding.

    Bit of feedback, should the timer pause when reading the how to play or opening settings?

  • rubinlinux 3 hours ago
    Reminds me a little of contact (https://www.ludozofi.com/home/games/contact/)
  • waylandsmithers 1 hour ago
    Hey this is a great game. Nice work
  • museshare 48 minutes ago
    This is a spiritual descendant of Wordle, cool idea!
  • jagged-chisel 1 hour ago
    "Today's run is over"

    I hate games of this kind. "You failed. Try again tomorrow." I won't be back. It wasn't enough fun to remember. And I'm not likely to upvote because of these reasons (so it won't appear in my 'upvoted submissions')

    • ventana 43 minutes ago
      My reaction too, but then I found the button to try the previous days, and it was enough for me to figure out the game :)
    • joshuat 1 hour ago
      Coupled with the immediate timer start, no instructions. Meh.
    • shshsjsj 1 hour ago
      [flagged]
  • BrenBarn 2 hours ago
    Fun! As others mentioned, it's unclear why certain words are rejected. Without clues, there's no reason the player would know which of several anagrams is the "right" one. Seems like it'd be better to accept any valid word, or perhaps have some kind of bonus for finding all of them.
  • _dragonguy 51 minutes ago
    Very fun!!
  • badc0ffee 52 minutes ago
    MARC? MARCEL? Come on