Show HN: Crossle – Scrabble meets crossword game

playcrossle.com

11 points by enahs-sf 6 days ago

Hello HN,

I created Crossle after playing a dice version of this once. it's web/mobile only with mechanics similar to wordle. the object is to create a crossword using scrabble words that is fully connected and each word is at least 3 characters long. all letters must be used. Fun weekend coding project that I'd love to get any feedback on.

thanks!

neilsharma425 6 days ago

Cute idea. The constraint that all letters must be used is what makes this interesting over just a free-form crossword builder since it turns it into a proper puzzle. How do you handle validation? Specifically, are you checking connectivity with a union-find or just flood fill from an arbitrary starting tile?

  • enahs-sf 6 days ago

    we just check connectivity on the front-end kind of naively by ensuring each square is adjacent to another. is that union-find? I didn't do well in algorithms class..

beardyw 6 days ago

Presumably you choose the letters with a solution in mind, otherwise it might be impossible.

  • enahs-sf 6 days ago

    So the lions share of the work was building a solver and then iterating through the solution space to come up with puzzles. All of them are solvable. It’s on my todo list to classify them based on difficulty and potentially add variable difficulty levels by the day.

dylanhouli 6 days ago

Nice and simple. Might just be me but a way to move groups of tiles on the board could be helpful, I accidentally started building too low down and had to move everything at one point.

  • enahs-sf 6 days ago

    yeah i agree moving the tiles can be cumbersome. I started thinking through keyboard interactions but haven't figured out how best to implement it yet.

    • beardyw 6 days ago

      Maybe just scroll the grid?

maxnew 5 days ago

This seems quite interesting... I'll give it a try

sjezewski 6 days ago

Hey pretty fun

I can see it getting addictive

  • enahs-sf 6 days ago

    boss makes a dollar, i make a dime, thats why i do casual gaming on company time.

selixe_ 6 days ago

Fun concept and clean design very good game. :)

  • enahs-sf 6 days ago

    Thanks. Enjoy playing!

agadi1993 6 days ago

Cool game…excited to try tomorrow.

  • enahs-sf 6 days ago

    thanks! this is what i'm hoping for!