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Show HN: Outlier, a new daily word game (outlier.land)
4 points by paulvoge 383 days ago
Hello HN,

If you love daily word games like the Crossword, Connections, or Wordle, you might enjoy Outlier.

The game explores relationships between words-- while RED is of course a color, it is also a baseball player in Cincinnati, a Taylor Swift album, and a River on the Texas border (to name a few).

Ex:

Super Mail Slender Aqua Sand Boogey Hail Hit Gentle

While Gentleman, Superman, and Hitman are all real words/concepts, Hailman is not. HAIL is the Outlier. The Outlier then becomes a member of the set for the following.

The next round might then cover Meteoroligical Phenomena, or archaic greetings (Hail Caesar) or words to indicate where someone is from ("she hails from Ohio").

Open to all feedback! Trying to decide if the current time penalty should be increased to encourage more methodical play. I'm also posting daily clues on IG @ outlier.land. Thanks!
2 comments
ChrisGermano 383 days ago
I like the design and what the game's trying to achieve, but something was slightly off. Even on topics I'm well versed in (eg. sports brands) seeing 9 words at once, on the clock, felt more stressful than fun. Definitely a strong foundation for a daily game but I don't think triva-based categories work for the current design.
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paulvoge 382 days ago
Thanks Chris!
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EdgeExplorer 383 days ago
Tried it out. The categories require way too much trivia / pop culture knowledge for me to be interested. I can look at the items and know right away that I just don't know and no amount of thinking will get me there.

This really isn't a word game; it's a trivia game, and if you like trivia and know pop culture, I can imagine it would be fun. But I don't like trivia or know pop culture, so it was just random guessing and experiencing the insanely aggressive negative feedback for being wrong over and over (would definitely tone that down).

Sorry, but not for me. Best of luck with finding your target users! Nice design work and name.

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paulvoge 383 days ago
Great point! Definitely more trivia than language. Working on adding some positive feedback to counterbalance the playful devil character. Thanks for trying it out!
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samirm 383 days ago
summed it up perfectly. western trivia is boring and not for me
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