I made a little word game for my wife to play when she has difficulty sleeping, and a few friends enjoyed it -- so I thought I would share. No angle here, not trying to sell anything. Just hoping...
I made a little word game for my wife to play when she has difficulty sleeping, and a few friends enjoyed it -- so I thought I would share. No angle here, not trying to sell anything. Just hoping to provide a few moments of distraction.
Oh this is fun, thank you for sharing! :) So can I confirm that it's two taps to rotate: first to highlight a pivot node, then tap again to rotate right? Is it possible to play previous days?
Oh this is fun, thank you for sharing! :)
So can I confirm that it's two taps to rotate: first to highlight a pivot node, then tap again to rotate right? Is it possible to play previous days?
Just circling back, had some time this morning so I implemented (roughly) an archive of past games for the last few days. Take a look when you get a chance (and thanks again!).
Just circling back, had some time this morning so I implemented (roughly) an archive of past games for the last few days. Take a look when you get a chance (and thanks again!).
I know lots of folks have lots of suggestions and I just want to share I really appreciate single daily puzzles that I can check in and out of or keep a streak as I prefer. It's nice to just have...
I know lots of folks have lots of suggestions and I just want to share I really appreciate single daily puzzles that I can check in and out of or keep a streak as I prefer. It's nice to just have a simple thing. So thanks for that!
Thanks, glad you're enjoying it -- and spotted you on the leaderboard! ;)
Only bug i encountered was of i tried to re-open the help in the bottom right, it flashed open and immediately closed. Pressing and holding (I'm on mobile) kept it open. I'm using Firefox 147.0.2 on Android 15.
Thanks, glad you're enjoying it -- and spotted you on the leaderboard! ;)
Lovely little game. I'm having a strange hiccup though - any Node I tap, gets rotated twice. I cannot only rotate around a Node once. Also, I cannot click on the readme. I'm experiencing these...
Lovely little game. I'm having a strange hiccup though - any Node I tap, gets rotated twice. I cannot only rotate around a Node once.
Also, I cannot click on the readme.
I'm experiencing these issues on mobile Firefox browser on a fully-updated Google Pixel 8, as well as on the desktop Chrome browser on a Windows 11 laptop.
Ooh! Same! Can confirm single swap previously worked for me and now it's two moves per touch. Oops sorry my archive suggestion might have broken something
Ooh! Same! Can confirm single swap previously worked for me and now it's two moves per touch.
Oops sorry my archive suggestion might have broken something
Ah, that's what the problem is for me, then! I'm playing on Chrome on desktop, and clicking on any of the nodes does a diagonal swap, making it impossible for me to place the letter N in the first...
Ah, that's what the problem is for me, then! I'm playing on Chrome on desktop, and clicking on any of the nodes does a diagonal swap, making it impossible for me to place the letter N in the first slot since the letters are only moving like chess bishops.
This is a neat game. That's for sharing! I don't see how this would help someone sleep, but if it works for your wife, great! No big deal, but if you're looking for feedback, I found a few minor...
This is a neat game. That's for sharing! I don't see how this would help someone sleep, but if it works for your wife, great!
No big deal, but if you're looking for feedback, I found a few minor bugs/annoyances:
The close button for the "Congrats" screen overlaps significantly with the "How it works" button, making it difficult to click. Escape also doesn't close the Congrats screen (though that's maybe more of a feature request than a bug).
Archived puzzles don't tell you when you've completed them. Obviously I know when it's solved, but it doesn't feel "finished".
In case it matters for these issues, I'm using Firefox on Win 11.
Working on the overlap bug, happens on Safari on iOS as well. Thanks for the +1! The archived puzzle issue is a great point, missed that. Will resolve. Thanks again. :)
Working on the overlap bug, happens on Safari on iOS as well. Thanks for the +1! The archived puzzle issue is a great point, missed that. Will resolve. Thanks again. :)
Same. I'm driving myself crazy trying to figure it out. It takes no less than two moves to get the O and P into position, leaving 4 moves total to get D and R. Looking at it further, I've...
Same. I'm driving myself crazy trying to figure it out. It takes no less than two moves to get the O and P into position, leaving 4 moves total to get D and R.
