Hint: short words first
August 20, 2024 11:53 AM Subscribe
Gisnep (Gisnep?) is a new daily word puzzle from MetaFilter's own ironicsans.
Nitpickers' notes: the site is still in beta, and I've seen a couple of quotes that are probably not reliably attributed. Neither has affected my enjoyment of the game. Well, the misattributions a little, but I got over it.
Nitpickers' notes: the site is still in beta, and I've seen a couple of quotes that are probably not reliably attributed. Neither has affected my enjoyment of the game. Well, the misattributions a little, but I got over it.
I played it and now I want to play previous day puzzles. Which is testament since I usually hate word games.
posted by Lord_Pall at 12:17 PM on August 20 [4 favorites]
posted by Lord_Pall at 12:17 PM on August 20 [4 favorites]
This looks neat!
One annoyance I have with this (and many other similar games) is the constantly ticking timer. Watching it go while playing just stresses me out and keeps me from really enjoying the game.
(ironicsans, any chance of an option to disable or hide it?)
posted by fader at 12:19 PM on August 20 [11 favorites]
One annoyance I have with this (and many other similar games) is the constantly ticking timer. Watching it go while playing just stresses me out and keeps me from really enjoying the game.
(ironicsans, any chance of an option to disable or hide it?)
posted by fader at 12:19 PM on August 20 [11 favorites]
For those that want more, this style of puzzle is called "quotefalls" in some pencil and paper puzzle books. this site has a daily puzzle with a week's worth of previous puzzles available. or you can buy entire books full
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 12:20 PM on August 20 [5 favorites]
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 12:20 PM on August 20 [5 favorites]
that was fun and I'm not normally a word game person
posted by daisystomper at 12:25 PM on August 20
posted by daisystomper at 12:25 PM on August 20
I got off on the wrong foot and had to backtrack but eventually figured it out. It took me ten minutes and sixteen seconds, though, so don't do as I did and get too committed to your guesses early on.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:30 PM on August 20
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:30 PM on August 20
OMG, I loved playing these in the venerable Games Magazine back in ye olden days. I had completely forgotten about them. Thank you!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:41 PM on August 20
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:41 PM on August 20
Wow thanks for the love! Today’s quote is a bit harder than usual, both due to length and lack of punctuation. Don’t get discouraged. Most of them are better.
Here’s some quick answers to questions I see:
Yes you will soon be able to hide the timer. I’ve heard from people who want a “Zen mode,” so that’s in the works.
I will also be adding a way to play previous days’ games.
I know, a lot of the quotes are of spurious attribution. I had a joke in an early draft of the “How to play” section about the sources possibly being misattributed because internet but I ended up taking it out for better clarity of instructions. Then I was going to make myself feel better by providing a link to a website I remembered that hunts down quote origins but when I went there it was so riddled with ads that I couldn’t in good conscience send other people there.
Yes, this format exists already, called Quote Falls as previously mentioned. I first encountered them in Games Magazine. I tried to add something new to make it a little bit different, so my big innovation is having some of the letters in the quote reveal letters in the source, which adds another type of hint. Typically you are given the source up front.
Also, I’m planning on a better mobile experience. I think I’ll have both a more refined version of the full game for people who want to play the exact same puzzle desktop users play, and also a more simplified “Gisnep Mini” for people who don’t want to squint at their phones.
Happy to answer any other questions about gameplay or (maybe more interestingly to some) how I made it without writing any of the code myself as an experiment in AI coding.
posted by ironicsans at 12:52 PM on August 20 [41 favorites]
Here’s some quick answers to questions I see:
Yes you will soon be able to hide the timer. I’ve heard from people who want a “Zen mode,” so that’s in the works.
I will also be adding a way to play previous days’ games.
I know, a lot of the quotes are of spurious attribution. I had a joke in an early draft of the “How to play” section about the sources possibly being misattributed because internet but I ended up taking it out for better clarity of instructions. Then I was going to make myself feel better by providing a link to a website I remembered that hunts down quote origins but when I went there it was so riddled with ads that I couldn’t in good conscience send other people there.
Yes, this format exists already, called Quote Falls as previously mentioned. I first encountered them in Games Magazine. I tried to add something new to make it a little bit different, so my big innovation is having some of the letters in the quote reveal letters in the source, which adds another type of hint. Typically you are given the source up front.
Also, I’m planning on a better mobile experience. I think I’ll have both a more refined version of the full game for people who want to play the exact same puzzle desktop users play, and also a more simplified “Gisnep Mini” for people who don’t want to squint at their phones.
