58 pointsby beltera year ago5 comments
  • ChrisArchitecta year ago
    Is there a daily NYT word game called Waffle? I don't think so?

    Wordle - NYT daily word game. https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html

    Waffle - some other game. https://wafflegame.net/

    • ilikepia year ago
      Weird...the NYT is referenced only in the Introduction, and never is it suggested that there is an affiliation between the New York Times and the game Waffle or its creator. They really only reference Wordle to note that Waffle has some very loose similarities, like the fact that they both use letter tiles and both use different colors to hint where those tiles go.

      Makes me wonder if the title of the article was generated by an LLM.

      EDIT: add context; fix typo

      • beardywa year ago
        And of course NYT only bought Wordle, so the likeness would be to Wordle, nothing to do with NYT at all.

        I like Waffle a lot, and thought about the best strategy for creating the grids, which is probably just a lot of trial and error.

        • jamesjessiana year ago
          Oh, glad to hear that you like it :) I created Waffle.

          Yes, it's sort of evolved over time really. Brute force with heuristics, I'd say. The word list is certainly important, along with a few other things that I like to think keep the level of quality above the inferior knock-offs.

          • beardywa year ago
            Thanks for reaching out. I have done some word games for my own amusement and surprised myself how quickly I can try and reject permutations even in JavaScript. It has felt like the opportunity for a clever algorithm has been robbed!
          • knmxa year ago
            [dead]
      • danga year ago
        Hmm strange! Well, we've de-NYT'd the title above.
    • jamesjessiana year ago
      Yes, I can confirm (as the creator) that it is not a NYT game. I wanted to create something as simple as Wordle, but that didn't rely on luck. I presume that the author put NYT in the title to catch attention. I can't think why else.
    • russellbeattiea year ago
      > "This note explores some mathematics associated with the word game Waffle, which has similar rules to Wordle."

      I was about to point out the same thing. The title should read "NYT-like."

    • a year ago
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  • oliwarya year ago
    Interesting! I think there is a lot of math going on in these kind of games. I have noticed interesting patterns in my game https://videopuzzle.org/ as well.

    In daily mode, everyone gets a video scrambled into 4x4 pieces, in the same way, and needs to unscramble it. The operations available to unscramble a video are swapping a tile, and shifting the entire board. The lowest score every day is usually 12-14, but sometimes much lower.

    Before I introduced the shifting function, surprisingly, every puzzle could only be solved in an either even or odd number of moves. Some days, all solutions would be 12-14-16 etc, while other days only 13-15-17 were possible. The arrows have changed this, as you can sometimes shave another move off if you use it smartly.

  • hackernja year ago
    I just found the following version of the Waffle game: https://wordle-nyt.org/waffle

    The host name includes “nyt”, but the web page doesn’t seem to be owned by the New York Times.

    • jamesjessiana year ago
      No, it's just a knock-off, attempting to pass off as something affiliated with NYT. I like to think our original game at wafflegame.net is still the superior choice!
  • beltera year ago
    • realaleris149a year ago
      Or https://wafflegame.net which looks a bit more polished.
      • jamesjessiana year ago
        Yes, I agree :)

        Thank you. I try to keep it neat and tidy, despite the ads. I spent more time on the drag and drop aesthetics than anything else before I first released it. The little things really do matter, after all.

  • killingtime74a year ago
    Interesting game where you may not know the word but can solve it by using logic regarding the swaps.