Looking at it further, I've confirmed it is a bug. I went through every possible move to get the D and R into position, and there isn't a single one that takes less than five moves. I wish I had known this before spending 1,878 moves testing it. The site didn't even let me submit that score...
Haven't looked at the code or tried to mess with the results myself, but I feel like submitting a moveset for verification instead of a count would probably work a bit better. The current day has...
Haven't looked at the code or tried to mess with the results myself, but I feel like submitting a moveset for verification instead of a count would probably work a bit better. The current day has some 3 and 4 move submissions, when the absolute lower bound based solely on Manhattan distance is 5.
Okay folks, I have taken some time and substantially overhauled ... just about everything about PIVOT. It has a domain now (https://pivotthegame.com) but the old URL will continue to work -- so no...
Okay folks, I have taken some time and substantially overhauled ... just about everything about PIVOT. It has a domain now (https://pivotthegame.com) but the old URL will continue to work -- so no worries. When you complete a puzzle, starting from now, you'll have the option to generate a small video of your solution that you can then share (or prove to your friends you really did it). Beta testers welcome!
Hullo... Since it seems you're leaning into this game and working on it a little more I have a suggestion that suits me, but might not be what you are aiming for so do with it whatever you want....
Hullo...
Since it seems you're leaning into this game and working on it a little more I have a suggestion that suits me, but might not be what you are aiming for so do with it whatever you want.
In my opinion the puzzle holds its own weight, it's a good, interesting and challenging puzzle all by itself. The meta game is mostly distracting until I've solved todays game but then it serves as a good way to want me to try again and even come back tomorrow.
What I mean is that I think that if it was up to me I would have only todays game showing without any stats at first.
And then only show stats about my streak, comparisons to others and the optimal solution after I've solved todays puzzle.
[Edit:] I'm sorry, I keep forgetting: this is a good puzzle and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Reminds me of old school pen & paper puzzles from pop science magazines, but with just a little interactive juice sprinkled on top.
Thanks so much for both the kind words and the feedback! I am mentally taking note of how many people enjoy seeing the "finish line" in front of them and how many would rather play in a vacuum. My...
Thanks so much for both the kind words and the feedback! I am mentally taking note of how many people enjoy seeing the "finish line" in front of them and how many would rather play in a vacuum. My first foray into a change might be to just provide a little checkbox that takes that all away until you're done. Early on I think if you're feeling frustrated, it might be beneficial (for some) to see that someone is playing the game and it is solvable. Rather than thinking, am I spinning my wheels trying to play an abandoned game here that doesn't even have a solution?
The solve video is really cool, great addition! It worked perfectly for me. I'd share it here, but don't want to spoil today's puzzle for others. This is minor, but you may want to limit the input...
The solve video is really cool, great addition! It worked perfectly for me. I'd share it here, but don't want to spoil today's puzzle for others.
This is minor, but you may want to limit the input length of leaderboard names. There is no feedback that you're exceeding the limit until you see your beautiful name chopped off on the board.
Tried the video again, worked for me now but i would definitely put some instant "generating" feedback so people don't double click. Or maybe prevent double tapping as it appears as if nothing is...
Tried the video again, worked for me now but i would definitely put some instant "generating" feedback so people don't double click. Or maybe prevent double tapping as it appears as if nothing is happening.
Very curious to hear what you used to create this (if you don't mind sharing). Looks very slick.
Thanks for these tips and beta testing efforts! I've opted to go with a separate page where you can share either a) the page or b) the video itself. I'm going to do a writeup on my process soon -...
Thanks for these tips and beta testing efforts! I've opted to go with a separate page where you can share either a) the page or b) the video itself. I'm going to do a writeup on my process soon - have quite a few people asking for deets! :)
Maybe you should not show the leader board until after the user finishes their solution. Then charge $0.10 for each retry (kidding about the last part, maybe).
Maybe you should not show the leader board until after the user finishes their solution.
Then charge $0.10 for each retry (kidding about the last part, maybe).
I like that idea, less stress. I would implement the latter if there was an easy way to confirm you had made, say, a $0.10 donation to a charity or something.
I like that idea, less stress. I would implement the latter if there was an easy way to confirm you had made, say, a $0.10 donation to a charity or something.
