Wordle is inspired by Mastermind, sure, but I don’t think it’s fair to call it a copy. I enjoy Mastermind; I do not enjoy Wordle¹.
Even the simplest details are different, like e.g. in Wordle you know which letters are in the right or wrong places but in Mastermind you only know some are but not which.
¹ And because this is HN, I have to point out that that is just a personal preference, it does not in any way reflect on you, the reader. You are free to enjoy or dislike whatever you want.
Specifically it is the frequency-based keyboard layout of traditional hot-metal Linotype machines. If you made a typo, the custom was to fill up the spoiled slug by running your finger down the etaoin shrdlu rows, and start fresh on the next slug. On rare occasions the layout clerk would accidentally let a shrdlu slug go to press, to the amusement of the readership.
Telegraph operators ranked the letters as etaonrish.
not shameless as here is cut and paste from the landing page when all that renders is plain text
elect.horse is a daily gerrymandering puzzle: the horse is losing the popular vote to the cow, the donkey and the goat, and you draw equal districts on a hex map so it wins the most seats anyway. It needs JavaScript to play.
I only clicked because I have a horse, with whom I spent a few miniuts out in the paddock before daylight listening to the coyotes whoop it up so close you could smell
there not dog , but not bad, odor.
You can get a feel of the state of the software industry through the replies to this comment. Specifically, the countless times people counter with "Oh, well everything is a copy of everything", citing some X that's just like Y. Except X is merely inspired by Y and in reality has far more original ideas that make it completely different. In this case this is a literal carbon copy, and people are automatically rushing to defend it. When the 'vibecoders copying indie games 1-for-1 and reselling them on Steam' debacle happened, these people probably wanted to congratulate the ripoff makers for their good business sense and brilliant use of AI.
Yeah, when I saw elect.horse I didn't think "Ooh, a new game I've never imagined before". This is a problem, but you can show the problem as part of a fun game. Like Monopoly the point isn't that this is an awesome game, the point is that it's a real problem, but if you have fun that's great too. If you get somewhat good at the game, you can understand the problem better.
The hex grid (rather than, say, square, or random Voronoi regions). The fact that some hexes have 1 voter and some have zero (rather than, say, all hexes having 1 voter, or any having more than 1). The circular colored dot indicating the voter's party (rather than, say, a picture of a horse, or tinting the entire hex). The "Hint", "Reset", and "Submit"/"Call election" buttons below the grid, in that specific order; and (I assume) the nature of the hints. The "health bar" graphic depicting the number of horse voters and donkey voters.
Now that I find a more compelling argument than "Hey you used hexes". It might still turn out to be a similar "obvious" choice but unlike the hexes it's not the first idea that comes to mind.
Every creative work is a copy of a copy; that’s just culture. The commons of ideas is a collective work, until someone pulls them out of the air, reworks them into something “original”, and plops them onto a page.
Ulysses is a copy of the Odyssey, Minecraft was a copy of Infiniminer, Stardew Valley copied Harvest Moon, Fortnite copied PUBG, film directors copy and spread each others’ techniques and storylines all the time. George Lucas even admits that Star Wars was heavily based on Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, while Kurosawa’s film was derived from historical plays and John Ford’s westerns.
I wasn't there for Stardew, but Fortnite definitely does not start out copying PUBG, the transformation is arguably more damning - Fortnite was a different and much less interesting game (now "Save The World" mode), and it got the "Battle Royale" mode everybody knows about today because PUBG popularized this idea of "battle royale" shooters and Epic could see how to do that with their existing IP very quickly and clean up.
Ok and what did Infiniminer copy? What about games like Papers Please or Obra Dinn, or Blue Prince. Yes, games can have different influences, but the idea that everything is a copy is totally incorrect. Some stuff is way more unique and original than others.
"Blue Prince" is heavily inspired by earlier works, those works just aren't video games. You could say the same all the way back to ADVENT, the Colossal Cave Adventure of the 1970s being inspired by adventures in an actual cave.
Of course good games do something we haven't seen before or do it better, but they are also invariably products of a wider culture. A big part of why Animal Well doesn't need to explain itself is that a modern video game player knows how this sort of game works and so when they get Slink or B Wand or similar they realise they can explore places they couldn't reach before.
Really? So I can ditch Minefraft for Infiniminer and get an identical experience? Same mechanics, items, bosses, worlds, achievements, structures and all?
Or are you perhaps using a game that was merely inspired by another concept but expanded on it in brand new ways to defend a game that is literally identical to what it's copying?
You could add "pretty shameless" before "copy" there. Sheesh.
What next? words.horse which is just Wordle?
words.horse appears to be a blog, but Horsle exists. https://cabletwo.net/horsle/
Can't stop laughing. Genius!
wordle is just a copy of mastermind
Wordle is inspired by Mastermind, sure, but I don’t think it’s fair to call it a copy. I enjoy Mastermind; I do not enjoy Wordle¹.
Even the simplest details are different, like e.g. in Wordle you know which letters are in the right or wrong places but in Mastermind you only know some are but not which.
¹ And because this is HN, I have to point out that that is just a personal preference, it does not in any way reflect on you, the reader. You are free to enjoy or dislike whatever you want.
Indeed, humanity proceeds largely through refinement of existing ideas, not through random leaps.
Some of these refinements are much more important than most new ideas.
And making a gerrymandering game is a relatively obvious idea that I’m sure hundreds of people have had independently.
Angry birds is just a copy of crush the castle
I consider it only "inspired by"
Mastermind has equiprobability of colors and configurations.
Wordle has etaoin shrdlcu. There is some structure close to interleaved vowels and consonants. Also an arbitrary list of real words.
>etaoin shrdlcu
TIL, this was not a typo and is the ordered sequence of most common letters appearing in English words.
