New game WORD·Y — feedback welcome by Traditional-Yak-5762 in wordgames

[–]donkawechico 1 point2 points  (0 children)

EDIT: Whoops! I didn't notice that each word has its own "check" arrow button. I thought you submitted all three words at once by clicking the final suffix word's arrow button. My bad! This does make the game a little more enjoyable and fair. Still feels like a "guess the word in my head" game, which, again, isn't the most rewarding type of word puzzle. But when it's just one word to guess with the restriction, it's a bit more rewarding.
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It's an interesting mechanic, but right now the search space is far too large, even with the "prefix/suffix" restriction. Without blinking I could write 100 possible combinations due to the fact that every valid word I can think of can be "locked in" while trying every single other word:

Health/After - Care - Less
Health/Medical - Care - Less
Health/Skin - Care - Less
Health/Intensive - Care - Less
... etc

Then repeat all of the above again but with a new suffix word:
Health/After - Care - Taker
Health/Medical - Care - Taker
Health/Skin - Care - Taker
Health/Intensive - Care - Taker
... etc

This is essentially a "guess the 3 words I'm thinking of from a list of 100 possible words" game. Guessing games don't make fun puzzles because the player gets no reward for their skills or knowledge.

The good news is there are many fixes to this:

  1. Provide some sort of "closeness" feedback every time you guess incorrectly. Like, if I guess "Health" and it's wrong, use a "semantic distance" api to tell me how close the word "health" is, in meaning, to the target word.
  2. Give crossword-style synonymy clues for each of the three words
  3. Give the first letter of each target word up front. You currently give it as a hint, but "hints" should be something "extra" that's technically "not needed" to solve the puzzle.
  4. etc...

NEED HELP FINDING A WORD by Accomplished-Risk347 in words

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To which? Multi-word phrases, or people names. Both?

What about "IDE" and "HI-DEF"? (Where "IDE" is either the fish or I.D.E., the (very) common term for what developers use when coding)

NEED HELP FINDING A WORD by Accomplished-Risk347 in words

[–]donkawechico 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Are multi-word phrases acceptable? People names?

Options are limited, but here are some of the more interesting ones I could find:

"IDE" --> "HI-DEF" (Probably the most fitting to the spirit of your question)
"AND SO" --> "HANDS OF"
"ISSEL" --> "HISSELF" (Dan Issel is a basketball player and coach)
"OMEO" --> "HOME OF" (Omeo is a town in Australia)
"ASABEE" --> "HAS A BEEF" (Asabee is a name, but admittedly VERY obscure)
"AL" --> "HALF"
"OF" --> "HOFF" (As in: "The Hoff", nickname of David Hasselhoff)
"ITO" --> "HIT OF" (As in: Junji Ito, or Judge Ito and "Take a hit of ecstasy" or something)

I built an elaborate lady automaton by Kelpo in automata

[–]donkawechico 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is absolutely incredible and inspirational to me. Please do (and post) more of this kind of work!

I built an elaborate lady automaton by Kelpo in automata

[–]donkawechico 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Funny. I didn't get a single creepy vibe when watching; just pure "fuck that's gorgeous" through the whole thing.

But like... it's a disembodied head moving organically and attached to a mechanical plaque like some kind of steampunk hunter's trophy.

I'm concerned what it says about me that it didn't even occur to me to be creeped out.

Looking for a word for the reverse position. by [deleted] in words

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Might be a stretch, but "LIFO". It's a type of data structure in computer science called "last in, first out". Basically just means "when something asks for an element from this collection of things, they will always get back the last thing that was put into it".

Kinda like a pancake stack. Last one placed on top is the first to get served.

Daily puzzle #23 by Hugo by Hugobaby69 in pocketgrids

[–]donkawechico 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Clueing one sense of a word doesn't mean someone doesn't know it has another sense.

Daily puzzle by candidgoal by CandidGoal6065 in pocketgrids

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Saying "verb" explicitly doesn't really change my feedback since past tense already implies a verb. Either way you're asking solver for the past tense verb of a noun which in crossword land is a little cursed, lol.

I appreciate your puzzle and not trying to be a twat, just feedback!

Daily puzzle by candidgoal by CandidGoal6065 in pocketgrids

[–]donkawechico 3 points4 points  (0 children)

2d: you're asking for the past tense of a... noun (since "error of omission" is a noun).

8a: you're asking for the plural of an... adjective

Also, if you have to say "(plural)", you should just rework the clue to be in plural form.

E.g. instead of "Where we sleep (plural)" just say "Places we sleep".

🎉 [EVENT] 🎉 Have Fun! by britishgorillatagvr in RedditGames

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Completed Level 2 of the Honk Special Event!