The charity idea is really interesting. Maybe you could make it humble-bundle style, where users set their price split between platform and charity, and "buy coins" for retries.
The charity idea is really interesting. Maybe you could make it humble-bundle style, where users set their price split between platform and charity, and "buy coins" for retries.
Very cool, neat concept! I'd love to be able to replay a day once I'd completed it - my experience went: solve today, look at the leaderboard, see significantly lower moves than I got, immediate...
Very cool, neat concept! I'd love to be able to replay a day once I'd completed it - my experience went: solve today, look at the leaderboard, see significantly lower moves than I got, immediate desire try and find a better solution. One thing that would get in the way of that is the share modal, whichI had to fight to get to stuff like the leaderboard or your new archive. It would be good if there were a way to click off the share modal without going through the system share dialogue, even if that were a small X in the corner or something. Small note on the archived puzzles: it asked for my name for the leaderboard but didn't let me enter it.
Fun! Good job! My only note is that seeing the list on the right, knowing it can be solved in 3 moves put me on a single-track to solve it in 3 moves (which I did), and if I couldn't figure it...
Fun! Good job! My only note is that seeing the list on the right, knowing it can be solved in 3 moves put me on a single-track to solve it in 3 moves (which I did), and if I couldn't figure it out, I probably would not bother doing it in more moves. I'd feel anything over 3 means I am dumber than a bunch of people so I would lose motivation. Sorry if it's an overly-specific comment.
No I appreciate it. I'm mentally keep tabs on how often I hear that the leaderboard is a pro or a con -- or if it has to be hidden. I'm on the fence about it.
No I appreciate it. I'm mentally keep tabs on how often I hear that the leaderboard is a pro or a con -- or if it has to be hidden. I'm on the fence about it.
Hey FYI, it looks like the board has reset for the new day but the word is still NODE. This seems like a bug since the board doesn't have a N or an E on it right now.
Hey FYI, it looks like the board has reset for the new day but the word is still NODE.
This seems like a bug since the board doesn't have a N or an E on it right now.
I will stand with the BDFL on this... It's a nice way to increase/decrease difficulty and most importantly to anti-incentivise streaking as for me it will get either too boring on Monday or too...
It's a nice way to increase/decrease difficulty and most importantly to anti-incentivise streaking as for me it will get either too boring on Monday or too hard on Sunday (adjust according yo the week you're using).
I realise I forgot: thanks for sharing this little fun project with us!
"Video" sharing option is live, I opted to go with a landing page rather than just throwing a .MP4 at you. More mobile friendly, less ... geeky? Nerdy? Let me know what you think when you think...
"Video" sharing option is live, I opted to go with a landing page rather than just throwing a .MP4 at you. More mobile friendly, less ... geeky? Nerdy? Let me know what you think when you think it. Thanks everyone!
Wahahaha NICE thank you Leahey for making this fun game even better. So many new features! From a game programming perspective, how are puzzle games like this made? Does one start with a kind of...
Wahahaha NICE thank you Leahey for making this fun game even better. So many new features!
From a game programming perspective, how are puzzle games like this made? Does one start with a kind of graph solver for best / shortest path, and then you can throw letters at it as the goal?
No worries, so glad you're enjoying (and winning!). The puzzle starts with the answer and then applies a bunch of random clockwise rotations to scramble the grid. The result is what the player...
No worries, so glad you're enjoying (and winning!). The puzzle starts with the answer and then applies a bunch of random clockwise rotations to scramble the grid. The result is what the player sees. It's a breadth-first search and it explores every reachable configuration using inverse moves, and then scales the difficulty across the week. So it's kind of like taking a Rubik's cube, scrambling it, checking to see how hard it would be to solve, and doing it again until you have a bunch of maps. Then rolling them out for the proper day.
Pick today's word --> build the solved grid --> BFS to get distance table --> generate a slew of scrambles --> pick one at the right difficulty for the day --> lock it. I'm mapping it out more than a day at a time now (necessarily), in order to properly scale it and kind of tune in the difficulty if we hit a day where people revolt. :)
Nice, thanks for sharing how it works behind the scenes :D :3 we'll find out tomorrow if the replay link being easy to guess makes it tempting for me to cheat.
