Waterluvian32 minutes ago
The timer makes it not enjoyable for me. It seems necessary to the game design and I’m not being negatively critical. Just sharing an additional perspective. I’ve been playing Zanagrams and the ability to hide the clock really improved my enjoyment of that game.
If I could magically get a feature by request, it would be to give me infinite time even if that meant my score came with an asterisk. Maybe just call it Relax Mode vs. Challenge Mode.
By the way: I really like the overall design of Zanagrams and 18 Words. These are small puzzle games with very simple, clean UIs. They work crisply and I've noticed you've been tidying up Zanagrams, adding minor features and settings. They have a very Classic Web feel to them. It's not like you're trying to get me to watch ads or subscribe to your newsletter or are just breadcrumbs to some for-profit thing. I like having a handful of very easy to pick up puzzles/toys when I need to fidget. They help keep me away from TikToks and Shorts.
tech-historian28 minutes ago
100% agree. Casual mode would be a winner.
sensecall23 minutes ago
Yep, instead of feeling like a fun puzzle the timer just adds unnecessary pressure and gets me really annoyed.
Yajirobe18 minutes ago
My guy that’s the whole point of the game. Otherwise it’s too easy
hnfong14 minutes ago
You can still be competitive in "casual mode" using total time used to solve all the words.
latexr12 minutes ago
Not everyone plays games for purposeless dumb challenges and difficulty. Games are supposed to be fun. Sometimes you just want to chill and engage the brain at a leisurely pace.
Waterluvian11 minutes ago
Yeah. It's just a walk to the mailbox for my brain.
encomiast17 minutes ago
Same. Stopped after two words. Gave me the same feeling as taking a timed software developer screening.
latexr9 minutes ago
> it would be to give me infinite time even if that meant my score came with an asterisk.
Or maybe don’t even keep score. That’s one of the features which makes be skip these daily games. Not every game needs to be a competition!
paisawalla28 minutes ago
I would appreciate the timer not turning red. It's better to be surprised that time's up, rather than be surprised to know it's running out.
gopalakrishnans30 minutes ago
Would be nice to have a ‘scramble!’ button so it makes it slightly easier when we get stuck
docheinestagesa minute ago
This could be a cool captcha challenge (without the timer).
dirkc10 minutes ago
I like the idea, but I didn't like losing after a few words. Now it might just be me not being good at losing, but who is?
Maybe the game can always progress to the next word with your total score being reduced. So if you get all within 30 seconds you score 18/18. That way everyone can play the whole game and share with their friends how far they got
NooneAtAll35 minutes ago
I can understand the clock running out meaning a loss - but I still want to play the rest of the words? how do I do that? I don't think they are accessible anymore
wbnns2 minutes ago
Great game, well done
HelloUsername6 minutes ago
When I didn't know the word I just mashed the given letters on the keyboard randomly, sometimes I got lucky with it
samiskin29 minutes ago
Fun game though I wish it left more time for the longer words, also wish we could have the letters in one line and shuffle them
throwaway_ocran hour ago
Pretty frustrating when you find a word, but it's not THE word. Pretty fun otherwise.
functionmouse44 minutes ago
tbh this should accept all dictionary matches
pompomsheepop41 minutes ago
Did you find a word that wasn't accepted you thought should be?
I do have another version where it accepts ANY word but I found it quite unsatisfying when I survived by randomly spamming combinations and finding a really obscure word.
So am currently running it against a 20,000 word wordlist instead of my larger 300,000 wordlist
happytoexplain38 minutes ago
The third one in the archive wouldn't accept "tase" or "sate" for "seat".
mhba minute ago
quite/quiet
elxr13 minutes ago
"braze" is a very common word, especially if you like bicycles.
Definitely not any less valid or unsatisfying than "zebra".
pompomsheepop8 minutes ago
Ok yes all good examples. Have reverted back ot the large dictionary for now which accepts all these
paulluuk11 minutes ago
Why not just only allow a single try, but accept any "real" word?
pompomsheepop8 minutes ago
Interesting idea but too many people mistype / mispell on first attempt (mostly me)
svantana12 minutes ago
the obvious solution is to not use the words that have an obscure word as anagram. I failed on 'target' because I went for 'regatta'.
dahart2 minutes ago
> I failed on ‘target’ because I went for ‘regatta’.