Happy to answer any other questions about gameplay or (maybe more interestingly to some) how I made it without writing any of the code myself as an experiment in AI coding.
posted by ironicsans at 12:52 PM on August 20 [41 favorites]
I got off on the wrong foot and had to backtrack but eventually figured it out.
Yesterday I was at a point where I was like "Well either this word is 'shits' or I've made a mistake" and it was indeed the latter.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:59 PM on August 20 [3 favorites]
Yesterday I was at a point where I was like "Well either this word is 'shits' or I've made a mistake" and it was indeed the latter.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:59 PM on August 20 [3 favorites]
This is fun! I always enjoyed playing these with paper and pencil. (Yes, *pencil* -- hope my Clever Mefite rating doesn't take a hit.)
Thanks, Horace and ironicsans.
posted by jaruwaan at 1:01 PM on August 20
Thanks, Horace and ironicsans.
posted by jaruwaan at 1:01 PM on August 20
suggestion: dark mode! 😎
posted by taz at 1:08 PM on August 20 [2 favorites]
posted by taz at 1:08 PM on August 20 [2 favorites]
Huh, I’ve always heard these called dropquotes.
Interestingly if you’re doing them using computer assistance (eg with http://nutrimatic.org/ ) then you actually want to start with the long words (there are fewer possibilities). It’s definitely different if you are doing them as an unaugmented human.
posted by nat at 1:09 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
Interestingly if you’re doing them using computer assistance (eg with http://nutrimatic.org/ ) then you actually want to start with the long words (there are fewer possibilities). It’s definitely different if you are doing them as an unaugmented human.
posted by nat at 1:09 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
After 15 minutes and 38 seconds, I now know what it feels like to be ChatGPT.
posted by flabdablet at 1:14 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 1:14 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
Dark mode huh? Well, I’ve been on the record against websites that use white text on black backgrounds since 2008, but perhaps if there’s enough demand I’ll figure out a way to make dark mode that’s still low contrast so it doesn’t hurt my eyes.
posted by ironicsans at 1:16 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
posted by ironicsans at 1:16 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
Wheeeeee!
posted by Don Pepino at 1:37 PM on August 20
posted by Don Pepino at 1:37 PM on August 20
That was fun! I'm glad to hear about the timer option coming, I also get stressed when it's visible. I don't mind seeing my time afterwards, but I hate having it ticking away visibly.
posted by tavella at 2:23 PM on August 20
posted by tavella at 2:23 PM on August 20
For anyone who wants some tips, I made a little video last week for someone who wanted to see how I approach solving these. It’s about six minutes long, talking through my thought process. You can see it here.
posted by ironicsans at 2:32 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
posted by ironicsans at 2:32 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
That was fun. I think I prefer acrostics with their weird clues, but the "falling grid" works pretty well as a substitute, and requires a lot less squinting.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:07 PM on August 20
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:07 PM on August 20
Neat! and HARD! I am a word game junkie so this one goes on my list for sure.
posted by Daily Alice at 3:14 PM on August 20
posted by Daily Alice at 3:14 PM on August 20
I used to do so many of these when I was a kid.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:30 PM on August 20
posted by jacquilynne at 3:30 PM on August 20
I, too, remember doing these puzzles in Games magazine. I’m impressed that you were able to do this with AI programming! I did not encounter any bugs and had a perfectly fine time doing it on my iPhone. In Safari.
posted by Emmy Noether at 3:30 PM on August 20
posted by Emmy Noether at 3:30 PM on August 20
Awesome! I enjoyed it enough I made a shortcut to it on my phone’s homepage. No issues with playing it on an iPhone with Safari, except that I couldn’t backspace repeatedly to delete a whole word without having to re-summon the keyboard for each cell.
posted by ejs at 4:19 PM on August 20
posted by ejs at 4:19 PM on August 20
ejs: Try starting in a cell that’s already empty and you should be able to backspace repeatedly without re-summoning the keyboard. I think. (This is one of the things I’ll work on improving when I do the proper mobile optimization)
posted by ironicsans at 4:30 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
posted by ironicsans at 4:30 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
Thanks ironicsans, that's fun and well executed.
Flabdablet, same-ish time.
Tips:
1 - bit of masking tape over the clock, or an iron will
2 - look for small & common words, 'the', 'a', 'this/that' etc -- even a small entry reduces the available choices
3 - An uncommon letter is your friend. You may find you can narrow down the row it belongs in by looking where it would fall in words. For instance J would be rare at the end of a word.
posted by BCMagee at 4:35 PM on August 20 [4 favorites]
Flabdablet, same-ish time.