Nice, thanks for sharing how it works behind the scenes :D
:3 we'll find out tomorrow if the replay link being easy to guess makes it tempting for me to cheat.
Haha, I have been thinking about how best to balance that aspect. I feel like it's a fun game, intended to be as competitive as people want it to be. So locking it down probably doesn't make that...
Haha, I have been thinking about how best to balance that aspect. I feel like it's a fun game, intended to be as competitive as people want it to be. So locking it down probably doesn't make that much sense? Probably? Maybe? I think?
I'm guessing that locking it down is not worth it. Unless you're interested in playing the game of building a perfect system that noone can find any holes in. It can be a fun game even from your...
I'm guessing that locking it down is not worth it.
Unless you're interested in playing the game of building a perfect system that noone can find any holes in. It can be a fun game even from your side, and you'd make some people happy (who play on the other side).
Maybe you could do custom leaderboards instead. So groups of people (friend groups, online communities, etc) can compete within the group. And then you just treat the global leaderboard as a special case?
I like that idea a lot -- I have put it on the list! The constraining factor for a lot of things is I really don't want to do the account creation thing. I don't want people having to provide...
I like that idea a lot -- I have put it on the list! The constraining factor for a lot of things is I really don't want to do the account creation thing. I don't want people having to provide email addresses (or anything else) for reset purposes and worrying about their privacy. So everything has to be very thinly authenticated.
Capabilities are a thing... Like the "share" link used in many modern online platforms. This negates the need to have accounts, etc. You "only" need a way to create valid links for people to share...
Capabilities are a thing... Like the "share" link used in many modern online platforms.
This negates the need to have accounts, etc. You "only" need a way to create valid links for people to share (you don't even need to have a UI for deletion just a a way to delete links, and their associated data, that haven't been visited in X time)
Baby steps, trying first the "Challenge a Friend" option when you complete a game. If they take you up on the offer, you'll both be presented with a URL like this:...
'>..< Aww missed the better solution today, and working it out took a WHILE but I managed to get to 9 eventually: edit: link of 16 moves Great fun :) Looking forward to doing better tomorrow.
'>..< Aww missed the better solution today, and working it out took a WHILE but I managed to get to 9 eventually:
My wife spotted this too but couldn't recreate, it's the switching of speeds. Thank you!!! Edit: Should be fixed, was a minor (stupid) mistake on my part.
My wife spotted this too but couldn't recreate, it's the switching of speeds. Thank you!!!
Edit: Should be fixed, was a minor (stupid) mistake on my part.
I second the suggestion to allow re-doing puzzles... Getting "perfect" scores is more satisfying than just solving it in my opinion. There might be a bug with entering an empty name (or it could...
I second the suggestion to allow re-doing puzzles... Getting "perfect" scores is more satisfying than just solving it in my opinion.
There might be a bug with entering an empty name (or it could be my restrictive use of JS, choice of browser and OS)
Yes, that would be a perfect solution for me personally :) There is a bug with selecting old dates, where I'm able to select any date but rather than get informed about the archive not going that...
Yes, that would be a perfect solution for me personally :)
There is a bug with selecting old dates, where I'm able to select any date but rather than get informed about the archive not going that far, it just picks the "roll" puzzle, which I assume is the first one.
Cool game! It might also be fun to have a challenge mode where it doesn't tell you the word. Or there could be multiple words and points based on how many you find with the least moves!
Cool game! It might also be fun to have a challenge mode where it doesn't tell you the word.
Or there could be multiple words and points based on how many you find with the least moves!
I like that idea. I've been trying to think of what could be a top-tier reward. Something like if you play on "SICKO MODE" where you don't know the word, and get it in the fewest number of moves,...
I like that idea. I've been trying to think of what could be a top-tier reward. Something like if you play on "SICKO MODE" where you don't know the word, and get it in the fewest number of moves, you can ... choose tomorrow's word? I don't know. I had initially thought it would be fun to let that user post a scrolling message at the top of the game, but quickly realized with even a relatively small n of users, we could have problems.
I love this, thank you for sharing it! Only bug i encountered was of i tried to re-open the help in the bottom right, it flashed open and immediately closed. Pressing and holding (I'm on mobile)...
I love this, thank you for sharing it!
