Show HN: Word Slicer
wordslicer.comHi. I created a small word game and would love someone to give it a try and let me know what you think. Thanks!
Hi. I created a small word game and would love someone to give it a try and let me know what you think. Thanks!
- I like how the alphabetical order of missing words acts as a small hint
- The difficulty felt challenging yet doable
- The UI looks polished
- I agree with others that the word-forming UX could be improved; maybe by typing letters, or maybe by more generous drag behavior
Yeah, it's a bit clunky. Maybe plays better on mobile?
It works best on mobile as a PWA. I am considering moving to a native Android and iOS app - would that make sense?
When the vertical bar is very short, like two or three letters only, it is hard to find space to tap and drag the bar up or down. A more generous vertical tap-and-drag region, or handles, or up/down arrows, would be nice on a phone.
I like that thought. I will look into extending the touch area.
The touch/scroll area should be the full columns height. This allows for minimal hand movement across the screen
Good point, I will work on getting that implemented.
The vertical bars don't seem to be draggable on desktop, took me a while to figure out you have to click on letters.
You are right and I will look into improving that as around 38% of todays visitors are using desktops.
That was fun. Wasn't able to get the hints, it just said "reveal word". But I got most of them. Be aware that swiping can trigger page back on phone browsers
Oh. Good catch about the swiping. I wonder if it is possible, or even desireable, to override the browser swipe behavior.
Never override default UI behavior.
Not never. I think games are an exception.
but best to avoid.
Share link is a redirect to sms: URL
I don't have a handler for that (on desktop) and I wasn't expecting it anyway, I'd want a copy-to-clipboard type of action
Just shared the website link instead, hope you get some traction
Thanks for pointing that out and good idea to fallback to copy to clipboard. Thanks for sharing :-)
Fun game concept!
Some improvements I would request:
* An option to disable the "success" sound in the settings. It is quite loud.
* There is no way for me to go back and see what my time was once I left the page. I only have the option to replay the game.
On the second point, then all of your games results are stored if you have signed up for an account. You find it under your profile: "Game Activity"
Thanks for the feedback. Finally weekend, so now I have time to look into the feedback. I have added a "Mute sound effects" configuration. Enjoy :-)
I agree - I will add a mute/unmute option. Right now the results are only shown for registered players. Given that most people do not sign up, then I think it would make sense to make a scoreboard for all players.
During yesterday Word Slicer got quite good traffic due to getting on the first page of Hacker News again. The post got back on the first page with it hit 50 points.
I am tracking two goals: "Start game" and "Complete Game". This is what I got yesterday:
Goal: Start game Returning visitors conversion rate is 10.98% , New visitors conversion rate is 6.79%
Goal: Complete game: Returning visitors conversion rate is 8.54% , New visitors conversion rate is 4.29%
Total disaster or quite ok? Let me know what you think. Thanks!
Very cool. Took me 2:38 and felt fun. Nice ergonomics.
Note the z-index of the close X button on the results page was too low. It hides partly behind the card inner frame.
Good catch. Thanks
I want to be able to type instead of clicking on letters
Good point. How would you want to control it?
You would just start typing, and it would try and select each letter in turn, or show a little blip if you didn't have that character available
That makes sense, thanks for the idea.
arrow keys & highlight
Also a good idea :-) Thanks!
More request/advice f you're still reading. On mobile:
- The UI takes like only 25% of the screen. Enlarge it at least 3x.
- Tried to flip to landscape to see if it'll at least make it slightly bigger, nope.
I am always reading :-) and thanks for taking the time to give feedback!
I agree that I have a challenge with real estate use on mobile and that I have to find a way to improve it.
What device are you using?
No worries on upvote, you didn't need to. Android, samsung browser.
Thanks. What is the screen size?
galaxy note 10
Almost the same here - Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Lite.
Very good point about the accessibility perspective regarding font size and contrast. I will also look into if the font should be replaced with a more readable one.
Do you also think that the letters and sliders are too small on the phone?
iPhone 15 Pro here and for me (old, eyesight finally starting to give up) they are a bit small and the contrast low - difficult to distinguish between the F and P in the middle channel of today's puzzle.
Could maybe do with the vertical bars being about 50% bigger and the letters scaled a bit more than that. Plus a high contrast option (white channels with black letters with white letters in the middle bit? Something like that anyway.)
BTW - sorry for not upvoting your comments until now. I am new to HC
Cool!
Minor feedback, when I went to sign up, I got "Secure sign-up code is on it's way" Seems to be some escaping issue.
Fixed :-)
Thanks. I will fix that.
It did not register "SIR" as a word.
https://imgur.com/a/EkuQ2be
The sliders were "TQSF", "KWRI", "RNIV". I found FIN, FIR, SIN, TIN. It rejected SIR.
It was probably looking for "SKI". I think it could benefit from having two dictionaries - one with common words to draw answers from and one with _everything_ to exclude possibilities. (So, generate sliders which allow for `n` words to be created from the small dictionary but zero additional words from the large dictionary.)
Hi. I worked quite a lot on the dictionary part when designing the game. What I came up with was to only use common nouns, like "river," verbs, like "dance," or adjectives, like "bright." Also all words are in their base or dictionary forms, like "happy" instead of "happier".
I am saying I thought this was a "make 5 valid words" game, and not a "guess a specific set of 5 words" game.
This ambiguity could have been avoided if the solutions were unique.
You are right. Thanks for the feedback.
Can we reject all cookies? I only see the option to reject optional cookies
I will look into that.
Great game, btw. I'm hooked!
I am so glad to hear that
Nice! Lots of fun, I'll be coming back. Is it a new game each day?
Great to hear. There is a Daily Slicer every day, and then there are "free to play" games that you can play as many as you want :-) Three levels of difficulty for the "free plays": 3, 4 and 5 letters.
I thought the author did a great job on the sound design here.
Thank you very much. One of the things I am considering is how to use the screen real estate better. Right now I prefer the experience when the game is installed on the home screen of the phone as a progressive web app. Perhaps the better option is to develop an iOS and Android app. Any thoughts on that?
Thanks. I will add a mute option in case it becomes annoying or if you just enjoy silence and want to focus on solving the Daily Slicer.
Very comfortable and simple UI
Thanks. Sometimes I wonder if it is too clean and should be made more “Candy Crush” style
good game, I'm terrible at it
Glad you liked it. When you get a hang of it, then it becomes a bit easier. I have made experiments to figure out to make it not too easy and not too hard - not sure if I succeeded :-)
Puzzmo Typeshift is a similar game: https://www.puzzmo.com/play/typeshift/
Thanks for the link. This is the first time I have seen something similar. It is so hard to come up with new unique ideas.
This looks as fun as the game you replied to but the mobile usability is nowhere near as good. Smaller letters, the scroll is not as satisfying (maybe because it does not feel anywhere as accurate)
Still both are very fun games, also you don't need to have a novel idea for it to be a worthwhile idea.
I agree on the mobile experience in a browser is not too good. As a PWA it is much better. I am considering building a mobile app, but want to see if people like the game before I put in the effort :-)
Wordle wasn't original and that seems to have done well.
That is right. Hacker News is driving a lot of people to Word Slicer the last couple of days. Now the real test is if people are coming back again. Fingers crossed.