HN Explorer

Show HN: Alphabet Soup, a multiplayer game, build the longest word to win (alphabetsoup.club)

37 points by johnchinjew ↗ HN
I've been working on a simple multiplayer word game called Alphabet Soup.

It's a bit like NYT Spelling Bee, except it's multiplayer and only your best (longest) word counts toward your score. So, instead of trying to find as many words as possible, the game is more about finding one unusually good word.

You can play with friends in a private match, or, you can join a public Arena match to play against other players who are online. If no one else is around, you'll be matched with a bot.

The game works well with just 2 players, but, also works with bigger groups since the game isn't turn-based.

Would love to hear any thoughts or questions :)

30 comments

[ 0.31 ms ] story [ 46.8 ms ] thread
SamBam
Nice!

Needs a chat space to say "gg" at the end. It could even be just a button that does just that, if you're worried about unmoderated chat. Competitive games feel unfinished without it!

I was in second place for the first three rounds and then swept to the front on the last round.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
trapture
A word got denied with the error "Word was already used". I had in fact not used it already, neither had any of the others. That caused me to lose the game, very unsatisfying. (nice game otherwise)
magneticnorth
This is a lot of fun! I'm pleased that I was able to defeat "hitler1488", but you may want to add some content filtering for the name choosing step.
zatkin
I'm the horrible kind of person to go off and use an AI-assisted cheat that can be pasted into the console. Very fun game, nonetheless!
pavel_lishin
How does that work?

I _did_ consider the fact that I could probably use a regex against /usr/share/dict...

SamBam
Why? Why bother not using your brain (and so therefore not actually "playing") and ruining it for the people you're playing against?
doublerabbit
Gentle and fun. Reminds me of isketch back in the days of flash.

I look forward to playing this with my mother.

decimalenough
Idea: it would be more interesting/competitive if you could immediately see others' submissions, and if those words were then "taken" and can't be reused.

Currently you're just kind of twiddling your thumbs after you submit and run out of ideas.

It was also not immediately obvious to me that you can submit multiple words, so I was wasting time entering and deleting attempts before finally submitting the best one.

Finally, instead of fixed timers between rounds, you might want to have a "Ready!" or "Go!" button.

brikym
Awesome game. This round was quite funny since the other person got an antonym.

Me asexually +18 38 lessee +12 31 Noah slays +10 30

OisinMoran
Super fun, thanks for sharing! Might be handy to explain the rules up top (can't seem to see them):

- Proper nouns allowed

- Can reuse letters

- Longest word possible might not use all the letters

ttd
This is great! No need to require a button click in between rounds IMO. Just start the timer.
scronkfinkle
Fun game. Would be nice if there was a single player mode that simply prints the letters and at the end shows the longest word that was missed. That way you can play it offline and place a phone in the center of the table and people can play around it with pen and paper or by just thinking of the word and everyone announces at the end.
Funtownarcade
Nice. I didn't know you could reuse the same letter! How are you handling the multiplayer framework?
pbh101
I like it!

UX feedback: I don’t understand when a round ends. Surprised by it each time.

ethannam9022
This seems like a fun way to practice English vocabulary. One thing confused me, though — I thought the goal was to make the longest word using all of the given letters, but it looks like you can also compete with words that don’t use every letter. Is that intentional?
vunderba
Nice job. But wouldn't accept tnetennba [1]. :)

Seriously though reminds me of the game "Countdown" in the series IT Crowd where they compete to find the longest word in a random assortment of vowels and consonants.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9ixvD0_CmM

zvr
Countdown is an actual UK game show, on air since 1982 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countdown_(game_show).

It was originally a French game show (Des chiffres et des lettres), it has been adapted in many countries, and in the UK has spawn off the comedy show "8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown".

kunaaldhawan1
Very interesting concept! I was a bit confused with the rules though so if there was a 3-4 point list of instructions in the beginning it would be helpful.
johnchinjew
Thanks for checking it out. I've added a proper "How to play?" section now. Thanks for the feedback!
zvr
Simple and easy to play.

I usually play the Countdown variant, where a letter cannot be re-used. But it starts with 9 letters and one can have multiple instances of the same letter in the starting set.

It would be fun if you could implement this, as well. An initial switch might determine what rules are in effect.

recursive-call
I’m assuming the (duck emoji) is the bot for when no one else in the lobby? Glad you included that. However, I’m not sure why “niggas” is one of the words it uses… Moderating users is one thing but I would hope at least the bot could be inoffensive…
justoneletter
what wordlists/ dictionaries did you use? Worth filtering out slurs/ vulgar etc if you haven't
pavel_lishin
How is "Fillmore" a word, but "filmer" isn't? Similarly, so is Levitt, and apparently Illinois.
johnchinjew
Good point, I've removed all the proper nouns now.
johnchinjew
Hey all! I've added a number of features this past week. Tell me what you think.

1. You can now react with emojis at the end of every round.

2. Someone found a great word? You can now double-tap to give them a like.

3. You can now see the first letter of the "word to beat" in real time.

Other improvements: Added a more detailed "How to play?". Addressed the profanity issues. Improved the word list quality. Fixed unexpected "Word already used" errors.