Tips:
1 - bit of masking tape over the clock, or an iron will
2 - look for small & common words, 'the', 'a', 'this/that' etc -- even a small entry reduces the available choices
3 - An uncommon letter is your friend. You may find you can narrow down the row it belongs in by looking where it would fall in words. For instance J would be rare at the end of a word.
posted by BCMagee at 4:35 PM on August 20 [4 favorites]
I enjoyed this and will play again, thank you! Another vote for dark mode.
posted by kinsey at 4:55 PM on August 20
posted by kinsey at 4:55 PM on August 20
I once wrote a silver for these that turned the whole thing into a giant logical expression and then called Z3 to solve it. It worked, but I think only sometimes -- sometimes Z3 would make bad choices and you would just be fucked. That's the problem with Z3 and other SAT or SMT solvers: extremely swingy in their performance, and not much to be done about it.
posted by novalis_dt at 5:12 PM on August 20
posted by novalis_dt at 5:12 PM on August 20
I love it! Quotefalls on the computer! Played very smoothly while typing on my desktop. 9:54.
Would totally be willing to add it to my daily list of games I play through. Like others have mentioned, while I couldn't care less about the timer, I'd love to be able to play previous days and track my stats with a login.
posted by stormyteal at 5:30 PM on August 20
Would totally be willing to add it to my daily list of games I play through. Like others have mentioned, while I couldn't care less about the timer, I'd love to be able to play previous days and track my stats with a login.
posted by stormyteal at 5:30 PM on August 20
Loved it. One suggestion: don't put the 'reset' button right next to the 'check' button. Ask me how I know...
posted by signal at 6:16 PM on August 20 [2 favorites]
posted by signal at 6:16 PM on August 20 [2 favorites]
@signal: Oof, sorry. A solution to that is coming too.
posted by ironicsans at 6:37 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
posted by ironicsans at 6:37 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
I’m short on work right now so if you want a basic accessibility review, let me know! I’d happily do it gratis.
posted by sixswitch at 6:55 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
posted by sixswitch at 6:55 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
@sixswitch Oh that would be great. I considered accessibility only a little bit for things like color and contrast. I would love to have an assessment of where it fails so I could make it more properly accessible.
posted by ironicsans at 7:10 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
posted by ironicsans at 7:10 PM on August 20 [1 favorite]
Very fun!
posted by mixedmetaphors at 7:55 PM on August 20
posted by mixedmetaphors at 7:55 PM on August 20
I once wrote a [solver] for these that turned the whole thing into a giant logical expression and then called Z3 to solve it. It worked, but I think only sometimes
The current puzzles will tell you which letters are in the wrong position if you've filled all the spaces but it doesn't match the quote. That behavior may change in an update.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:57 PM on August 20
The current puzzles will tell you which letters are in the wrong position if you've filled all the spaces but it doesn't match the quote. That behavior may change in an update.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:57 PM on August 20
Happy to answer any other questions about gameplay or (maybe more interestingly to some) how I made it without writing any of the code myself as an experiment in AI coding.
I read the “Making of” post linked above with its many mentions of employing AI, but it wasn’t until I solved my second quote just now that I realized—this is a game of choosing words to create a sentence based on context and best-guessing. ironicsans, you rascal, you built this to make us all experience what it’s like to be an LLM, didn’t you!
posted by ejs at 10:09 PM on August 20
I read the “Making of” post linked above with its many mentions of employing AI, but it wasn’t until I solved my second quote just now that I realized—this is a game of choosing words to create a sentence based on context and best-guessing. ironicsans, you rascal, you built this to make us all experience what it’s like to be an LLM, didn’t you!
posted by ejs at 10:09 PM on August 20
Highlighting the current column's letters might be helpful. Played ok but not great on mobile Firefox, biggest problem was erasing letters. This is neat.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 11:22 PM on August 20
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 11:22 PM on August 20
Tips:
1 - bit of masking tape over the clock, or an iron will
2 - look for small & common words, 'the', 'a', 'this/that' etc -- even a small entry reduces the available choices
3 - An uncommon letter is your friend. You may find you can narrow down the row it belongs in by looking where it would fall in words. For instance J would be rare at the end of a word.
Note that the quote may have punctuation that you can't see.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:25 PM on August 20
1 - bit of masking tape over the clock, or an iron will
2 - look for small & common words, 'the', 'a', 'this/that' etc -- even a small entry reduces the available choices
3 - An uncommon letter is your friend. You may find you can narrow down the row it belongs in by looking where it would fall in words. For instance J would be rare at the end of a word.
