Vowl

Games

daily word game

SHOW HN2023

35points
50comments
#1,290of 3,109 in 2023
Top 42%of 2023 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

1 positive, 6 neutral or asking, 5 mixed, 11 critical, out of 23 comments about the project. Thread score -0.33.

Execution: 0 for, 7 againstIdea: 0 for, 3 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Transportation puzzle was fun and satisfying

    From 2 comments
    • I did today's, which was clued as transportation/country/kings of leon song. Transportation was really fun; I thought a long time and got it in 1, and I felt I had a grasp on…
      furyofantares on HN
    • Played it again. Got the transportation category again in 1 after another long and satisfying think. So that was really fun once again. I tried gathering info on the beatles…
      furyofantares on HN
  • Neat concept with interesting vowel placement feedback

    From 2 comments
    • It’s interesting how much the placement of vowels can help you imagine the shape of the word. One small point of feedback. It wasn’t clear that you were expected to enter a space…
      ericrallen on HN
    • this is neat the 3 letter challenge didn't really show off the game though I just guessed 3 possible words and happened to be correct on my 3rd guess
      hayksaakian on HN

Objections

  • Scoring counts repeated vowels confusingly, reporting matches not in the answer

    From 5 comments
    • My puzzle word has four vowels. My two guesses each four vowels, but not the same four (e.g. "AAIO" and "AEIO"), and I got four vowel matches for each guess. I know how that…
      jprete on HN
    • Was eager to try but found it buggy - or at least, confusingly arcane in how guesses are scored. Today's 'transportation' puzzle had 4 consonants & 4 vowels. I got to a guess…
      gojomo on HN
    • Game is buggy, as others have mentioned. Either that or the scoring makes no sense. Why did it say I had 4 vowels correct, if my guess contained 4 vowels and one of them wasn't…
      wavemode on HN
    • It's pretty good. Scoring a single letter N times if it occurs N times in the target word, instead of just once, is misleading.
      smcin on HN
    • If the target word contains two E and my guess only contains one E it should say 1 vowel correct, not 2. Isn't that obvious? What am I missing? I presume you made it this way for…
      Kiro on HN
  • Feedback not actionable; gameplay feels tedious and unfun without letter position clues

    From 3 comments
    • If the feedback is supposed to be helpful in narrowing down future guesses - I didn’t find it to be. If it’s just for scoring attempts then it’s working great. Would prefer to…
      pjm331 on HN
    • After playing through to step 3, but not knowing any king's of Leon songs, I have to say: this game is not fun for me. I have played many daily games and like most of them. What…
      stevage on HN
    • Great idea, but I find gameplay to be a bit too tedious to be enjoyable. In this aspect Wordle got it right with the color cues, but here I don't think it's even possible to…
      eps on HN
  • Clue placement and design unclear; 'Transportation' hard to notice

    From 1 comment
    • I'm probably dumb, but I didn't realize "Transportation" was a clue until I looked at the network traffic and saw it labeled as such in one of the responses. In fact, I didn't…
      bonestamp2 on HN
  • Puzzles too hard; too many guesses per step

    From 2 comments
    • I found this pretty hard. Took 23 guesses to solve step 1. At that stage, I expected to have a result I could share with people. Just being taken to a step 2 was demoralising.…
      stevage on HN
    • The first one took me 17 guesses, writing nonsense words to count each letter in the answer. The other two I managed in 1.
      nmeofthestate on HN
  • Unclear handling of Y as vowel or consonant

    From 2 comments
    • Is 'Y' treated as a consonant or a vowel? Does it depend on the word ("sky" versus "yuck")?
      gnicholas on HN
    • For what it’s worth, other languages than English may consider Y a vowel. French does, for instance. In my opinion this actually makes more sense.
      froddd on HN

Requests

  • Document scoring and vowel rules in How to Play

    From 3 comments
    • Yeah that really messed with me OOA and OAA shouldn't count the same imo, but at bare minimum if it's a feature not a bug it should be noted in the How to Play
      kaiken1987 on HN
    • Is 'Y' treated as a consonant or a vowel? Does it depend on the word ("sky" versus "yuck")?
      gnicholas on HN
    • IMHO almost every game I have ever played in which there is a vowel/consonant distinction begins immediately by telling you how Y is handled.
      stevage on HN
  • Show which letters are correct even without position

    From 1 comment
    • If the feedback is supposed to be helpful in narrowing down future guesses - I didn’t find it to be. If it’s just for scoring attempts then it’s working great. Would prefer to…
      pjm331 on HN
  • Accept slashes in place of spaces

    From 2 comments
    • I second this. I typed in the slashes and I had the correct answer, but it didn't accept it until I swapped out the slashes for spaces. I thought the rule was that we were…
      bonestamp2 on HN
    • It’s interesting how much the placement of vowels can help you imagine the shape of the word. One small point of feedback. It wasn’t clear that you were expected to enter a space…
      ericrallen on HN
  • Narrow categories to things everyone knows

    From 1 comment
    • Played it again. Got the transportation category again in 1 after another long and satisfying think. So that was really fun once again. I tried gathering info on the beatles…
      furyofantares on HN

Questions

  • Is Y treated as a vowel or consonant?

    From 1 comment
    • Is 'Y' treated as a consonant or a vowel? Does it depend on the word ("sky" versus "yuck")?
      gnicholas on HN
  • When does the new daily game release?

    From 1 comment
    • When does the new game release? It is almost noon in California and it is still on the previous days game
      MrZander on HN

Alternatives named

  • Wordle

    From 1 comment
    • Great idea, but I find gameplay to be a bit too tedious to be enjoyable. In this aspect Wordle got it right with the color cues, but here I don't think it's even possible to…
      eps on HN
  • Wordiply

    From 1 comment
    • people might also be interested in https://www.wordiply.com/
      zabzonk on HN
  • guessthe.game

    From 1 comment
    • I’ll have to add this to my list. currently do the Wordle, guessthe.game, guess the audio, guess the book, and waffle.
      jboogie77 on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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