Thank HN: The puzzle game I posted here 6 weeks ago got licensed by The Atlantic

I posted Bracket City to HN on February 24th and the game went live yesterday on The Atlantic (!)

The game will stay free to play (and not require logging in). Also, I'm still making all the puzzles!

HN provided the first real infusion of players that weren't my mom's friends. So thanks everyone.

FWIW The Atlantic's team is amazing and got this live exactly 2 weeks from when we signed the deal.

This happened quick and I feel very lucky. The HN community of solvers keeps me honest with much helpful technical and editorial feedback. I love it all -- here or at mayor@bracket.city

T[Tom who befriended a volleyball] HN

PS my original post! >>43160542 →

Congrats! Some feedback, if you're taking any:

- Without the tutorial, it's confusing that you're not supposed to click and you're supposed to start typing. I wonder if placing the text box at the top would make that more clear.

- Some of the clues are confusing due to inconsistent punctuation. For example:

  [to ___fish, to lure someone in using a fake internet persona] = cat
  [do this or cut bait] = fish
  [taking a pay one is a bummer] = cut
  [rocks when added to soda will NOT cause your stomach to explode] = pop

The first line uses a comma, the second line uses "or", the third and fourth lines don't have any punctuation at all, so the sentences make no sense.

> Some of the clues are confusing due to inconsistent punctuation.

> The first line uses a comma, the second line uses "or", the third and fourth lines don't have any punctuation at all, so the sentences make no sense.

... There is no inconsistency there. The 'or' and the comma in lines 1 and 2 are not parallel to each other; they're doing different things. Neither could be replaced by the other without changing the meaning of the clue.

Similarly, in line three, nothing in it could be replaced by a comma or by a disjunction. (But, and I want to emphasize this, line 2 doesn't even contain a disjunction; you appear to have misunderstood all of the clues.)

Line four is a bit different in that it contains a grammatical mistake. It should say [rocks that when added to soda will NOT cause your stomach to explode]. Other than that... it's a fourth style of clue. It isn't comparable to the other three, and there's still no inconsistency.

What do you imagine would add "consistency" to these clues? #s 1, 2, and 4 could be unified like so:

    [to ____fish, to lure someone in using a fake internet persona]
    [____ or cut bait, common idiom]
    [____ rocks, rocks that when added to soda will NOT cause your stomach to explode]

But clue 3 can't be rendered in this style; the closest you can come is [pay ____, taking one of these is a bummer], and the parenthetical isn't really the same as it is for the other three.