Ask HN: 80s electronics book club; anyone remember this illustrator?

I'd prefer the rows, columns and diagonals to have their current sums visible next to the desired totals. Right now, it's tedious to have to add all the numbers up for each one.

prawn · 77d ago

Tried a couple and didn't mind the concept, but agree that summing things gets tedious enough that I wouldn't continue, return or recommend it.

If the interface doesn't present an obvious way to add the current totals, it could be colour-coded in a way that experienced players possibly learn how far off they are. Use cool colours for under, and warm colours for over?

voisin · 77d ago

This, 100%. I enjoyed it but as soon as I moved up to more challenging levels and found myself just repeating addition I got frustrated by the tedium.

koiueo · 77d ago

To me that was the point of the puzzle.

Your suggestion would kill the challenge, turning the game into a casual dopamine inducer.

madmonk · 77d ago

Good suggestion!

wes1350 · 77d ago

A nice feature would be "locking" black squares, or otherwise marking them somehow, to distinguish them from squares you may still switch in the future.

snarf21 · 77d ago

Agreed. The black squares should turn white once a row AND column are correct. Otherwise, you just spend you time scanning right and down checking if that row/col is right again. It is tedium and not enjoyable.

ajjenkins · 77d ago

Yeah, you should be able to manually lock or they should lock automatically once it’s guaranteed a tile is in the right place. Like if there’s only one black tile in a row and that row is correct.

poopsmithe · 77d ago

It's frustrating how sometimes my clicks on the black tiles go unhandled.

ajjenkins · 77d ago

Yeah, it feels like there’s a slight delay when you tap on a tile. I’m playing on an iPhone.

chabska · 77d ago

The HTML structure is very problematic. You use a <table>, even though semantically the game grid is not a table of data. I would have used a <div> with display:grid , though this is not a big deal. The active cell is a <div> with onclick, which means the cursor doesn't show it as clickable and I can't even tab to it so keyboard play is impossible. There are ways to make a <div> look clickable, but it's easiest to just use <button> .

madmonk · 77d ago

Good point.

koiueo · 77d ago

I liked the game as it is in terms of hints and assistance.

The only thing I at one point missed was the undo action. I accidentally fat-fingered two correctly placed squares, and although it was frustrating at first, in the end I appreciated the additional challenge.

throwaway675309 · 77d ago

It's a fun little game - the minimalistic UI/UX suits it well. I'd consider lowering the volume on the music. It doesn't really feel like it suits a casual puzzle game either.

geuis · 77d ago

The audio stops my audio that's already playing.

anenefan · 79d ago

Nice educational puzzle - I think possibly good for kids teaching them to add up in their own head.

galuggus · 77d ago

Great music. Did you make it?

madmonk · 77d ago

Thanks! Yes, I made it with Auxy.