How does the New York Times make a game?(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
How does the New York Times make a game?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/10/crosswords/games-digits-beta.html
10 comments
Isn’t this just the numbers game from Countdown? This team could have come to the same idea on their own, but it’s a bit suspicious how similar it is…
The article in fact acknowledges this. (It says that it came from both Countdown and Des Chiffres et des Lettres, without saying that Countdown itself was based on Des Chiffres et des Lettres. There's also an Australian version, inspired by Countdown but reverting to the French name, called Letters and Numbers.)
The renaming in Australia is likely due to a conflict with an old but very popular tv show with the name Countdown (a music tv show)
Yes, it is. For an ad-free experience, I play it at https://www.countle.org, which has a daily puzzle similar to Wordle.
Several of my friends and family members are playing Countable, which is completely ad-free on iOS (https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/countable-daily-numbers-game/i...) and Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pibbon.cou...).
Full disclosure: I developed this app during Christmas '22 with the idea of offering only one challenging new puzzle/level each day. I believe that the focus on the level of difficulty makes a huge difference.
Full disclosure: I developed this app during Christmas '22 with the idea of offering only one challenging new puzzle/level each day. I believe that the focus on the level of difficulty makes a huge difference.
In fact, the numbers game is a copy of Countdown, which is itself a copy of "Le Compte est Bon", a french TV game started in 1965.
I'm no expert on French television, but according to Wikipedia, "Le compte est bon" is a phrase used on the TV show "Des chiffres et des lettres", not a game or show in itself.
FWIW the results of this process are... awful.
The 3 great games they have were not built this way. Crosswords obviously are decades old. Spelling Bee was entirely designed by Will Shortz (who mostly copied it from another paper). And Wordle was bought.
Every other game they've made I find almost indescribably unappealing. I love puzzles of all types, but it's hard to even call them puzzles. They are clunky interfaces on top of clunkier concepts which are more exercises in rule-following than puzzles to solve.
The 3 great games they have were not built this way. Crosswords obviously are decades old. Spelling Bee was entirely designed by Will Shortz (who mostly copied it from another paper). And Wordle was bought.
Every other game they've made I find almost indescribably unappealing. I love puzzles of all types, but it's hard to even call them puzzles. They are clunky interfaces on top of clunkier concepts which are more exercises in rule-following than puzzles to solve.
I guess it seems kinda obvious that a news organisation is bad at moonlighting as a game studio? They presumably have some metrics that somebody looks at, but I highly doubt they are as closely drawn to profitability as say an indie studio.
> “It’s fairly democratic,” Zoe Bell, the executive producer of New York Times Games, said in an interview. Anyone on the Games team can pitch an idea. It’s a departure from the process at Ms. Bell’s past jobs, where only the game designers were allowed to contribute ideas.
I guess that's the case for big game studios that have established pipelines of new games, but NYT is basically an indie studio with marketing handled by their parent company, and indie studios from what I've seen are very much unstructured and does not have a well established pipeline for launching new games.
> “It’s fairly democratic,” Zoe Bell, the executive producer of New York Times Games, said in an interview. Anyone on the Games team can pitch an idea. It’s a departure from the process at Ms. Bell’s past jobs, where only the game designers were allowed to contribute ideas.
I guess that's the case for big game studios that have established pipelines of new games, but NYT is basically an indie studio with marketing handled by their parent company, and indie studios from what I've seen are very much unstructured and does not have a well established pipeline for launching new games.
In the game industry, even most of the dinosaurs now recognize that only allowing designers to contribute ideas isn't a good idea. Perhaps the companies she worked for were particularly awful.
I enjoy Digits a lot and enjoy playing Vertex if it’s in front of me, although it’s not one I will specifically go to the website for. And there just aren’t that many extremely popular puzzle games in the history of puzzle games.
Jigsaws, Crosswords, and most recently Sudoku would probably cover the entire universe of extremely popular puzzle games.
Calling the results of the process “awful” is an incredible stretch to put it politely.
Jigsaws, Crosswords, and most recently Sudoku would probably cover the entire universe of extremely popular puzzle games.
Calling the results of the process “awful” is an incredible stretch to put it politely.
I play Letterbox and Vertex daily. Also enjoying Digits a lot.
Kind of odd that we have different tastes.
Kind of odd that we have different tastes.
For a while there I was two-solving Letterboxed on an almost daily basis, but it regularly took 20-30 minutes to do.
I couldn't bear to three-solve it knowing a two-word solution existed, so I hut a stretch where I started not finishing and just looking up the solution the next day. For many of these, the two-word solutions required words that were so far on the fringes of my vocabulary that I knew I would have never gotten them.
Now I only spend about 5-10 minutes on it and if I don't think I'm onto anything by then, I move on with my day.