Note that the quote may have punctuation that you can't see.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 11:25 PM on August 20
Mod note: This excellent post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:46 AM on August 21 [2 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:46 AM on August 21 [2 favorites]
UPDATE: I just pushed an update with new features which can now be found in a Settings gear. You probably need to refresh to the page to see it.
You can now:
* Hide the timer for a less stressful game
* Hide the pointers for an even cleaner game (those are already hidden on mobile, so if that’s how you’ve been playing you won’t see this option)
* Turn on word highlighting to help you see where words begin and end
Please let me know if I broke anything in the process!
posted by ironicsans at 5:55 AM on August 21 [6 favorites]
You can now:
* Hide the timer for a less stressful game
* Hide the pointers for an even cleaner game (those are already hidden on mobile, so if that’s how you’ve been playing you won’t see this option)
* Turn on word highlighting to help you see where words begin and end
Please let me know if I broke anything in the process!
posted by ironicsans at 5:55 AM on August 21 [6 favorites]
5:41 today, lots of words that felt intuitive to guess in the flow of the sentence (though my very first guess turned out to be off). No brokenness detected on desktop.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:17 AM on August 21
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:17 AM on August 21
What fun! 3:13 for me! Definitely going into my morning game routine, joining Redactle, Connections, Wordle, Strands, and Pyramid Scheme.
posted by QuakerMel at 6:45 AM on August 21
posted by QuakerMel at 6:45 AM on August 21
6:36 for me today, after 7:10 yesterday. For whatever reason I struggled more with the words that wrapped today than I did yesterday.
posted by fedward at 6:54 AM on August 21
posted by fedward at 6:54 AM on August 21
Might need to do some vetting on quote sources. The quote from 9/21 is attributed to a Confederate General and senior Freemason who supported the KKK. So what he's actually talking about in the quote sounds uplifting, but is actually about fighting for white supremacy.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:45 AM on August 21 [4 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:45 AM on August 21 [4 favorites]
And just to qualify my above statement, I know this is hard, and am not attributing any malice to the creator.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:58 AM on August 21 [1 favorite]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:58 AM on August 21 [1 favorite]
@Abehammerb Yikes. Apologies. I thought I went through and weeded out all the problematic quotes from my database but I missed that. I need a solution for this kind of thing because currently if I change the quote in the middle of the day, it will cause problems for people who left the game midway and plan on returning to it later. Maybe this time I plead ignorance and hope he’s too obscure for most people to notice. I just checked and at least I don’t have any other of his quotes in my list.
posted by ironicsans at 9:03 AM on August 21 [3 favorites]
posted by ironicsans at 9:03 AM on August 21 [3 favorites]
I solved today’s #Gisnep in 09:08. 🎉I'm not very good at word puzzles. If my brain seizes on one possibility it's hard to look past it for another.
Think you can do better?
https://gisnep.com
One trick that I can sometimes pull off is figuring out the name to help seed the quote. I managed it today despite not knowing who this person was.
The quote itself is fine, even if the author was oblivious to its implications.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:54 AM on August 21
@ironicsans...like I said...THIS IS HARD. Kudos to you for even trying.
I once had to parse a computerized dictionary source file because my company used three random words from it to initially set a new hire's password. I was considered the only IT person both literate and dirty-minded enough to find and delete words. I have rarely giggled more in one day of work, but I'm sure I did not get 100% of the even truly questionable words deleted.
The root cause was someone getting something like "tribadism employee unwanted" on their first day at work. Turns out those million typing monkeys weren't Shakespeare fans, merely assholes.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:25 PM on August 21 [4 favorites]
I once had to parse a computerized dictionary source file because my company used three random words from it to initially set a new hire's password. I was considered the only IT person both literate and dirty-minded enough to find and delete words. I have rarely giggled more in one day of work, but I'm sure I did not get 100% of the even truly questionable words deleted.
The root cause was someone getting something like "tribadism employee unwanted" on their first day at work. Turns out those million typing monkeys weren't Shakespeare fans, merely assholes.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:25 PM on August 21 [4 favorites]
I enjoyed this, but even more I enjoyed the description of the design and coding process. Thank you!
posted by aincandenza at 5:23 AM on August 22
posted by aincandenza at 5:23 AM on August 22
As a software engineer who uses coding assistants every day, I would be pretty interested to see the "99.5%" AI-Generated code if it is up in a repository somewhere.
posted by Kwine at 8:43 AM on August 22
posted by Kwine at 8:43 AM on August 22
Gisnep! made it to Laughing Squid! Congrats, ironicsans!
