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Show HN: Three Magic Words (threemagicwords.app)

204 points by beepy ↗ HN
Here’s a free, fun, novel five-letter word game for the web! It’s a game I originally wrote for the iPhone in 2010, but wasn’t able to finish before my first child was born. When I left my senior web developer job in September 2021 I figured I would postpone looking for work and finish the game before another 11 years passed, and expose myself to new skills doing it (in this case, Swift). I released it on the App Store in December, then turned my attention to doing a web version — when suddenly Wordle was in The NY Times, and then everywhere.

Perhaps foolishly, I plowed ahead and here we are. Like Wordle and some other NY Times word games, there is a single daily puzzle, but like traditional crossword puzzles, it gets harder throughout the week.

142 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 177 ms ] thread
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evanb
I finished about 20 seconds slower than I would have if the animation hadn't lagged as much.
oceliker
I think that's part of the game:

> Repeated bad guesses incur a time penalty.

evanb
I made guesses and paid for them in the last round. But my 2nd and 3rd rounds were just

slowly

animated

funwares
Works absolutely flawlessly on mobile for me (Android Firefox).

The animations are very satisfying and the game is very fun.

Fantastic work!

edit: This is on OxygenOS 11.1.2.2 and FireFox 96.3.1

albert_e
on my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note10+, Chrome) ... the layout is broken ... the "keyboard" / available tiles at the bottom are off screen and invisible / inaccessible
geoduck14
Doesn't work on android
beepy
Urk - what browser/version please?
efaref
On Chrome on Android (whatever is latest on the Play store) in portrait mode, the bottom letters are off the bottom of the screen. If I rotate everything is small but I can see it.
beepy
Thank you, that's super helpful.
kermi
It worked on my Android device when I rotated the screen to landscape mode, though not with optimal UI anymore. The bottom character row is invisible in portrait mode on my device. Great fun though!
beepy
Thanks - I did struggle with getting the game to size properly under different conditions. I sorely lack deep knowledge of the matrix of Android browsers/OS version quirks.
arbol
In brave browser on Android I can't see any blue tiles to drag up / keyboard doesn't open. Not sure what the functionality is meant to be.
arbol
Looks good though
beepy
OK I think I've fixed this. Please take another look if you can.
geoduck14
It works. And it is kind of fun!
alecst
Cool, fun, inventive, challenging. Might enjoy it even more than Wordle.

It took a second for it to load on my mac -- I thought maybe it was busted. Maybe page load speed is something to look into.

sprak
Nice game. I liked the feel of moving the tiles. There is a slight problem when I first enter a new puzzle. The movable tiles are below the screen! [0] (On Android, standard Chrome browser). It fixes itself if I rotate to landscape and then back to portrait.

So far I like the word list you've used. But I've only tried the easier days :p.

[0]: https://ibb.co/7NvPTnM

sprak
...and in Firefox on the same Android device everything works fine.
jker
Fun game and snappy, delightful animation! Thanks for sharing this.
gamerDude
Mine loads, but the keyboard never appears to guess letters. I have no idea if there is a bug or if I am doing it wrong.

Mobile chrome on Google pixel 3.

shubhamkrm
Same here. No keyboard in portrait mode. When I change to landscape mode, I can see the first row of letters to guess, but that's it.

If it helps, I'm using Chrome on OnePlus Nord.

beepy
I think I've fixed this (hopefully without breaking something else). Give it another look if you can and let me know.
msoad
I really like the execution on this. One piece of feedback is that the timer gave me anxiety and I closed it. I do puzzles to phase out from stress not to challenge myself in a time bound environment
beepy
I hear you. I personally found the game less interesting before I added the "threat" of losing stars — it felt to me more like trial-and-error work. However, I think there is value in embracing its more meditative side and offering untimed (and I supposed, star-less) play as well.
cush
The stars could stay if the timer is removed. You’d just lose them only if you get a red guess on them
woodgrainz
The casual nature of Wordle is one of its biggest strengths. Don't underestimate the allure of the zen/meditative angle of the game. It's something to look forward to everyday because of it.
criddell
Definitely get rid of the timer or make it something you can turn on. As soon as you have a clock ticking, it adds an element of stress to it. Part of the charm of games like Wordle is that it’s all about delight. Casual is good. Get rid of the threat.

If you really want something to formulate a score, count the number of guesses.

jamincan
I think you could keep the timed aspect, but the current format of the game makes it too prominent for those of us who are primarily interested in reducing the guesses. The first thing I'd do is get rid of the sad faces for missed stars at the end. As silly as it sounds, it feels like being penalized for approaching the game more methodically.