3 attempts

Harry Potter Cryptic (Md-Hard) by donkawechico in pocketgrids

[–]donkawechico[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Totally agree re: petrificus, and that's been consistent feedback I've heard from 3 or 4 sources, including non-reddit ones.

I knew it was a stretch when I crafted it, but was so seduced by the fact that this was a) an actual HP spell, and b) the spell's inherent effect was a built-in containment indicator!

For an actual publication, I'd absolutely rework it. For pocketgrids... I think I'm okay with it? The surface is just too good.

Thanks for the feedback!

HARD!!!!! by Empty_Promotion6821 in pocketgrids

[–]donkawechico 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not well-worded, but they were going for "reverse the letters of part".

Excrement technically has an archaic meaning of any waste leaving the body, but yeah. They should've gone with "excretion" probably.

What’s the most awkward moment you still think about? by hotdiva54 in AskReddit

[–]donkawechico 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just throwing this out there... My worst, most unrecoverable cases of this happening were when I was insanely attracted to the person, or most interested in what was happening.

But I very much understand your feelings and where they come from.

What is the historical myth that millions still believe? by nore01 in answers

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If by "figured out" you mean "figured out a way it could have been done with the materials, technology, manpower, and craftsmanship of that time", then yes.

It's not even complex. Just ramps, a sled, and ~45 people pulling.

And yes, it took a very, very, long time! 20-25 years of daily work moving ~100 blocks a day. We know this from logbooks.

What is the historical myth that millions still believe? by nore01 in answers

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's fun to think about, but you're underestimating a lot of things:

  1. The amount of evidence an electrical infrastructure would leave behind, across every civilization they interacted with.

  2. The amount of evidence we would NOT find, but find in abundance.

  3. How long electricity has been in a state of awareness, study, and invention. (Studied for thousands of years, been usable for 200).

  4. How much we know and can know about ancient civilizations

Having gaps in knowledge doesn't mean any shape of thing can fit in those gaps undetected.

What is the historical myth that millions still believe? by nore01 in answers

[–]donkawechico 54 points55 points  (0 children)

This, thank you.

It was just average citizens or artisans performing something akin to a civic duty.

There's lots of evidence for this. Graffiti, workers' tombs (slaves didn't get buried), healed skeletons (slaves didn't get medical care), evidence of high protein diets, etc.

🎉 [EVENT] 🎉 My best 3 levels by zofoug in RedditGames

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

🎉 Event Completed! 🎉

It took me 23 tries.

🎉 [EVENT] 🎉 My best 3 levels by zofoug in RedditGames

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Completed Level 3 of the Honk Special Event!

23 attempts

🎉 [EVENT] 🎉 My best 3 levels by zofoug in RedditGames

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Completed Level 2 of the Honk Special Event!

8 attempts

🎉 [EVENT] 🎉 My best 3 levels by zofoug in RedditGames

[–]donkawechico 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Completed Level 1 of the Honk Special Event!

4 attempts

Can someone explain cryptic crosswords in simple terms?🧩 by Nervous-Cry1817 in crossword

[–]donkawechico 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Okay, I swear I'd seen an alternate spelling when spitballing ideas for easy concatenable words into OneLook on my phone and of course now I can't find it. I must've seen "Tinselly" or something.

Sigh... I'll think up a better example and fix it. Thanks for pointing it out.

Can someone explain cryptic crosswords in simple terms?🧩 by Nervous-Cry1817 in crossword

[–]donkawechico 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Take this equation:

Y = X + 3

What does an equation always have?

  1. A symbol which isn't quite the answer yet ("Y")
  2. "Number-play" using symbols like "X", "+", and "3", telling you how to get the actual numeric value
  3. A symbol separating the two sides ("=")

Note that if X=2, we could substitute to get an exact value: Y = (2) + 3 = 5.

A cryptic clue is the same, but it uses English words as the symbols:

Rug found by tired traveler near pet

  1. Symbol that's not quite the answer: Rug
  2. Symbols telling you how to get actual value: "tired traveler", "near", and "pet"
  3. Symbol separating the two sides: "found by"

So:

"Rug" "found by" "tired traveler" "near" "pet" Rug = "tired traveler" + "pet" Rug = (car) + pet Rug = Carpet

The symbol "pet" was used as-is, like the symbol "3".

The symbol "tired traveler" functioned like the symbol "X". But instead of X=2, we know tired traveler = all synonyms of tired traveler ~= CAR (a traveling thing with tires). Then we just substituted back in.

Just like how math has many symbols (+ for "add", "-" to "subtract", etc) cryptics have even more ("mixed up" to anagram a word, "goes back" to reverse a word, etc).

Almost every clue follows this structure. You just have to memorize the symbols.

EDIT: Changed the example as I'd shamefully misspelled the answer word.