Show HN: Five Letters – word puzzle game

https://www.fiveletters.xyz/

by sigvef • 5 years ago

31 25 5 years ago

sigvef4• 5 years ago

I came across https://bert.org/2021/11/24/the-best-starting-word-in-wordle... on HN the other day, and decided to do my own take on the concept as a little weekend project.

sigvef4• 5 years ago

Technology-wise, I wanted to try out two things that I hadn't tried before for this project.

One was to use Expo to release on web and mobile at the same time. I've used React Native quite a bit in a professional capacity, so I wanted to check out the Expo landscape. I discovered that the web part (react native web) didn't quite deliver on what I was looking for, so I scrapped it and ported to Vite/react-ts and dropped native completely.

The other was to see if I could find a low-friction way of setting up subscriptions for a static web frontend with no first party backend. That is the reason why there is a premium subscription tier for a small weekend game like this. Turns out that this was pretty straight forward with Gumroad! In the end, I was pretty happy with the way the flow turned out (except that Apple Pay isn't supported without stepping out of the flow and heading to Gumroad directly).

kwertyoowiyop2• 5 years ago

Does it work on an iPad? I can’t figure it out.

sizzzzlerz• 5 years ago

I just finished playing it on my ipad. Worked flawlessly.

kwertyoowiyop2• 5 years ago

It does actually work flawlessly. Turns out I didn’t understand the rules.

dankwizard• 5 years ago

Everything is a subscription these days.

greenpizza13• 5 years ago

3$ a month for a word game. It's a sad thing. We've really lost our way with the subscriptions.

tlholaday• 5 years ago

$3 is twelve plays at a 25¢ arcade game.

Joker_vD• 5 years ago

Yeah, buying a newspaper with a crossword on the last page is (well, used to) be way cheaper. But think of ecology! Ditching printing the news on paper in exchange for spending more electricity on charging your phones probably helped it. Maybe. Did it?

jtokoph• 5 years ago

I actually really enjoyed this. I don’t want to subscribe but I would pay up to $5 for an iOS version

beepy• 5 years ago

I have an iOS game based on the same root game but with a different spin — let me know if you'd be willing to be a beta tester.

indigodaddy• 5 years ago

I’d love to try it!

aldonius• 5 years ago

Very nice!

One hour later...

stratosgear• 5 years ago

Who copied who here? https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

huhtenberg• 5 years ago

Based on the polish of Wordle alone, clearly the OP did.

d--b2• 5 years ago

These are both copies of TV game called “lingo” which apparently first aired in 1987. All I know is that it was quite popular in France where it was called “Motus”

nickcw• 5 years ago

Fun!

Apparently doesn't have the word "topsy" in its dictionary though. Perhaps this isn't a US English word. It's not in SOWPODS but is in the app I use for help with cryptic crosswords.

What dictionary does it use?

sigvef4• 5 years ago

It uses the scrabble dictionary (SOWPODS, as you mention) -- if it is a playable five-letter word in scrabble, then it is playable here.

I_complete_me• 5 years ago

I got to _love and tried clove and glove. Neither were the answer. Anyone?

tiepoul• 5 years ago

A fun game, but it is not definitely worth the subscription. You can find other alternatives that have a greater value but at the same time are enjoyable and free.

ganessh• 5 years ago

It was fun until I found the answers in the IndexedDB, https://imgur.com/a/N7QyZUW

sigvef4• 5 years ago

That's for the stats feature that shows you e.g. your most guessed word, etc. It's all calculatated client-side. In fact, there is no backend at all!

d--b2• 5 years ago

The only way to monetize this is to make it an ios/android app, and have ads in it or sell it for $.99

powerlanguage• 5 years ago

Wordle creator here. Nice work!

Love the touch of showing word definitions after each guess. This is something I wanted to do but ultimately avoided in favor of keeping it all client side.

Interesting to hear about your subscription exploration too. Will keep that in mind if I ever decide to try and monetize.

l8nite• 5 years ago

Loving your game! Thanks for making it :)

Show HN: Five Letters – word puzzle game

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