Given that those two don’t have the same letters, isn’t that the expected outcome?
mjdv5 minutes ago
That seems only fair. ;-)
maxweylandt23 minutes ago
Going two days back in the archive, "egret" not allowed
IAmGraydon35 minutes ago
300,000? The Oxford dictionary only contains 171,000!
echoangle13 minutes ago
I guess the wordlist with 300k contains all the different forms a word can have while the 171k count is only the base words.
pompomsheepop13 minutes ago
Haha yeah the 300k list contains so really obscure stuff
pmarreckan hour ago
I didn’t realize the word “crowd“ only had one vowel until I saw it scrambled!
maaaaattttt34 minutes ago
And I didn't realize "audio" had only one consonant!
nathell22 minutes ago
Could I have the source code so I can plug in the Polish word list? It would make a great training app for Scrabble.
pompomsheepop13 minutes ago
Yeah its just the single index.html file feel free to download it and adapt
binary00107 minutes ago
Just one shot in Claude if you have it or deepseek flash for free.
jdthedisciple17 minutes ago
You could also probably one-shot your own version of this using any SOTA LLM, it's not terribly complicated (but a nice game idea!).
maaaaattttt36 minutes ago
This was harder than I thought it would be. It's pretty fun to play! May I suggest displaying the final result and/or ongoing progress as 18 circles/shapes that fill up depending on how far you made it?
aosmith10 minutes ago
Nice, this is pretty fun!
gwbas1c29 minutes ago
Made it to 9 and then time ran out... I wish it showed me the word that I got stuck on! Argh!!!
pompomsheepop12 minutes ago
It should have shown you!
Static228032 minutes ago
Something about not being able to shuffle the tiles makes this hard for me.
orliesaurus28 minutes ago
Fun, that's it. New addiction after daily wordle unlocked
asaixan hour ago
Pretty cool idea. I think a calendar based UI to go through the archives would be more user friendly than what you have right now.
pompomsheepopan hour ago
Yeah for sure I agree just kept it simple for now but will improve if people like it
semiquaveran hour ago
iPhone bug: double tapping on a letter zooms in the viewport with no way to zoom back out, permanently breaking the page.
pompomsheepopan hour ago
Oof yeah thanks! Fixed now
quasiperfectus33 minutes ago
Embarrassed of where I failed (#8). Very cool game though!
al_borland32 minutes ago
If it makes you feel better, I failed on #3. In my defense, I'm running on 2 hours of sleep.
nwsm32 minutes ago
Fun! But disappointing if you lose early. Maybe let the player continue after failing and showing a final score out of 18.
mritchie71233 minutes ago
great game, what do you think of adding shuffle?
Vinnlan hour ago
This is fun! Could use a short "how it works" blurb on the landing page though :)
pompomsheepopan hour ago
Thanks! I thought it was fun to throw people straight into the game without instructions but you think it too unclear?
Vinnl44 minutes ago
I did get the first one straight away, so it's not too unclear, but it did induce a short moment of panic, which I'm not sure I'd categorise as fun :P
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gigatexal19 minutes ago
Fun game!
I got stuck on the word corner of all words. Ugh
chadgpt320 minutes ago
LAMER is a real word and COLOR is not.
jmkni34 minutes ago
Ha fun little game :)
keepamovin28 minutes ago
Damn got to 13.
upmind33 minutes ago
what made you go with 18?
falcor842 minutes ago
Not the parent, but I just checked and it seems that all $iwords.com are taken for i<18
drcongo29 minutes ago
14 was taken.
stavros44 minutes ago
I lost on the third word because I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was, and then I restarted and got to the 18th. I'd look at the letters and just know which word it was, it was pretty odd how hard I found it the first time around versus how easy it was the second.
I'm normally terrible at anagrams.
neuroticnews25an hour ago
[flagged]
shruggedatlas30 minutes ago
Skill issue
jaffa234 minutes ago
haha yes. I got 2 and it said come back in 9hours. LOL. Ain't nobody got time for that.
tantalor43 minutes ago
lol
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