Only bug i encountered was of i tried to re-open the help in the bottom right, it flashed open and immediately closed. Pressing and holding (I'm on mobile) kept it open. I'm using Firefox 147.0.2 on Android 15.
Today "nuck" is all over the leaderboard. I don't care about "cheating" or name-sharing, I'm mentioning it because if there is a bug you might want to look into it.
Today "nuck" is all over the leaderboard.
I don't care about "cheating" or name-sharing, I'm mentioning it because if there is a bug you might want to look into it.
Many thanks, not sure how to handle multiple entries with the same name at the moment -- I don't want to make it too cumbersome for people to submit their names and can imagine there might be more...
Many thanks, not sure how to handle multiple entries with the same name at the moment -- I don't want to make it too cumbersome for people to submit their names and can imagine there might be more than one "Jeff" for ex. Thinking it through though, its on my radar!
Cool game. Fun but i found the tap radius a bit small for the circles. I'm curious what you used for the share image (some javascript library?). It works well. I have a similar use case for it in...
Cool game. Fun but i found the tap radius a bit small for the circles. I'm curious what you used for the share image (some javascript library?). It works well. I have a similar use case for it in one of my games.
The generate video button kept crashing and I never got that to work. It also took 3-4 tries to even get it to click and show "generating video". But then it crashed the browser (Chrome, Android 16). Also curious how that should work 🙂
Edit: tried the video again and waited without tapping again and it worked.
I fixed the video issue by placing it on a separate landing page. The share image of the grid doesn't make use of a library, it's all built-in browser canvas. The game renders the share image to...
I fixed the video issue by placing it on a separate landing page. The share image of the grid doesn't make use of a library, it's all built-in browser canvas. The game renders the share image to an offscreen canvas, draws in the grid/text/etc. and then converts it to a blob. So, tl;dr: Canvas 2D API.
Made a little Custom Game feature that will allow you to play/practice outside of the daily challenge. Beta testers appreciated! https://pivotthegame.com/custom/
Made a little Custom Game feature that will allow you to play/practice outside of the daily challenge. Beta testers appreciated!
I made a little word game for my wife to play when she has difficulty sleeping, and a few friends enjoyed it -- so I thought I would share. No angle here, not trying to sell anything. Just hoping to provide a few moments of distraction.
Oh this is fun, thank you for sharing! :)
So can I confirm that it's two taps to rotate: first to highlight a pivot node, then tap again to rotate right? Is it possible to play previous days?
Just circling back, had some time this morning so I implemented (roughly) an archive of past games for the last few days. Take a look when you get a chance (and thanks again!).
Found the archive thank you :D
But now it's doing two moves per tap (sorry!)
Oh no! On it! What is that happening on, if you don't mind my asking? Chrome?
You fixed it and then some. I LOVE the new spin animation and leaderboard as well as re-do's. Fantastic and thank you again for sharing
Yay! Thanks for the feedback and encouragement! :)
Yep, thats how it works! Previous day/archive access is a great idea -- I'll work on that next! Thanks for the feedback and idea. :)
I know lots of folks have lots of suggestions and I just want to share I really appreciate single daily puzzles that I can check in and out of or keep a streak as I prefer. It's nice to just have a simple thing. So thanks for that!
Thanks, glad you're enjoying it -- and spotted you on the leaderboard! ;)
Your replies got crossed a bit! But yw :)
Looks like tildes has a bug! I was replying from the "Unread Comments" screen!
Add my name to the pile of people that think this is awesome!
Also, this is such a thoughtful gift for your wife. It’s genuinely heartwarming. ❤️
<3
Lovely little game. I'm having a strange hiccup though - any Node I tap, gets rotated twice. I cannot only rotate around a Node once.
Also, I cannot click on the readme.
I'm experiencing these issues on mobile Firefox browser on a fully-updated Google Pixel 8, as well as on the desktop Chrome browser on a Windows 11 laptop.
Ooh! Same! Can confirm single swap previously worked for me and now it's two moves per touch.
Oops sorry my archive suggestion might have broken something
Ah, that's what the problem is for me, then! I'm playing on Chrome on desktop, and clicking on any of the nodes does a diagonal swap, making it impossible for me to place the letter N in the first slot since the letters are only moving like chess bishops.
