Brian Lovin
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Show HN: Countle

countle.org

Countle is a daily puzzle game, a la Wordle, where you use 6 given numbers to produce of a sequence of calculations to reach a target number. In other words, it's a daily round of the "Numbers Game" from the British game show Countdown.

Sample numbers round: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfa3MHLLSWI

A new puzzle appears every day!

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beardyw

The Countdown numbers round included this impressive solution in the allotted 30 seconds.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

As always that means there is a solver.

https://www.maths-resources.com/countdown/

bhrgunatha

Another similar problem from earlier in the show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfa3MHLLSWI

Can I ask why you don't just link directly to youtube?

beardyw

I don't think I have ever worked out how to!(from the Android app)

remedan

The Android app definitely has an option to copy a link to the video under the share button. The copied URL doesn't even seem to contain any tracking parameters.

kirchhoff

I made summle.net a while back, which is similar.

After I while I found that this type of game can be frustrating as you are not incrementally solving the puzzle - instead there are multiple dead ends before stumbling upon the solution.

francois14

Nice game, thanks for summle.net!

Here is my try for a solver:

https://summle-solver.herokuapp.com

pimlottc

Nifty. Could use some explanation, as not everyone is familiar with the show Countdown (particularly outside the UK).

Even knowing the show, I was a bit confused how I was supposed to solve it using only one operation, until I realized it was a series of steps. And it took me a moment to figure out how to reuse the result of a previous step.

Once I had figured that all out, though, it was a pleasure to use. Well done!

gdix

There's a question mark icon help menu thing in the upper left.

roey2009

Don't your users skip the walkthrough/tutorial as well? I always assume they don't, and design the UI as intuitive as possible.

banana_giraffe

Nice, as always with these things, the fun for me is writing a little solver:

https://gist.github.com/Q726kbXuN/393e7840cc5a0d20ef2bff7098...

nicoboo

Nice implementation and animations.

I've used summle.net for a couple of months.

Few ideas from their implementation: - achievements, badges and stats - hints when your stuck - 3 levels (for kids, normal, extreme) - quick erase all - % of overall resolution from other user - best solution (in N moves VS your K moves)

Few other ideas: - dark mode - practice mode (more user retention, just like quordle)

Enjoy your code and your project, I'll try to add it to my daily puzzles.

marcuskaz

Good stuff, thanks for sharing!

There's a card game Krypto that is similar, fun to play with my kids. I wrote some scripts awhile ago to solve Krypto games and figure out how many games are unsolvable.

I wrote up my thinking and how I went about solving here: https://mkaz.blog/math/krypto-game-analysis/

pietroppeter

Very nice, particularly enjoyed the video (I did not know the original game). Could be improved on the sharing part! (Is puzzle the same for everyone?). A first idea: green squares for numbers on top used, yellow squares for intermediate numbers where used. Green square for final solution. Black (or similar) circle for operations. Black squares for other numbers

12ian34

enjoyed this, thanks! I did have a problem (Firefox, Android) where hitting "share" upon completion just didn't work with some error I can't remember along the lines of not having any content to copy to clipboard. Now that the share button has disappeared I can no longer even try to share again

suprjami

Have been playing https://numble.wtf for a while, which is the same thing but nicer UI

geraldwhen

Countle has a way easier UI. The link you posted is not very friendly at all.

ThePhysicist

I once built a Tetris-like game prototype where you needed to form algebraic equations to clear objects, the more complex your equation the more points you got [1]. Reminds me a bit of this.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cux8jobEbEs

tokamak-teapot

When adding to Home Screen on phone, title suggest is ‘React App’. I changed it to ‘Countle’.

Great game, thanks!

gdix

Oops, fixed this. Thanks for letting me know.

jrmg

I would like to be able to undo any part of a calculation without trashing the whole row.

pekim

You can click either of the numbers, or the operator, in the row to remove them.

jrmg

Not after a row is filled, even if you haven’t moved on to the next row yet.

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Show HN: Countle - Hacker News