brgross

yeah...working on adding a space bar/key to mobile suburbs solver!

I've played around a little with this but never found a way to do it that I thought worked for the Atlantic puzzle.

Here's a very bad example I just made of one way you might use emoji to make inter-clue references:

https://suburbs.bracket.city/5Q1O24

too confusing/unsatisfying right now -- but I made the builder partly so that people would experiment...I bet someone will figure out something good!

Love these ideas -- I've also been thinking about an "arcade" mode where you get prompted with a country "in sight" and you have to guess the bearing

I went with great circles since that feels like the most “natural” straight line on a sphere — the path you’d walk if you just kept going forward without steering. You could define "straight" as a constant compass direction (I think it's called a "rhumb") -- that would look straight on a Mercator map but would actually require regular steering adjustments to maintain the bearing.

I posted Bracket City to HN on February 24th and the game went live yesterday on The Atlantic (!)

The game will stay free to play (and not require logging in). Also, I'm still making all the puzzles!

HN provided the first real infusion of players that weren't my mom's friends. So thanks everyone.

FWIW The Atlantic's team is amazing and got this live exactly 2 weeks from when we signed the deal.

This happened quick and I feel very lucky. The HN community of solvers keeps me honest with much helpful technical and editorial feedback. I love it all -- here or at mayor@bracket.city

T[Tom who befriended a volleyball] HN

PS my original post! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43160542

Amazing convergence! Thank you for playing!

have gone back and forth on this point -- so far I've decided that outer brackets should be a hint that guides on you inner brackets, but that you can't skip any clues

but I hear you!

fair! I do think today's puzzle betrays my elder millennial status more than most...