Thank you! Let me know if the issue is resolved (when you have time, and assuming you have continuing interest). Apologies for the bugginess.
This is a neat game. That's for sharing! I don't see how this would help someone sleep, but if it works for your wife, great!
No big deal, but if you're looking for feedback, I found a few minor bugs/annoyances:
In case it matters for these issues, I'm using Firefox on Win 11.
Working on the overlap bug, happens on Safari on iOS as well. Thanks for the +1! The archived puzzle issue is a great point, missed that. Will resolve. Thanks again. :)
ok Feb 5 - DROP - i need to know how you did it in SIX moves
I know at least one of you're on here, raaaa, rich, and tildes_008 :)
Same. I'm driving myself crazy trying to figure it out. It takes no less than two moves to get the O and P into position, leaving 4 moves total to get D and R.
Looking at it further, I've confirmed it is a bug. I went through every possible move to get the D and R into position, and there isn't a single one that takes less than five moves. I wish I had known this before spending 1,878 moves testing it. The site didn't even let me submit that score...
So I'm implementing a log for the first place folks where I'll be able to see the moves they used and confirm the solution - starting tomorrow.
Haven't looked at the code or tried to mess with the results myself, but I feel like submitting a moveset for verification instead of a count would probably work a bit better. The current day has some 3 and 4 move submissions, when the absolute lower bound based solely on Manhattan distance is 5.
I'm learning about this on the fly and have arrived at your same conclusion. Thanks for the +1! :)
Looking into this — scandalous if true!
Okay folks, I have taken some time and substantially overhauled ... just about everything about PIVOT. It has a domain now (https://pivotthegame.com) but the old URL will continue to work -- so no worries. When you complete a puzzle, starting from now, you'll have the option to generate a small video of your solution that you can then share (or prove to your friends you really did it). Beta testers welcome!
Hullo...
Since it seems you're leaning into this game and working on it a little more I have a suggestion that suits me, but might not be what you are aiming for so do with it whatever you want.
In my opinion the puzzle holds its own weight, it's a good, interesting and challenging puzzle all by itself. The meta game is mostly distracting until I've solved todays game but then it serves as a good way to want me to try again and even come back tomorrow.
What I mean is that I think that if it was up to me I would have only todays game showing without any stats at first.
And then only show stats about my streak, comparisons to others and the optimal solution after I've solved todays puzzle.
[Edit:] I'm sorry, I keep forgetting: this is a good puzzle and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Reminds me of old school pen & paper puzzles from pop science magazines, but with just a little interactive juice sprinkled on top.
Thanks so much for both the kind words and the feedback! I am mentally taking note of how many people enjoy seeing the "finish line" in front of them and how many would rather play in a vacuum. My first foray into a change might be to just provide a little checkbox that takes that all away until you're done. Early on I think if you're feeling frustrated, it might be beneficial (for some) to see that someone is playing the game and it is solvable. Rather than thinking, am I spinning my wheels trying to play an abandoned game here that doesn't even have a solution?
The solve video is really cool, great addition! It worked perfectly for me. I'd share it here, but don't want to spoil today's puzzle for others.
This is minor, but you may want to limit the input length of leaderboard names. There is no feedback that you're exceeding the limit until you see your beautiful name chopped off on the board.
Thank you! I made the change you suggested. Thank you for beta testing my beautiful disaster.
Tried the video again, worked for me now but i would definitely put some instant "generating" feedback so people don't double click. Or maybe prevent double tapping as it appears as if nothing is happening.
Very curious to hear what you used to create this (if you don't mind sharing). Looks very slick.
Thanks for these tips and beta testing efforts! I've opted to go with a separate page where you can share either a) the page or b) the video itself. I'm going to do a writeup on my process soon - have quite a few people asking for deets! :)
Simple. Clever. Interesting. It's perfect. But trying to figure out how to do today's in four moves is gonna drive me crazy.
Ha! Maybe not the best for getting back to sleep then, eh?
Maybe you should not show the leader board until after the user finishes their solution.
Then charge $0.10 for each retry (kidding about the last part, maybe).
I like that idea, less stress. I would implement the latter if there was an easy way to confirm you had made, say, a $0.10 donation to a charity or something.
