
Show HN: Tetris with words – I created this small game, please give feedback - abvishek
https://www.indexzero.in/word-tetris/
======
foota
I noticed the game feels pretty hard because of the letter distribution, if
you want to make it easier you might try using the english distribution, which
can be found at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency#Relative_freq...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency#Relative_frequencies_of_letters_in_the_English_language)

For those curious the rough differences (in game - in english, out of 100)
are:

e: -4.7 t: -2.5 c: 2.4 h: -2.3 p: 2.3 u: 1.9 b: 1.6 m: 1.6 l: 1.5 g: 1.4 r:
1.4 k: 1 x: 1 z: 0.8 o: -0.7 n: -0.6 f: 0.5 j: 0.5 v: 0.5 y: 0.5 d: 0.4 a:
-0.3 q: 0.2 s: -0.2 w: 0.2 i: 0.1

edit: this might go too far towards making it easy, but you could also try and
group common pairs of letter near each other.

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arethuza
As a one time practitioner of "good old-fashioned" AI I had thought it was
ETAOIN SHRDLU

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etaoin_shrdlu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etaoin_shrdlu)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHRDLU](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHRDLU)

~~~
StavrosK
That's close enough, and it'll vary based on the dataset. In the provided
link, it's ETAOIN SHRDLCU, which is almost the same.

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NamTaf
It's completely broken on desktop in Firefox - they're rectangles and the
letters fall outside the boxes one settled, so I can't tell an L from an I
without memory. Also, the buttons move at the bottom when you tap on letters
so it makes it hard to press them. Consider mapping the arrow keys on a
keyboard.

~~~
abvishek
Hi, I didn't check on firefox. Thanks for feedback, I will try to fix these
issues. Thank you

~~~
chrisan
It's also broken in IE (not that I use IE... but since you didnt check FF)

~~~
abvishek
:)

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lee101
Hi I'm the creator of [http://wordsmashing.com](http://wordsmashing.com) ,
awesome game, needs some music graphics sounds levels polish ect, I think it's
interesting having to manually click to your word and click destroy, made the
game feel a bit harder and slower paced to me but perhaps some advanced
wordies would like that, I would make it automatic if 3 or more letters

~~~
mhb
That looks interesting, but I don't understand how to play. I click a letter,
then click a box to slide into in order to get it closer to my target space
but after sliding once the game stops.

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ajanuary
Fun. You might want to disable double tap to zoom.
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/touch-
actio...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/touch-
action#manipulation)

~~~
abvishek
thanks.

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skc
Very cool idea.

Someone will polish this up and it will be one of those mobile games that will
go viral for a little while.

Suggestions, add a comprehensive scoring solution, two letter combos (ng, io,
ee, etc), classic tetris shapes would probably work too in blocks of three to
keep the two letter combo rule.

Nicely done!

~~~
Timpy
You could score words a la scrabble

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senectus1
absolutely LOVE the idea... however the dictionary is _way_ to limited, also
there needs the "preview" screen (ie tells you what letter is coming up next)

Also I suspect you need more vowels or more room to "stack" continents.

Mate, I want this game for my kids to play... _please_ get this done!

finally, have you thought of a multiplayer version?

Check out "tetrinet". make this game on android and I'll play it all day lol!

~~~
abvishek
Thank you very much.

"ie tells you what letter is coming up next" ^ this i have in mind, hope i
will implement it soon.

As of now no plan to make it multiplayer or on android.

I'm glad you liked it.

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Lxr
Awesome, suggest you make valid words clear automatically

~~~
abvishek
I have that in mind, working on it.

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matheweis
This idea was developed into a mildly popular game in the early 90’s called
Wordtris.

Here’s an example of the gameplay (Not my video):
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EYO5WbBfp-E](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EYO5WbBfp-E)

The copyrights can be traced to Atari holdings, who also have a license for
Tetris (who is turn pretty aggressively enforces the brand), so watch out for
that.

~~~
makach
Cool! When you think you have had an original thought turns out there is prior
art.

Wordtris seems to be better featured; better distribution, list of completed
words, eraser block, peek at next block and graphics :)

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abvishek
Hi, Thanks everyone for amazing response.

I just updated it with some most common issues fixed.

1) Now select letters in any order, if its a valid word then it will
disappear.

2) Now showing next letter in upper right corner

3) Fix issue which was blocking keyboard events

4) Fixed it on Firefox.

And added some colors to buttons:)

Thank you once again. Cheers!

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sleepychu
Some classic tetris features that would help:

Let me see the next letter after this one.

Let me hold onto a letter and swap it with the current one on the screen.

