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Show HN: My daily word puzzle Jointter revisited

9 points by proy87 ago | 7 comments
Hello.

This is a follow-up to the post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50317548

I've got tons of feedback. Thank you all so much for that!

The main issue was an absence of tutorial. I've added it. Hope it helps.

Since many people have played, I've noticed that many people start the game, but almost no one finishes it. Is the game hard? What is the main obstacle?

Most people, when see opened HA......, try to enter the word that start with HA and give up, forgetting that the first letter can be B as well. It is not necessary to enter specific words. You can submit whatever word you like.

So, I'd like to ask for your advice. How to improve the game, so that more people finish it? Maybe I shouldn't make it a daily game with increasing difficulty throughout the week? The same board hides multiple words. I thought that some sort of a challenge would be a good idea, but don't know how to implement it: https://www.jointter.com/2026-11-02/?w=PUP

The idea of the game is good, but mechanics and gameplay are far from perfect.

As before, constructive criticism is always welcome.

You can test and retest the game at https://www.jointter.com

Thank you very much!

MD87 |next [-]

> How to improve the game, so that more people finish it?

I tried to play today's and failed after 5 attempts. The attempt feedback is borderline incomprehensible to me, even with the tutorial. I understand what it's telling me, but it doesn't actually help me.

I ended up with red lines all over the place, and they moved around whenever I made another guess. I had a solid green letter that was wrong, because it was a subset of the real letter.

I'm not sure if I'm meant to break out graph theory to try and incorporate the feedback, or just blindly stab in the dark. Neither really appeals to me in a daily puzzle game.

proy87 |root |parent [-]

Thank you very much for your feedback. Yes, there are certain drawbacks. What would you suggest?

tlh |next |previous [-]

There’s probably a good game there, but there’s too much cruft on the screen which makes me feel overwhelmed. Ideally, I should be able to just intuit how the game works with as little instruction as possible.

Less is more/simplify would be my advice.

That’s from my own experience building games at Waffle Studio like https://puzzlist.com/stackdown

proy87 |root |parent [-]

I agree, but don't know how to simplify it.

suryanallagonda |next |previous [-]

good interaction while picking up the letters fun while exploring it

enjoyyourlife |next |previous [-]

It's too confusing

proy87 |root |parent [-]

What exactly confuses you?

slayarcade |next |previous [-]

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drrajvanshi |next |previous [-]

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tomshafer |previous [-]

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