The charity idea is really interesting. Maybe you could make it humble-bundle style, where users set their price split between platform and charity, and "buy coins" for retries.
This is fun! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the kind words, glad you're enjoying. :)
Fun! There's also something cool about seeing a bunch of Tildes names in a different context but all still together. I like it.
I know what you mean! But hopefully we're not crowding out Leahey's original target friends and family crowd :P
Very cool, neat concept! I'd love to be able to replay a day once I'd completed it - my experience went: solve today, look at the leaderboard, see significantly lower moves than I got, immediate desire try and find a better solution. One thing that would get in the way of that is the share modal, whichI had to fight to get to stuff like the leaderboard or your new archive. It would be good if there were a way to click off the share modal without going through the system share dialogue, even if that were a small X in the corner or something. Small note on the archived puzzles: it asked for my name for the leaderboard but didn't let me enter it.
This is so helpful, thank you!
Fun! Good job! My only note is that seeing the list on the right, knowing it can be solved in 3 moves put me on a single-track to solve it in 3 moves (which I did), and if I couldn't figure it out, I probably would not bother doing it in more moves. I'd feel anything over 3 means I am dumber than a bunch of people so I would lose motivation. Sorry if it's an overly-specific comment.
No I appreciate it. I'm mentally keep tabs on how often I hear that the leaderboard is a pro or a con -- or if it has to be hidden. I'm on the fence about it.
Hey FYI, it looks like the board has reset for the new day but the word is still NODE.
This seems like a bug since the board doesn't have a N or an E on it right now.
Thanks so much! I see 50 players and no scores and immediately thought it was a score issue. Resolving now.
FYI this is my first go: It Takes Time. I guess I'm too methodical for my own good ;)
Great job! Nice stats! I made the thing and can tell you my first go was nowhere near as clean.
Today’s puzzle was tricky! I liked actually thinking about it a little before I started rotating like crazy! :)
It gets more difficult as the week goes on (for now, unless people revolt! :)).
I will stand with the BDFL on this...
It's a nice way to increase/decrease difficulty and most importantly to anti-incentivise streaking as for me it will get either too boring on Monday or too hard on Sunday (adjust according yo the week you're using).
I realise I forgot: thanks for sharing this little fun project with us!
"Video" sharing option is live, I opted to go with a landing page rather than just throwing a .MP4 at you. More mobile friendly, less ... geeky? Nerdy? Let me know what you think when you think it. Thanks everyone!
Edit: Example: https://pivotthegame.com/replay/#Andrew/39 (spoiler alert for a, frankly, mediocre solution)
Wahahaha NICE thank you Leahey for making this fun game even better. So many new features!
From a game programming perspective, how are puzzle games like this made? Does one start with a kind of graph solver for best / shortest path, and then you can throw letters at it as the goal?
No worries, so glad you're enjoying (and winning!). The puzzle starts with the answer and then applies a bunch of random clockwise rotations to scramble the grid. The result is what the player sees. It's a breadth-first search and it explores every reachable configuration using inverse moves, and then scales the difficulty across the week. So it's kind of like taking a Rubik's cube, scrambling it, checking to see how hard it would be to solve, and doing it again until you have a bunch of maps. Then rolling them out for the proper day.
Pick today's word --> build the solved grid --> BFS to get distance table --> generate a slew of scrambles --> pick one at the right difficulty for the day --> lock it. I'm mapping it out more than a day at a time now (necessarily), in order to properly scale it and kind of tune in the difficulty if we hit a day where people revolt. :)
Nice, thanks for sharing how it works behind the scenes :D
:3 we'll find out tomorrow if the replay link being easy to guess makes it tempting for me to cheat.
Haha, I have been thinking about how best to balance that aspect. I feel like it's a fun game, intended to be as competitive as people want it to be. So locking it down probably doesn't make that much sense? Probably? Maybe? I think?
I'm guessing that locking it down is not worth it.
Unless you're interested in playing the game of building a perfect system that noone can find any holes in. It can be a fun game even from your side, and you'd make some people happy (who play on the other side).
Maybe you could do custom leaderboards instead. So groups of people (friend groups, online communities, etc) can compete within the group. And then you just treat the global leaderboard as a special case?