I appreciate it's a big complexity problem to scan for all available words but
I think that the click functionality could be improved a lot by just
highlighting words that you'll allow me to destroy.

~~~
abvishek
Thanks. I'm trying to achieve this.

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wazoox
I think the dictionary should be more complete. The first word I composed was
"kelp" and it didn't identified it as a valid word. Or maybe it's completely
broken in Firefox, the "destroy" button doesn't appear.

~~~
rovek
It seems the player needs to click words to make them vanish, while letters
continue falling - this is the first thing that should be changed.

~~~
abvishek
ok this is common issue. i will fix.

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khaoz
Very cool. I don't like that it grabs all the key presses, I couldn't CTRL+D
(Bookmark) and I couldn't refresh the page with F5 or CTRL+R. Legitimately
thought my browser was crashing XD

~~~
abvishek
oh, will fix this soon. Thanks

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vnglst
Ah nice work!! I’m also working on a word game for my kids. Also using CRA!
[https://nora.now.sh](https://nora.now.sh)

~~~
abvishek
Already seen:) its nice.

~~~
vnglst
I'd be curious to hear about your experiences/challenges. I really liked the
loading/splash screen.

I tried the PWA/offline mode on Safari/iOS but that's not working right now.

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blairbeckwith
Reminds me a lot of a Tetris-with-words game called Puzzlejuice that was put
out a few years ago by the same studio that released Threes and started the
2048 craze.

Good job!

~~~
nathell
Speaking of 2048, I made a clone called "words-oh-so-great" [1,2] that uses
letters instead of numbers, and they disappear when forming a word.

[1]: [https://github.com/nathell/wosg](https://github.com/nathell/wosg) [2]:
[http://212.47.254.231/wosg/](http://212.47.254.231/wosg/)

~~~
abvishek
Nice!

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detritus
It didn't recognise 'Arid' or 'Swap' as words, which I was amazed I lucked
into. It seems a very hard prospect to get anywhere, otherwise. Is this
something to do with my choice of browser? I don't use Chrome, nor ever will
aside from testing.

You mention elsewhere in the thread here that you didn't test on Firefox. May
I ask what you DID test in?

~~~
abvishek
hey, i fixed it on firefox. it should work fine. not sure why it didn't
recognise those words, I will check in dictionary.

~~~
abvishek
Also its not automatic, you have click on each letters of word, then if its
valid word then it will disappear.

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LyndsySimon
This is an awesome prototype, that I think not only has a lot of potential in
terms of growing it into something people would play, but I think it could be
a very useful tool for people learn languages and improve their skills.

It's inspiring, seriously. Good work so far, and I hope you continue to
develop it and are successful for whatever your definition of "success" might
be :)

~~~
abvishek
Thank you very much. I made this just for fun, but now kind of response I have
received for this I will surely try to make it better. cheer!

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hokus
Create various difficulties with speed and an amounts of wild cards.

I got really bored and quit when it dropped me a bunch of letters that
couldn't be made into words in any order.

The interface is also shit. Holding down the down button (I'm using a mouse)
should just drop it.

The cubes feel much to big.

Extra fun could be had if one could rotate the u into an n, the Z into an N,
the p into a d, q into a b and I into H.

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mcnamaratw
This was fun and kind of addictive. Only right now it seems to be giving
letters between "R" and "U" in the alphabet more than 50% of the time. That's
very challenging.

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abvishek
Its made using create-react-app and source code is on Github.

Please play and give suggestion to improve this. Thanks.

~~~
gitgud
The game works great on mobile.

But I have no idea how to win or what the rules are? I assume a full row of
letters will clear the row?

I was expecting words to come down, but there were only letters.

Maybe add a little help screen when the game starts, to show the rules of the
game.

~~~
abvishek
Agree, I will add a help screen soon. As of now here is game play video
[https://youtu.be/qvoL5J-jsFA](https://youtu.be/qvoL5J-jsFA)

Thanks

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abvishek
Here is the game play video:
[https://youtu.be/qvoL5J-jsFA](https://youtu.be/qvoL5J-jsFA)

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jlebrech
you should drop two vowel/consonant, vowel/vowel or consonant/consonant
letters (in that frequency order)

~~~
crottypeter
Indeed, I had trouble getting any way near enough vowels

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darepublic
I don't understand how you play. I successfully made some four letter words by
nothing happened

~~~
cJ0th
same. got no points for "epic" and "pause"

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mihaifm
Use the tetris shapes instead of just a single cube. Would make it harder but
much more fun.

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werber
It's zooming in and out of the page while I'm trying to play. iPhone x Safari

~~~
Kaibeezy
great idea, but same here - makes it unplayable - will try again in a few days

suggestions -

\- bigger grid, more rows and columns

\- larger letters, more contrast

\- random doubles and phonemes

\- ok to spell backwards

\- splash for longer words and 2-directions

\- get roger dean to make you a logo -jk

