[andrewrn]

A better palette of possible factors was something I thought about. It will require rewriting nearly the whole app, but it's likely the direction I'll go when I make v2.

To take it a step further I thought I could use even smaller building blocks via dimensional "toolboxes" like quantity, distance, volume, and conversions and each question files its factors into each tool box (with some dummies like you said). Do you think that'd be more interesting? It's more complex though so mass appeal might go down.

[rappatic]

> mass appeal might go down

I don't think Fermi questions have mass appeal anyway. I don't think most people know what "order of magnitude" means, let alone understand dimensional analysis (ie., the conceptual idea of what it means for units to cancel).

I don't think making the game a little more complex would really affect its appeal, because it's already targeted at people with a certain level of scientific understanding.

[andrewrn]

Good call. It easy to forget that the world isn't as nerdy as me lol. This would definitely let me focus the game a lot better anyway.

[tgv]

OTOH, not so long ago, a colleague and I tried to guess the number of piano tuners in large cities, e.g. New York. I find your idea nice, but the execution could be more flexible, more puzzle-like. E.g., you could have units (like #passengers, #planes, #flights, time), and the user can create factors out of those.

But I'm afraid that it'll lose its appeal after a while. These problems seem same-y to me, more so than Wordle.