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 11:03 AM on August 22
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 11:03 AM on August 22
Thanks for everyone’s kind words!
posted by ironicsans at 11:13 AM on August 22 [1 favorite]
posted by ironicsans at 11:13 AM on August 22 [1 favorite]
4:43 for the O.W. game.
Please add game numbers so we can refer to them by number.
Love this. Very smart design. NYTimes will probably make you an offer by the end of the year.
posted by andreaazure at 5:07 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]
Please add game numbers so we can refer to them by number.
Love this. Very smart design. NYTimes will probably make you an offer by the end of the year.
posted by andreaazure at 5:07 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]
UI nitpick: on a desktop browser with a screen that's not tall enough to render the main page without scrolling, like the 1280x800 one on my crappy old laptop, modal overlays don't work quite right.
The Share Results modal isn't too bad because although it appears well below the middle of the viewport, only a tiny piece at the bottom is actually cut off. But the How To Play and Settings modals both get controls obscured that need scrolling to reveal, and the scrollbar and thumb stay attached to the background content that the modals have dimmed out and overlaid.
Putting the browser in full screen mode works around these issues; if the background window doesn't need to scroll, the scroll bar and thumb attach themselves correctly to the modal. Clicking on the modal and scrolling it with the arrow keys is another workaround too. But it would be nicer if (a) the small modals that don't actually need to be scrolled were vertically centred in the viewport and (b) modals that do need to be scrolled have a scroll bar and thumb available that the background window can't steal.
posted by flabdablet at 5:24 AM on August 23
The Share Results modal isn't too bad because although it appears well below the middle of the viewport, only a tiny piece at the bottom is actually cut off. But the How To Play and Settings modals both get controls obscured that need scrolling to reveal, and the scrollbar and thumb stay attached to the background content that the modals have dimmed out and overlaid.
Putting the browser in full screen mode works around these issues; if the background window doesn't need to scroll, the scroll bar and thumb attach themselves correctly to the modal. Clicking on the modal and scrolling it with the arrow keys is another workaround too. But it would be nicer if (a) the small modals that don't actually need to be scrolled were vertically centred in the viewport and (b) modals that do need to be scrolled have a scroll bar and thumb available that the background window can't steal.
posted by flabdablet at 5:24 AM on August 23
All the above applies to Firefox, btw; Chromium on this same machine displays separate scrollbars for background window and modals.
posted by flabdablet at 5:26 AM on August 23
posted by flabdablet at 5:26 AM on August 23
Thanks @flabdablet. I have it on my to-do list to fix this but nobody had actually complained about it yet. Your nitpick pushes it up on my list!
@andreaazure I’m thinking of dates instead of numbers. Is there an argument for numbers over dates?
posted by ironicsans at 7:38 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]
@andreaazure I’m thinking of dates instead of numbers. Is there an argument for numbers over dates?
posted by ironicsans at 7:38 AM on August 23 [1 favorite]
1:41 today—it helps when the puzzle is something you yourself quote all the time!
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:25 AM on August 23 [3 favorites]
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:25 AM on August 23 [3 favorites]
I thought my time of 2:00 was respectable but that's almost 20% longer than 1:41. Well done!
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:50 PM on August 23
posted by Nerd of the North at 3:50 PM on August 23
@andreaazure I’m thinking of dates instead of numbers. Is there an argument for numbers over dates? posted by ironicsans at 10:38 AM on August 23
Either works. Dates get a bit strange for those of us in AU/NZ vs the rest of the world, but people are used to that.
posted by andreaazure at 6:49 PM on August 23
Either works. Dates get a bit strange for those of us in AU/NZ vs the rest of the world, but people are used to that.
posted by andreaazure at 6:49 PM on August 23
Thank you ironicsans for making this, and Horace Rumpole for telling me about it. I’ve been back twice and I really, really enjoy it.
posted by Probabilitics at 3:45 AM on August 24
posted by Probabilitics at 3:45 AM on August 24
@Probabilitics I’m so glad to hear that! Thank you for playing!
I just pushed out a few improvements for people who are playing on mobile, which it turns out is almost half of players:
I just pushed out a few improvements for people who are playing on mobile, which it turns out is almost half of players:
- The keyboard would occasionally disappear after deleting a letter. That shouldn’t happen any more.
- The text selection handles that were sometimes getting in the way should no longer be there
- If poking at little squares was too annoying to select the cell you want, you can now swipe left or right to navigate cells. You can also swipe-and-hold to move through several cells.
