Show HN: Crossle – Scrabble meets crossword game

[enahs-sf]

Hello HN,

I created Crossle after playing a dice version of this once. it's web/mobile only with mechanics similar to wordle. the object is to create a crossword using scrabble words that is fully connected and each word is at least 3 characters long. all letters must be used. Fun weekend coding project that I'd love to get any feedback on.

thanks!

[neilsharma425]

Cute idea. The constraint that all letters must be used is what makes this interesting over just a free-form crossword builder since it turns it into a proper puzzle. How do you handle validation? Specifically, are you checking connectivity with a union-find or just flood fill from an arbitrary starting tile?

[enahs-sf]

we just check connectivity on the front-end kind of naively by ensuring each square is adjacent to another. is that union-find? I didn't do well in algorithms class..

[AlexeyBelov]

LLM comment history.

[beardyw]

Presumably you choose the letters with a solution in mind, otherwise it might be impossible.

[enahs-sf]

So the lions share of the work was building a solver and then iterating through the solution space to come up with puzzles. All of them are solvable. It’s on my todo list to classify them based on difficulty and potentially add variable difficulty levels by the day.

[dylanhouli]

Nice and simple. Might just be me but a way to move groups of tiles on the board could be helpful, I accidentally started building too low down and had to move everything at one point.

[enahs-sf]

yeah i agree moving the tiles can be cumbersome. I started thinking through keyboard interactions but haven't figured out how best to implement it yet.

[beardyw]

Maybe just scroll the grid?

[sjezewski]

Hey pretty fun

I can see it getting addictive

[enahs-sf]

boss makes a dollar, i make a dime, thats why i do casual gaming on company time.

[maxnew]

This seems quite interesting... I'll give it a try

[selixe_]

Fun concept and clean design very good game. :)

[enahs-sf]

Thanks. Enjoy playing!

[agadi1993]

Cool game…excited to try tomorrow.

[enahs-sf]

thanks! this is what i'm hoping for!