Specifically it is the frequency-based keyboard layout of traditional hot-metal Linotype machines. If you made a typo, the custom was to fill up the spoiled slug by running your finger down the etaoin shrdlu rows, and start fresh on the next slug. On rare occasions the layout clerk would accidentally let a shrdlu slug go to press, to the amusement of the readership.
Telegraph operators ranked the letters as etaonrish.
I always thought it was rlstne. I might be conflating English letter distribution with Wheel of Fortune letter ordering.
if letters were colors?
Wordle is just a copy of Lingo.
not shameless as here is cut and paste from the landing page when all that renders is plain text
elect.horse is a daily gerrymandering puzzle: the horse is losing the popular vote to the cow, the donkey and the goat, and you draw equal districts on a hex map so it wins the most seats anyway. It needs JavaScript to play.
I only clicked because I have a horse, with whom I spent a few miniuts out in the paddock before daylight listening to the coyotes whoop it up so close you could smell there not dog , but not bad, odor.
The Zynga of small cute puzzle web-games.
poop.bike
It looks like it: https://gerrymandle.com/
The horse version feels more fun and cozy.
This one doesn't load for me
You can get a feel of the state of the software industry through the replies to this comment. Specifically, the countless times people counter with "Oh, well everything is a copy of everything", citing some X that's just like Y. Except X is merely inspired by Y and in reality has far more original ideas that make it completely different. In this case this is a literal carbon copy, and people are automatically rushing to defend it. When the 'vibecoders copying indie games 1-for-1 and reselling them on Steam' debacle happened, these people probably wanted to congratulate the ripoff makers for their good business sense and brilliant use of AI.
Gerrymandle doesn't have horses
which is itself not a new concept
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/teaching-players-to-rig... (2018)
Yeah, when I saw elect.horse I didn't think "Ooh, a new game I've never imagined before". This is a problem, but you can show the problem as part of a fun game. Like Monopoly the point isn't that this is an awesome game, the point is that it's a real problem, but if you have fun that's great too. If you get somewhat good at the game, you can understand the problem better.
Yes but surely you can see that this is copying much more than just the general idea of a game about gerrymandering.
I don't see it, but maybe you have examples where there are specific choices which were copied?
The hex grid (rather than, say, square, or random Voronoi regions). The fact that some hexes have 1 voter and some have zero (rather than, say, all hexes having 1 voter, or any having more than 1). The circular colored dot indicating the voter's party (rather than, say, a picture of a horse, or tinting the entire hex). The "Hint", "Reset", and "Submit"/"Call election" buttons below the grid, in that specific order; and (I assume) the nature of the hints. The "health bar" graphic depicting the number of horse voters and donkey voters.
Also the unrealistic mechanic where a tied vote removes that district from the total.
Now that I find a more compelling argument than "Hey you used hexes". It might still turn out to be a similar "obvious" choice but unlike the hexes it's not the first idea that comes to mind.
This is probably a better example of prior implementation with many similar design decisions
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1639370584/mapmaker-the...
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/252997
Also who the hell cares if something is a “copy”, what matters is if it’s better or worse
Linux is a copy of UNIX. Who cares
For tools or utilities, maybe that's fine. For creative works like games, no way, I'm calling out rip offs every time I see them.
Every creative work is a copy of a copy; that’s just culture. The commons of ideas is a collective work, until someone pulls them out of the air, reworks them into something “original”, and plops them onto a page.
Ulysses is a copy of the Odyssey, Minecraft was a copy of Infiniminer, Stardew Valley copied Harvest Moon, Fortnite copied PUBG, film directors copy and spread each others’ techniques and storylines all the time. George Lucas even admits that Star Wars was heavily based on Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress, while Kurosawa’s film was derived from historical plays and John Ford’s westerns.
I wasn't there for Stardew, but Fortnite definitely does not start out copying PUBG, the transformation is arguably more damning - Fortnite was a different and much less interesting game (now "Save The World" mode), and it got the "Battle Royale" mode everybody knows about today because PUBG popularized this idea of "battle royale" shooters and Epic could see how to do that with their existing IP very quickly and clean up.
True, it was more of a pivot that involved copying PUBG’s successful format.
Ok and what did Infiniminer copy? What about games like Papers Please or Obra Dinn, or Blue Prince. Yes, games can have different influences, but the idea that everything is a copy is totally incorrect. Some stuff is way more unique and original than others.
You seem to be taking "copy" much too literally.
"Blue Prince" is heavily inspired by earlier works, those works just aren't video games. You could say the same all the way back to ADVENT, the Colossal Cave Adventure of the 1970s being inspired by adventures in an actual cave.
Of course good games do something we haven't seen before or do it better, but they are also invariably products of a wider culture. A big part of why Animal Well doesn't need to explain itself is that a modern video game player knows how this sort of game works and so when they get Slink or B Wand or similar they realise they can explore places they couldn't reach before.
Seems like it, though this has a second puzzle with three candidates instead of two
Gerrymandle interchanges the number of candidates: sometimes two, sometimes three, sometimes more
Ah. First time I've seen either.
Gerrymandle shows popup asking me to "Create profiles for personalised advertising" at 116 vendors, so I am completely fine with them being cloned.
Clone software they said, it will be good they said
With you always working make sure blue wins.
Minecraft is a copy of infiniminer
Really? So I can ditch Minefraft for Infiniminer and get an identical experience? Same mechanics, items, bosses, worlds, achievements, structures and all?
Or are you perhaps using a game that was merely inspired by another concept but expanded on it in brand new ways to defend a game that is literally identical to what it's copying?
everything is a copy of everything else. So what? Execution matters
https://words.global
[dead]
the more such site the better it is.