Sequitur
Hey internet!
Last week I put a little word game behind the play command on this site. It was
fun, but a faux terminal isn’t where most people want to play a puzzle game, and
copying and pasting (half the point of these things) is a pain in phos80. So it
You can still play it here with play sequitur. It talks to the same API now, so
it’s the same puzzle and the same answers, but streaks, history, and sharing
live over there.
The game is simple. Every day there’s a starting word and a target word, the
same for everyone. Type a noun, and a language model decides what it and your
current word make together. Whatever it says is your new word. Keep going until
you land on the target, in as few steps as you can.
Here’s the example from the how-to-play, pickle to canoe.
1. Pickle + ball = pickleball.
2. Pickleball + wood = paddle.
3. Paddle + river = canoe.
Target found in three steps.
Some pairs don’t combine (potato and elephant make nothing, it turns out), and
that costs you nothing. Try another word. There’s no answer key and no single
solution.
Every pair is cached the first time anyone plays it, so even though a language
model is non-deterministic, the game isn’t. The first person to try a pair
decides what it makes for everyone after them.
you drag two things together and a model names the result. I couldn’t find
anything that did both with a daily target, so I built one.
When you finish there’s a share line with your score and a reward emoji for how
you did (a crown if you were quick, a potato if you weren’t), and never the
words of your chain. Though, there is a second “spoiler inclusive” button which
will copy your solution to your clipboard, if you want to show how you did it.
Just be spoiler friendly out there please.
– Tim