If you just show the number of stars the player got at the end without emphasizing what they missed, those who are playing for speed are rewarded with more stars, those who are playing for low guesses are rewarded for a low number.

bonestamp2
A "Competitive" mode and a "Zen" mode.
iainmerrick
I agree... I think there are actually a couple of niggles that work together:

- there's a timer

- solutions are not always unique

Often in Wordle, you'll have three or four green letters, which leaves several possible answers, and you just have to guess which one is correct. Some days you'll be lucky, some days you won't! But it feels OK because you're not working against a clock; so you have time to mull over the possibilities and decide which one feels better.

In Three Magic words, because you're racing against the clock, once you see a solution you immediately want to put it in. But sometimes it gets rejected! For example, on Tuesday's puzzle:

Gur pbeerpg fbyhgvba jnf CRRYF naq OHYXL, ohg V gevrq CRRXF naq OHYYL juvpu V guvax jbhyq nyfb unir orra inyvq.

Somehow that feels more unfair than the Wordle case. I wonder if it might be better just to accept any valid solution that uses known common words?

beepy
There are a few reasons I didn't pursue that — one of them that comes to mind because of having to deal with repeats - for example, let's say in round 1 you have TRIAL and in round 2 you have TRAIL. You see TR---, guess TRAIL in round one and the game marks it correct. In round 2, you see TR--- and guess TRAIL again.

I think that solution lock you experience - it's a little uncomfortable, but once you learn to wriggle your way out of it, you get that "aha" feeling I'm going for.

mattmcknight
I actually think it would be much more fun if it could accept multiple solutions. You could even have 5 words and a letter bank. That part of it, quickly finding ways to use the letters, is fun. The speed bonus would make a lot more sense then.

> I think that solution lock you experience - it's a little uncomfortable, but once you learn to wriggle your way out of it, you get that "aha" feeling I'm going for.

This is the part that gives me the "ugh" experience.

cush
Completely agree. You could simply remove the timer and it would instantly be a better game. People can compare scores by number of guesses
m12k
The timer also really doesn't mesh well with the slow "letters falling down" animation between rounds. The UI is sending very mixed signals with "how quickly can you do this?" and "hold on, gotta wait here for a bit" at the same time.
jointpdf
I like the time pressure aspect, but I agree the animations should be snappier. Different TOKES for different FOLKS, I GUESS.

I’d also enjoy some form of global leaderboard of some sort (maybe a scatterplot comparing time and accuracy?), so I can assess how inferior/superior I am to others.

lbriner
Yeah, if you want the dropping animation and you can't start typing before then, then don't start the timer before the animation finishes.

There is also the age-old argument about British-English vs American English e.g. Armor is not spelled that way in British English so it takes a lot more effort to work these out.

Pretty slick though.

rkangel
Nice design. I like the stars as an extra feeling of success and pressure beyond just getting the word right.
anentropic
Bug: if you click the next letter while the 'victory' animation for the previous letter is still playing, it replaces the previous correct letter with the new one you clicked, instead of putting the second letter in the next empty space

Too much animation overall

beepy
I think I follow, thank you. Perhaps a reduced animation option (or respecting prefers-reduced-motion setting) would help.
airstrike
While we're on the topic, I found the animations in between puzzles too distracting, particularly given there's a timer. If you're timing me, the puzzle better let me play as fast I can!
anentropic
I think, once you've put a letter in place, clicking another letter should either be blocked until animations are finished or should go ahead and fill the next available place
phillc73
I liked the game and have never played Wordle, so can't really compare. However, I was stuck on one specific set of words for a long time due to spelling issues. The word I couldn't grok was "armor", whereas my brain would by default only recognise "armour". It'd be a nice small enhancement to state clearly what dictionary was being used for the spellings.
beepy
Yes, that should be explicitly stated. Thank you!
mathrall
I hope we can play this game with our friends
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iainmerrick
Very nice! It's a fun game, and looks really nicely implemented.