Today's (Aug 24) might be a year on the easy side:
I solved today’s #Gisnep in 01:05. 🎉
Think you can do better?
https://gisnep.com
posted by jacquilynne at 6:52 AM on August 24
I solved today’s #Gisnep in 01:05. 🎉
Think you can do better?
https://gisnep.com
posted by jacquilynne at 6:52 AM on August 24
Oh, the keyboard isn't supposed to be disappearing? For me, it does. (Firefox Mobile, aka Fennec, using AnySoftKeyboard.)
(And yes, I wish it didn't disappear, but I enjoy the game too much to wait till I'm at my computer.)
posted by demi-octopus at 1:01 AM on August 25
(And yes, I wish it didn't disappear, but I enjoy the game too much to wait till I'm at my computer.)
posted by demi-octopus at 1:01 AM on August 25
@demi-octopus can you tell me more? When does it disappear? Is it when you delete a letter you’ve individually selected (the problem I thought I solved for) or does it happen at other times?
If no cell is selected than it should disappear. That’s just normal browser behavior. But it shouldn’t disappear while you’re interacting with the grid.
I’m thinking of making my own on-screen keyboard (like Wordle has) to override other keyboards and solve the problem altogether, but that will be a while.
posted by ironicsans at 5:09 AM on August 25
If no cell is selected than it should disappear. That’s just normal browser behavior. But it shouldn’t disappear while you’re interacting with the grid.
I’m thinking of making my own on-screen keyboard (like Wordle has) to override other keyboards and solve the problem altogether, but that will be a while.
posted by ironicsans at 5:09 AM on August 25
Before I even realized that I was supposed to be using the keyboard, I'd tried dragging letters from the hoppers and dropping them onto the squares and was surprised when it didn't work. So maybe implement that as a keyboard alternative rather than re-invent the on-screen keyboard wheel? I'm sure you'll have a lot of users who like their existing on-screen keyboard (or accessible alternative thereto) and would be annoyed if it stopped working.
posted by flabdablet at 6:54 AM on August 25
posted by flabdablet at 6:54 AM on August 25
25-Aug: 55 seconds
I don't bother doing short words first, I just start from the beginning and try to "hear" words speaking from the hoppers in a way that I can parse. It feels like trying to follow a conversation in a loud room.
posted by flabdablet at 7:02 AM on August 25
I don't bother doing short words first, I just start from the beginning and try to "hear" words speaking from the hoppers in a way that I can parse. It feels like trying to follow a conversation in a loud room.
posted by flabdablet at 7:02 AM on August 25
@flabdablet Interesting idea. I’ll play with it!
posted by ironicsans at 9:41 AM on August 25
posted by ironicsans at 9:41 AM on August 25
Really enjoying doing this puzzle daily. Thanks for making it! I have been playing on mobile. I really enjoy how the puzzle accelerates once I get a few words in, and the whole thing seems to unfurl at once. Neat pacing.
I have to say, the quote from 8/25 is almost impossible for me to parse grammatically, even after looking up the source and various online commentary about it.
posted by lostburner at 1:28 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]
I have to say, the quote from 8/25 is almost impossible for me to parse grammatically, even after looking up the source and various online commentary about it.
posted by lostburner at 1:28 PM on August 25 [1 favorite]
@ironicsans: The keyboard disappears for me as soon as I fill a box. The selection also disappears at that point, instead of moving to the next box. Maybe that's the root of the issue then?
I've checked with different browsers and keyboards and it seems to be due to the browser (again, that's Firefox Mobile / Fennec.)
posted by demi-octopus at 11:26 PM on August 25
I've checked with different browsers and keyboards and it seems to be due to the browser (again, that's Firefox Mobile / Fennec.)
posted by demi-octopus at 11:26 PM on August 25
I just start from the beginning and try to "hear" words speaking from the hoppers in a way that I can parse
Same, I start at the beginning and brute force the words to fit.
I like today's quote because, same.
posted by phunniemee at 5:16 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]
Same, I start at the beginning and brute force the words to fit.
I like today's quote because, same.
posted by phunniemee at 5:16 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]
A rough edge I keep hitting after playing a few days of this is that my typing speed once I get a word often outpaces the UI and I have to slow down and apply one letter… at… a… time.
