Birbla

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  • Hacker News
  • Highly recommend y'all try playing with the Puzzle Maker first! It’s a great way to get a feel for the shape of numbers and the different moves you can make.

    I personally found this 'learn-by-doing' approach really helps me understand the patterns before I tackle the harder levels.

    by trangram
  • Typo: invetory
    by dvh
  • good eye~ thanks
    by trangram
  • may I know which page it is?
    by trangram
  • Fixed the typo, thanks.
    by trangram
  • This is very addictive! Love it.
    by mvitorino
  • Thank you! Glad you find it addictive, enjoy the game :)
    by trangram
  • I thought this game might be too tough. You're actually the first one besides my wife who's told me it is addictive.
    by trangram
  • Would you be willing to add a manifest so this can be "installed" as an app on Android?
    by ncruces
  • sure i'll consider converting it to PWA if people prefer playing the main game than creating and sharing puzzles with the Puzzle Maker.
    by trangram
  • Nice one. I spent about 15 minutes playing, thank you.
    by oleggromov
  • Glad you enjoy it!
    by trangram
  • nice game! may i know what amount of js/css knowledge should i possess to be able to write sth like this? Eloquent JavaScript + any generic CSS book enough? thanks for making my evening.
    by eager_learner
  • thank you and glad you love it, those books are more than enough.

    As for the css part, I would suggest you start by building the layout for the desktop first. Once the desktop version looks good, use media queries to adjust the design for mobile and tablet sizes.

    As for js and html part, think in Components: Instead of one giant file, break your code into "modules" or "components". In my matchstick game, I built the "Puzzle Display" as a standalone component. This allowed me to reuse the exact same code for the main game, the puzzle creator, and the shareable play pages.

    For specific effects or tricky logic, Google and LLMs (like ChatGPT) are great resources. Avoid "copy-pasting" code you don't understand. Always try to deconstruct how a solution works before adding it to your project. Use these tools as teachers, not just shortcuts.

    Most importantly, enjoy what you are doing. Let me know if you need more info, I'm more than happy to help. Good luck to your coding journey.

    by trangram
  • Nice! What did you build this with?

    Also, submit it to https://hnarcade.com :)

    by yuppiepuppie
  • js+css, angular only for fancy pop menu and dropdown list, no angular material though, as as to keep it simple and lightweight.

    sure, will have a look. thanks!

    by trangram
  • I think I broke it a little, playing around with INT64_MAX - https://mathstick.github.io/play?q=hrojihaacciabcmtskiistbij...

    Edit: mostly directed at OP, the puzzle maker claimed something like 12 identical solutions for the same puzzle

    by a_t48
  • Yeah, you did! It's integer overflow, good catch!
    by trangram
  • Fix the integer overflow issue. Now your share link will only the first puzzle, the other two puzzles are invalid thus won't be shown any more. If you don't see any changes, you may need to refresh the browser to see the latest version.
    by trangram
  • Nice job. I'd seen similar things in the past but I had no idea this was an actual type of puzzle.

    Your game has a bug which is relatively common in drag-and-drop games. If the viewport is smaller and I drag a match off-screen by accident, it can get stuck to the edge. Then it can become detached in such a way that makes it impossible to recover the match.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchstick_puzzle

    by vunderba
  • Fix the off-screen issue. Now the previous stuck stick will be reset to the original place on your next drag. Thanks for pointing this out. And you probably need to refresh the browser to see the new update
    by trangram
  • Thanks for trying this out. I'll fix the off-screen issue later.

    I created this game because of an old news my wife shared with me, it was about The New York Times bought the Wordle game. I was then surprised that such a simple, old-style game caught the attention of a big company. I said "I'd rather play a matchstick puzzle", and it was that moment that inspired me to create a free online version with all the puzzles procedurally generated by my own hand-made solver (I like the sound of this :D). Personally, I like moving one and only one matchstick to solve a puzzle rather than 2 or 3 sticks, also I don't like those tricky solutions like negative number, rotation trick and etc. although they could be a very creative solution and let you think outside the box sometimes, IMO, it is just not elegant and sometime distracting to encourage people to think in a systematic way.

    by trangram
  • Mathstick 2 is now ready!

    Same as my first version, you can earn sticks to unlock the next level and the challenges get harder as you progress. With the newly added Puzzled Maker, you can now create your own matchstick puzzles and generate a shareable link to stump your friends :)

    For example, check out this custom challenge I just created: https://mathstick.github.io/play?q=ktoylsjcnmylbetuinmylielj...

    Feel free to share your puzzles below and feedback is welcome.

    by trangram
  • The answer to all of these should be moving a stick over the equality sign to change it to an inequality sign.
    by cyanmagenta