Show HN: I made a minimalist puzzle game about linking nodes in graphs
playlinkr.netI’ve played a lot of Flow. I enjoyed the three puzzles for today. I don’t think I would come back every day to do it though. But I rarely play Wordle, so maybe I’m not the right audience.
My only feedback is to think more about why Wordle is popular. I think it’s because it’s the right level of difficulty for most people and it has the social element of comparing the number of guesses it took you with your friends. If you solved the Wordle of the day in 2 guesses and it took your friends 4, you have bragging rights. But in your game, it’s a bit messier with how to compare your score with your friends. Comparing times is ok (maybe not as good as # of guesses), but it’s really hard to compare with your friends if there are 3 separate puzzles each day. I think you might get more traction if you had a single, harder puzzle to solve each day.
It’s also possible to lose in Wordle, but not possible in your game. Maybe you could add a Give Up button or Hint button if someone gets stuck. I was able to solve all 3 puzzles, but I could imagine someone getting stuck and getting frustrated and never coming back after that. My idea for the hint button is it would connect a pair of nodes for you.
Thanks a lot for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed the today's three puzzles. The puzzles themselves are pretty diverse day-to-day, so feel free to check back if you fancy something a bit different.
I agree that this is a very different type of game than Wordle, and I probably shouldn't have invited comparison by comparing them myself in my above comment. You make great points, and I have struggled a bit with the best way to "score" the game. Time seemed easiest, but I thought a bit about number of clicks as well.
LINKR does have a hint button, in the top right like a plus symbol. It will show you connections that you have correct. But using the hint button won't increment your score in your stats page.
There is also the "compare" button on the stats screen to show you the daily averages for each puzzle - I'd be interested in your feedback on that? Especially if you didn't interact with it, maybe its too subtle and I should make it larger.
I did use the compare button to compare my times to the average times for those puzzles.
My times were all above the average times, which was cool. But, at least with Wordle, I think it spread because people were excited about beating their friends, not a global average.
I know you said your game is different from Wordle, but you did copy the aspect where it’s the exact same game for everyone each day, and once you complete the puzzle(s) of the day, you’re fine for the day.
Initially this sounds like a weird limitation (only one puzzle per day?) but it works because it enables you to say to people “did you figure out the Wordle today?” And to be talking about the same thing. You probably already knew this, but I’d think about how this does or doesn’t apply to your game and what it’s getting you.
The game is meant to be in the style of WORDLE - three daily linking puzzles to challenge the user (like those in Numberlink or Flow Free). The twist is that the puzzles here can be set in a lot more complicated geometries, instead of just grids.
Each daily puzzle should take a few minutes to solve, but some days can be more challenging than others. I'd appreciate any feedback: tutorial, aesthetics, responsiveness... anything you'd care to mention.
This is just like Flow game on mobile. Your implementation works good, I'd recommend locking the drag to the axis direction, feels weird that it moves with cursor.
Thanks, yeah Flow is what inspired me. The difference is that the geometries in this are much more varied than in Flow. What do you think?
I tried locking the drag to move along the arcs, but it felt a bit weird to have the interactions moving differently to the cursor.
Pretty cool! Minor UX issue: on mobile the nodes are very close to edge of screen, so a few times I tried swiping from edge and it activated "back" action in Chrome. Maybe some padding on left and right edges would solve problem.
Thanks, you can pinch to zoom if that helps? I should probably document that feature somewhere...
I'll take a look at adjusting the padding. What device are you using it on btw?
Newer Pixel phone, Android Chrome.
OK I'll play around with emulating that on my end, thanks.