Since you have few things to do after a character is entered, and people type fast, maybe it’s not going to be possible to keep up. One possible approach here is putting typed characters on a queue.
posted by lostburner at 8:23 AM on August 26
Since you have few things to do after a character is entered, and people type fast, maybe it’s not going to be possible to keep up. One possible approach here is putting typed characters on a queue.
posted by lostburner at 8:23 AM on August 26
@lostburner I see what you mean. I’ll look into it.
posted by ironicsans at 2:52 PM on August 26
posted by ironicsans at 2:52 PM on August 26
While you're taking requests, erasing on mobile is a bit cruddy. Got to highlight the square, hit delete twice but not too quickly, and then delete it back out. Been having fun with it, thank you!
posted by phunniemee at 2:58 PM on August 26
posted by phunniemee at 2:58 PM on August 26
@phunniemee Sorry, can you elaborate? If you highlight a square with a letter in it and hit delete, it should delete the letter and keep you in that square. Hitting it a second time should move you back one space and delete that letter. Is that not what you’re experiencing? (The game is very much not optimized for mobile but I’m trying to make it more playable since so many people are playing it that way)
posted by ironicsans at 10:23 AM on August 27
posted by ironicsans at 10:23 AM on August 27
I think today's was the first I've done where I could suss out the quote source well before confidently locking in much of any of the quote itself, and that felt really good, the extra heightened back-and-forth amongst the circled letters while fixing up some initial wrong guesses that were nonetheless helpful in working out the source.
It might just be an artifact of this quote source's orthography (especially letters 5 and 6), but I bet the chances of that happening rises when more of the circled letters are drawn from shorter words in the quote, assuming most people follow the (now-removed?) advice to start with short words. (Of today's 12 circled letters, a third of them are in two- and three-letter words, and more than half of them are in two- three- or four-letter words.)
posted by nobody at 8:39 AM on August 31
It might just be an artifact of this quote source's orthography (especially letters 5 and 6), but I bet the chances of that happening rises when more of the circled letters are drawn from shorter words in the quote, assuming most people follow the (now-removed?) advice to start with short words. (Of today's 12 circled letters, a third of them are in two- and three-letter words, and more than half of them are in two- three- or four-letter words.)
posted by nobody at 8:39 AM on August 31
Sorry, can you elaborate?
Ope just saw this sorry. So what I'm seeing is I want to delete a letter, so I tap into the box with the letter, hit backspace. It flashes the square red, but doesn't delete. So you have to backspace it again to delete it. If you wait too long before tapping backspace again, it just flashes red without deleting again. If you tap backspace twice (anticipating the red highlight fake out) too quickly, it deletes the letter you're on and the letter before it.
On Chrome on Android (13?)
posted by phunniemee at 8:49 AM on August 31
Ope just saw this sorry. So what I'm seeing is I want to delete a letter, so I tap into the box with the letter, hit backspace. It flashes the square red, but doesn't delete. So you have to backspace it again to delete it. If you wait too long before tapping backspace again, it just flashes red without deleting again. If you tap backspace twice (anticipating the red highlight fake out) too quickly, it deletes the letter you're on and the letter before it.
On Chrome on Android (13?)
posted by phunniemee at 8:49 AM on August 31
Still enjoying playing this every day! I think it’s a hit.
Feedback: many of the quotes use archaic or stilted grammar, which makes it hard to use the solved words as a hint for other parts of the puzzle. For example, in today’s puzzle (Gisnep #28) I had word 7 but word 5 was impossible until getting hints because of the odd grammar.
Feature request: I am almost always curious about the origin and context of the quote. A link out to a citation or discussion would be a nice embellishment. An example of this kind of thing is Squaredle, where the bonus word of the day shows a brief definition when discovered. Failing that or as a half step: showing the whole quote (formatted and punctuated?) would make it possible to copy and search, because currently searching up the quote requires retyping it.
posted by lostburner at 9:11 AM on September 4
Feedback: many of the quotes use archaic or stilted grammar, which makes it hard to use the solved words as a hint for other parts of the puzzle. For example, in today’s puzzle (Gisnep #28) I had word 7 but word 5 was impossible until getting hints because of the odd grammar.
Feature request: I am almost always curious about the origin and context of the quote. A link out to a citation or discussion would be a nice embellishment. An example of this kind of thing is Squaredle, where the bonus word of the day shows a brief definition when discovered. Failing that or as a half step: showing the whole quote (formatted and punctuated?) would make it possible to copy and search, because currently searching up the quote requires retyping it.
posted by lostburner at 9:11 AM on September 4
Glad you’re enjoying it! I may come up with a way to reveal the quote with punctuation after it’s solved. That’s on the roadmap, but there are some other things I need to address first.
