Comment by paulhebert
2 months ago
I’m continuing to work on my daily puzzle game Tiled Words!
Forbes just wrote an article about it which was a fun surprise! [1]
It recently turned 6 months old which is wild to me. My wife and I have made a new puzzle every day for half a year! I wrote a blog post about this [2]
I recently released user logins. That went well and a lot of people are using them. I also let you filter the backlog by completed puzzles based on player feedback.
This week I’m going to start releasing player submitted puzzles and release my puzzle building tools. You can watch a video for a sneak peek of those tools. [3]
1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2026/05/02/bored-o...
2. https://paulmakeswebsites.com/writing/six-months-of-tiled-wo...
Thank you for Tiled Words which I play regularly! I introduced it to a couple of friends and now they compete every day for the best time to finish :-)
While you're here if I could make a small suggestion - the wording of the 'type of' questions was confusing to me until I got used to it; 'stop' is not really a type of 'watch' for example, so maybe you could find a different way to phrase those? Maybe there isn't a neater way to encapsulate the idea of 'is a prefix or suffix to', I don't know, but I found it difficult. Anyway kudos to you and your wife, it's a great game!
To me a "stop watch" is a type of watch, that's straight forward. But there are other clues that rely on cultural references I'm not familiar with - and that is, I think, inevitable in this type of game. We all have different backgrounds and there's no universal shared understanding that would make every clue the same difficulty for everyone.
I saw someone on here recently say they like to do the puzzle without looking at the clues, and I've started doing that on and off too, it changes the game in an interesting way.
> To me a "stop watch" is a type of watch
Right but the answer in this case is not "stop watch" - the answer is just "stop". Name a type of watch: "stop".
> I saw someone on here recently say they like to do the puzzle without looking at the clues
Yeah I do that sometimes too, especially finishing off can be easier that way
Hey, that’s awesome, thanks for playing and sharing it!
Great feedback on the “type of” clues. I’ll need to noodle on that and see if there’s a clearer way to express it. Maybe I should just be doing blanks… e.g. for “sun” it could be “___ dress, ___day, or ___ flower”
IME crosswords traditionally say "Word before...". Also thanks for the game, I love it and was excited you used one of my submitted clues a few months ago.
1 reply →
Yeah that would work! Or @progbits' suggestion of "goes with" works for me too.
In any case thanks for your consideration and thanks again for a great game!
1 reply →
How about "Goes with dress, day or flower"?
3 replies →
This has had me hooked for weeks! Really delightful game. :)
Thanks! Right Words is also fun!
Great game. I've been mulling over how to make scabble game with a twist, and I think you achieved this beautifully. Congratulations!
Thanks! I'd be interested to see what you build if you continue with that! I think there are lots of interesting ways to spin off of Scrabble
I never thought something would drag me out of HN before sleep. A nice break. Congrats and thank you.
Thanks for playing!
Fantastic, the scrabble lover in me will enjoy this.
Thanks! I played a lot of Scrabble growing up at my grandma's house so it's definitely an inspiration
I love Tiled Words, thanks for making it.
Thanks for playing!
This is really cool and addictive!
Thanks for checking it out!
If you enjoy it there’s a new puzzle every day and a backlog of over 200 puzzles free to play ;)
I've been playing this since it was first mentioned on HN a few puzzles in. It's a nice idea and pretty well executed.
I have, however, rejected making a user login. I recognise you're putting in time and energy to make something I'm just taking without payment, and it's your right to try to leverage it into something more - I wish you all the best in doing so - but asking for a user login as a gate to a feature you clearly don't need a user login for is enshittification.
Hey, thanks for the feedback. I didn't intend to pressure you to create an account. Sorry if I gave that impression.
I'm guessing you're referring to the ability to filter out completed puzzles from the archive? I added it for logged-in users first because it was simpler but I can extend that feature so it's available for everyone. (I'll need to add some alternate logic to pass your indexeddb levels to the server endpoint when fetching the archive. It's not complex. I just haven't prioritized it yet.)
I'll add this to my backlog and try to get to it after the player puzzles release.
Beyond that everything is available regardless of user account right now. I do plan to require an account to submit custom puzzles when that's released. (Mostly to make moderation easier. I may relax this down the line.)
EDIT: On further thought I realized it's also required to have an account to view and share your profile stats, though that could also work without an account with some changes.
Anything that requires server-side storage is a good reason to ask for an account, IMO. Theoretically you could assign a pseudo-account and store the id in client storage to have a shareable profile, but then you'll have to figure out how long you'll retain idle pseudo-accounts. (Assuming that completion detail is in client storage, at least for anonymous players).
A consequence of me being a freeloader too is that you don't have to change your plans to please me :-)
This is great :)
Thanks!