Daily logic puzzle update
So I launched the puzzle and have been working on improvements whenever I find time. Must admit that I got really sucked into this and found myself immensely enjoying the process of not only creating something, but getting feedback, working on it, adjusting it. It is quite the journey!
Anyhoo... the website is live at https://www.dailycodebreaker.com, and has the following features:
Three daily puzzles of different difficulties.
A practice mode, with a puzzle generator on the easiest setting, for whoever is starting out and trying to get a hang of the thing.
Letter mode - some people (my wife, for one) are intimidated by numbers. This is not a number game, but a logic game, so I gave the option to just change it into the view to letters and not numbers.
What I hope to implement soon:
Payment for premium features: Expert mode, endless puzzles of all difficulties (practice features only beginner puzzles), and more advanced statistics
Thinking of adding one more view instead of digits and letters. Thinking of colors, but then it just looks like mastermind. Maybe animals? But then it's a bit childish. Anyway, something I will need to work out
Tweaking the difficulty. I may have overcorrected with my last fix of the algorithm, and now the puzzles might be TOO hard. I was working on the advanced level today, and it took me WAY too long. I'm afraid users might get frustrated. Then again, it was SUPER satisfying when I managed it without mistakes. I will think about
Would love to hear any and all feedback, particularly on these last thoughts.
It's an interesting twist on mastermind, to give just enough clues that the puzzle is solvable, instead of the user having to think of what clue guesses to make.
The other option could maybe be shapes. square, circle, triangle, crescent, star, ... Maybe filled and hollow versions of each.
I wasn't totally clear on the rules. It says all of the numbers in the solution are represented in the clues. But I thought I had one where I deduced that 8 had to be in the solution because it was the only one not mentioned in the clues and the clues had indicated the need for a different number in one spot.
How many players do you get per day? And how many play each of the difficulty levels? And how did you let people know about it?
The shapes is a very good idea. I'll see how it looks. Thanks!!
About the rules: The algorithm should provide clues with all the digits in the solution. The fact that the same digit can appear more than once is what makes the difference here. Today's adbanced is a good example - 7 doesn't appear in the clues at all, and could have possibly been in the solution. But because of the rule that all digits appear in the clues it was eliminated as a possibility and we are left just the one possible solution. Hard for me to explain - if you try to crack you'll see what I mean.
I have a few dozen daily entries for now, but I don't have analytics to the level of each puzzle mode
It's a good question. This is my first time building anything like this (or anything at all...) - I'll see if I can get down to that level of analytics.
As for outreach - friends and family and a post in reddit for now (and here!). I never had a digital presence so this is a bit of a hurdle. I sent it to a few puzzle sites I've been following over the years, hoping one of them might give it a shoutout.
Thanks for the interest and the helpful suggestions and questions!
I made wordhuddle.com a few years ago. I got a lot of players by posting in a Wordle reddit group. It got to 600 players per day soon after than, then dropped back to a steady 300 players per day. But I couldn't grow it beyond that and I was running out of ideas for puzzles, so I just made an archive site of it.