In the meantime, solving the puzzle now reveals a “Who is that?” link that at least tells you more about the source of the quote, if not the quote itself.
The truth is, some of the quotes are likely apocryphal. The internet is full of quotes falsely attributed to people, and since I used an online database as my primary source, I probably have some of those falsely attributed quotes in my game. I certainly haven’t verified every single one.
posted by ironicsans at 6:46 AM on September 5 [4 favorites]
In the meantime, solving the puzzle now reveals a “Who is that?” link that at least tells you more about the source of the quote, if not the quote itself.
The truth is, some of the quotes are likely apocryphal. The internet is full of quotes falsely attributed to people, and since I used an online database as my primary source, I probably have some of those falsely attributed quotes in my game. I certainly haven’t verified every single one.
posted by ironicsans at 6:46 AM on September 5 [4 favorites]
Cool! “Who is that” is a nice addition.
posted by lostburner at 9:36 AM on September 5 [1 favorite]
posted by lostburner at 9:36 AM on September 5 [1 favorite]
A tiny note: on my screen (1920x1080, but minus an always-on Windows taskbar at the bottom, and tabs/address-bar/bookmark-bar at the top; nothing out of the ordinary), the floating footer info (puzzle #/date, creator info, etc.) always starts out overlapping with the quote source until I scroll down a bit, and that seems less than ideal. It's so close to lining up perfectly from the start -- just one down-arrow tap to make the puzzle solvable, or two down-arrow taps to bring it below the "Who is that?" line.
posted by nobody at 10:58 PM on September 11
posted by nobody at 10:58 PM on September 11
Thanks @nobody. It’s on my list for a fix!
posted by ironicsans at 6:11 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
posted by ironicsans at 6:11 AM on September 12 [1 favorite]
Today's Gisnep says "You're either gonna love today's quote or hate it," and I am firmly on Team Love.
posted by HeroZero at 6:08 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]
posted by HeroZero at 6:08 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]
Same! And came here to catch reactions to it.
posted by gingerbeer at 9:00 AM on September 16
posted by gingerbeer at 9:00 AM on September 16
Team… dislike. Maybe I’m unusual in trying to use the surrounding grammar as a hint for unsolved words. The theme is fun but the quote breaks my assumptions about how the puzzle works.
posted by lostburner at 11:32 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]
posted by lostburner at 11:32 AM on September 16 [1 favorite]
I've started doing these first thing in the morning after the Puzzmo crossword while still in bed. Today was a good bit of squinting, followed by "nope, that's too many Ps for 7am," followed by a solve a little later over breakfast. I liked it.
posted by phunniemee at 12:18 PM on September 16
posted by phunniemee at 12:18 PM on September 16
I've been doing these with Mr. Nat by zoom (we're doing a two-month replay of our many-years-on-different-continents thing right now, since I'm on a longterm work trip).
And it was his lunch time, my evening, but there were definitely a hell of a lot of P's going on for whatever time it was. (We also found this challenging, it took about 10x our usual speed.. but that was with a little nutrimatic assist because it was getting near my bedtime.. who knows how long without).
We're also used to dropquotes in a context where grammar isn't always a useful tool, though-- but I kinda like being able to do them as actual quotes. Quotes are nice. This was a quote, even if it took me a while to see how.
posted by nat at 2:07 PM on September 16
And it was his lunch time, my evening, but there were definitely a hell of a lot of P's going on for whatever time it was. (We also found this challenging, it took about 10x our usual speed.. but that was with a little nutrimatic assist because it was getting near my bedtime.. who knows how long without).
We're also used to dropquotes in a context where grammar isn't always a useful tool, though-- but I kinda like being able to do them as actual quotes. Quotes are nice. This was a quote, even if it took me a while to see how.
posted by nat at 2:07 PM on September 16
It took me way longer than usual and if I hadn’t figured out the source I might still be sitting there, but I enjoyed it as a change of pace.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:35 PM on September 16
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:35 PM on September 16
Just saw everyone’s comments. Sorry if you hated it! It amused me to have something so ridiculous and different, but I knew some people wouldn’t like it. I have a few quotes that are scheduled for specific days, and when I noticed that the 45th anniversary of the song’s release was coming up, I figured I’d do it as a little tribute. Not that anyone else noticed it was the song’s anniversary, but it amused me anyway. I don’t think I have anything quite so divisive coming up.
posted by ironicsans at 6:06 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]
posted by ironicsans at 6:06 AM on September 18 [1 favorite]
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posted by phunniemee at 12:16 PM on August 20 [6 favorites]