Just spit balling here ;)
I like that idea a lot -- I have put it on the list! The constraining factor for a lot of things is I really don't want to do the account creation thing. I don't want people having to provide email addresses (or anything else) for reset purposes and worrying about their privacy. So everything has to be very thinly authenticated.
Capabilities are a thing... Like the "share" link used in many modern online platforms.
This negates the need to have accounts, etc. You "only" need a way to create valid links for people to share (you don't even need to have a UI for deletion just a a way to delete links, and their associated data, that haven't been visited in X time)
This is true, thank you!
Baby steps, trying first the "Challenge a Friend" option when you complete a game. If they take you up on the offer, you'll both be presented with a URL like this: https://pivotthegame.com/challenge/#Admin/Admin2/40/12/15
'>..< Aww missed the better solution today, and working it out took a WHILE but I managed to get to 9 eventually:
edit: link of 16 moves
Great fun :) Looking forward to doing better tomorrow.
Sorry about the messy link, thats a bug -- fixing it now! Oh, and great job!!!! :D
Bug report: switching speed when the replay is active causes the game to go out of sync and give an incorrect "answer" .
My wife spotted this too but couldn't recreate, it's the switching of speeds. Thank you!!!
Edit: Should be fixed, was a minor (stupid) mistake on my part.
I second the suggestion to allow re-doing puzzles... Getting "perfect" scores is more satisfying than just solving it in my opinion.
There might be a bug with entering an empty name (or it could be my restrictive use of JS, choice of browser and OS)
I like this -- maybe on the subsequent tries you don't qualify for leaderboard entry?
Yes, that would be a perfect solution for me personally :)
There is a bug with selecting old dates, where I'm able to select any date but rather than get informed about the archive not going that far, it just picks the "roll" puzzle, which I assume is the first one.
I'll fix that post haste, thanks. I don't think "ROLL" was the first, but it's the first where theres a record.
Love this, takes a different way of thinking to come up with better solutions. Took me 10 minutes of scowling to figure out the 3 move solution!
No kidding! I wasn't the first to arrive at the 3 move solution, I'll tell ya that! :D
Cool game! It might also be fun to have a challenge mode where it doesn't tell you the word.
Or there could be multiple words and points based on how many you find with the least moves!
I like that idea. I've been trying to think of what could be a top-tier reward. Something like if you play on "SICKO MODE" where you don't know the word, and get it in the fewest number of moves, you can ... choose tomorrow's word? I don't know. I had initially thought it would be fun to let that user post a scrolling message at the top of the game, but quickly realized with even a relatively small n of users, we could have problems.
I love this, thank you for sharing it!
Only bug i encountered was of i tried to re-open the help in the bottom right, it flashed open and immediately closed. Pressing and holding (I'm on mobile) kept it open. I'm using Firefox 147.0.2 on Android 15.
Thanks for this, working on the issue right now -- the specificity help(s) a lot!
Happy to help! I've been in your shoes enough to know specific versions matter!
Today "nuck" is all over the leaderboard.
I don't care about "cheating" or name-sharing, I'm mentioning it because if there is a bug you might want to look into it.
Sometimes I have issues with putting my name in, personally, on mobile. May be related (or they may be trying to top their best, idk)
I hope to have resolved this issue.
Cool beans, thank you!
Many thanks, not sure how to handle multiple entries with the same name at the moment -- I don't want to make it too cumbersome for people to submit their names and can imagine there might be more than one "Jeff" for ex. Thinking it through though, its on my radar!
Cool game. Fun but i found the tap radius a bit small for the circles. I'm curious what you used for the share image (some javascript library?). It works well. I have a similar use case for it in one of my games.
The generate video button kept crashing and I never got that to work. It also took 3-4 tries to even get it to click and show "generating video". But then it crashed the browser (Chrome, Android 16). Also curious how that should work 🙂
Edit: tried the video again and waited without tapping again and it worked.
I fixed the video issue by placing it on a separate landing page. The share image of the grid doesn't make use of a library, it's all built-in browser canvas. The game renders the share image to an offscreen canvas, draws in the grid/text/etc. and then converts it to a blob. So, tl;dr: Canvas 2D API.
Made a little Custom Game feature that will allow you to play/practice outside of the daily challenge. Beta testers appreciated!
https://pivotthegame.com/custom/