Congratulations especially on finding the energy to push through and finish this. It must have been a bit disheartening to see Wordle's massive success, and it could have been an easy excuse not to bother finishing your own game (or at least to radically re-think and simplify it into yet another me-too Wordle clone).

beepy
Thanks! I was mostly worried that Wordle's initial press tended to give the impression that Wardle had invented the game (and I grumbled about that here and elsewhere) — so I feared I would be accused of copying his work.
moolcool
This is cool, but there's a bug when there's multiple possible correct solutions https://i.imgur.com/S56AWWj.png
beepy
Not a bug! There are three specific words it’s looking for. I will find a way to make that more explicit.
moolcool
Do you think there'd be a way to generate the puzzles that make a case like this is impossible? Like with this puzzle it's a 50/50 gamble whether you get it all in one guess or not
oceliker
Is this a bug or am I missing something here? Looks like I'm out of vowels...

https://imgur.com/a/D57IgjE

atuladhar
I have a possible solution but I can't figure out how to post it here without spoiling it immediately. If you tell me it's OK, or if somebody tells me how to post text with a black background (so you have to select the text to see it), I'll post it.
airstrike
Paste it to, I don't know, https://dpaste.org
atuladhar
Using dpaste is a great idea! But I just realized that I was reading the clues wrong -- I thought the gray tiles were the user's attempts, not clues that the game gave you as already correct. It does indeed look like a bug or it's using a very obscure word. Sorry!
SamBam
Seems like a bug to me. The first word of the last puzzle starts with the C, not the V.
beepy
Yeah that's a bug - should be impossible. Thank you for posting, kinda important that that doesn't happen. I will check it out.
oceliker
Wish I could tell you exactly what I was doing at the time, but I don't remember :( I only remember I was entering guesses as fast as possible even while the slow return animations were going on, maybe it has something to do with that.
tluyben2
The Play button doesn't work for me under Safari 15.2 on OS X.
neogodless
Playing on latest Firefox, Windows 10. Was doing the easiest one, and at 1:14 in the fifth round after I typed in the letters for the third row, it just froze up. Didn't say I won or ran out of time. Not sure if that's how it ends or it bugged out.

I personally prefer games without time pressure, and I kept trying to type the whole word, not just the missing letters. But it's still a neat idea and an overall great execution.

armoredkitten
Definitely doesn't end like that -- when I finished, it gave sort of a summary screen with the performance for each round (kind of similar-ish to Wordle's summary screen). So sounds like it bugged out for you.
lucretian
i appreciate the challenge this offers compared to wordle.

NYT's spelling bee has a feature that i think you should consider implementing: a button and/or key press (e.g. space) that shuffles the remaining, unused letters.

beepy
I like that, thanks!
NKosmatos
Nice execution, a variation of Wordle but different enough so as to not be taken as a clone :-) Quick feedback, why does the round timer inside the yellow star starts decreasing while the letters are still falling/appearing? Shouldn't it start the countdown once all letters and the palying field is ready?
beepy
Thanks! Really, that star shouldn't appear so quickly. It currently appears as soon as the new round comes into existence. You get about 40 seconds to get the star from the end of the last round, so I could certainly cheat and have the countdown circle start at around 38 seconds so it wouldn't seem unfair.
nkrisc
I had only two letters left, K and L. Words: BUL_Y and PEE_S. Each letter works fine in either spot, but only one way was correct. That kind of annoyed me because I guessed wrong the first time.
tonmoy
I don’t think there can be any easy way around issues like that in games like these. At least this game doesn’t penalize you for it
fsckboy
never generate a puzzle with two solutions, or accept both solutions.

in this case that puzzle had more solutions because it rejected keeps and bully as well

cookie_monsta
> never generate a puzzle with two solutions, or accept both solutions.

I think there's a very popular game making the rounds at the moment that flies in the face of this "wisdom"

nkrisc
Well I did lose some time trying to figure out why two seemingly valid words didn’t work, only after a bit did I realize swapping the letters also worked and was the “correct” solution.
andymcsherry
Had a similar issue, tried to use VIXEN and DIMES, but VINES and MIXED was the "correct" answer.
huhtenberg
I really don't like that it's timed.
definitelyhuman
Well executed unique approach, great job! I’ve worked in games my whole life, and that’s hard to do!

Like others, I personally don’t like the time pressure and have really enjoyed the async one a day whenever format of wordle. It largely depends on your target audience and objectives for whether it’s right for this game. Separate zen/challenge modes would help players self select, but also muddies the onboarding. Great job though, fun game!

beepy
Thanks! Not sure what to do with it, to be honest.

I had trouble finding the game satisfying without some goal beyond just solving it. However, speed is not required unless you care — you can win without collecting the stars. Perhaps it would be enough to have a well-worded checkbox on the play page ("Chill mode," "don't pressure me", "I'll take my time", something).

tuukkah
Currently the game would seem to be balanced towards quickly "brute-forcing" the words one by one. E.g. I've now finished two Wednesdays under four minutes and average four stars while the game says "5½ minutes (with practice)", and English is a second language to me:

> Three Magic Words Wednesday/Week 5: ***** in 03:43/21 guesses