I studied and played Scrabble at a pretty high level. And unlike Spelling Bee, Letterbox accepts all the weird Scrabble words which makes it a lot easier for me. I’ll usually look at it for 10-15 minutes a day and if I can’t get a 2-word solve I just give up and move on to other things.
I think there’s even been 2 days with a 1-word solve!
I think there’s even been 2 days with a 1-word solve!
And they recently removed cryptic and acrostic crosswords due to "complex nature of these puzzles".
In what way did they remove cryptic crosswords?
https://twitter.com/NYTGames/status/1620791597788008457
On March 1st, they removed the digital versions of the acrostic and cryptic puzzles. They've taken down the entire archive, including something like 150 cryptic puzzles and 450 or so acrostic puzzles. They also no longer publish either type at all digital, though they still are in print.
On March 1st, they removed the digital versions of the acrostic and cryptic puzzles. They've taken down the entire archive, including something like 150 cryptic puzzles and 450 or so acrostic puzzles. They also no longer publish either type at all digital, though they still are in print.
Wow! That's telling. I play 3 of their games every day and it's those 3 haha (not the full size crossword which you have to pay $, but the mini which is free)
Ain't nobody got time fo the others!
I play those three too. Sometimes I attempt Letterboxed. I stopped Sudoku because it's such a time sink, even if solvable. Gone are the days where one could sit with a paper for hours (real or otherwise), to solve puzzles.
I play those three too. Sometimes I attempt Letterboxed. I stopped Sudoku because it's such a time sink, even if solvable. Gone are the days where one could sit with a paper for hours (real or otherwise), to solve puzzles.
This game isn’t a unique idea. I’ve played it with pen and paper before. It’s common in China.
This was an interview question a friend of mine used. He explained that it was a very common Chinese childrens' game. It was also done on a British game show from the 90s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfa3MHLLSWI
Nitpick: Countdown was the first show broadcast on Channel 4, which launched in 1982.
That game show was in turn based on a French show (Des Chiffres et des Lettres), and both are still running to this day, as is the Australian version, called Letters and Numbers.
Also, in Britain you have a choice, there is Countdown, which is this game, played by well, mostly nerds, the sort of people who are good at this type of game. If you're an American who loves "Jeopardy" then it might appeal.
But there's also "Cats does Countdown" (full title: "8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown") which is comedians playing the exact same game, with the same two women looking after the mechanics of the game, but a comedian as host and the entire tone of the game changes.
Cats does Countdown's existence is a crazy story. "8 Out Of 10 Cats" is a comedy panel show, a mix of comedians and celebrities play a game, in this case based around advertising (hence the reference to dubious "8 out of 10 ..." type claims in adverts) and mostly the game is just an excuse for comedy, if you know the correct answer but that isn't funny, saying something funny is better. This show, like Countdown, was a fairly popular show on Channel 4, a public service broadcaster which is publicly owned (like the BBC) but funded by advertising (like commercial broadcasters), and to celebrate their 30th anniversary, Channel 4 mashed together some of its most famous shows for one-offs.
One of the most popular mash-ups was mashing "8 Out Of 10 Cats" with "Countdown" to produce "8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown". So, Channel 4 did it again for another one-shot later that year, which was also very popular, and as a result they commissioned entire series of the show. That has gone on for years since.
But there's also "Cats does Countdown" (full title: "8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown") which is comedians playing the exact same game, with the same two women looking after the mechanics of the game, but a comedian as host and the entire tone of the game changes.
Cats does Countdown's existence is a crazy story. "8 Out Of 10 Cats" is a comedy panel show, a mix of comedians and celebrities play a game, in this case based around advertising (hence the reference to dubious "8 out of 10 ..." type claims in adverts) and mostly the game is just an excuse for comedy, if you know the correct answer but that isn't funny, saying something funny is better. This show, like Countdown, was a fairly popular show on Channel 4, a public service broadcaster which is publicly owned (like the BBC) but funded by advertising (like commercial broadcasters), and to celebrate their 30th anniversary, Channel 4 mashed together some of its most famous shows for one-offs.
One of the most popular mash-ups was mashing "8 Out Of 10 Cats" with "Countdown" to produce "8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown". So, Channel 4 did it again for another one-shot later that year, which was also very popular, and as a result they commissioned entire series of the show. That has gone on for years since.
Gives a hilarious new context to all the 1.88m results for "nytimes.com plagiarism China":
"Why Do the Chinese Copy So Much?" https://archive.nytimes.com/rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/201...
"Why Do the Chinese Copy So Much?" https://archive.nytimes.com/rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/201...
It’s not the idea that’s unique, it’s the interface. It was the same thing with Wordle.
I think its nice for consumers that NY Times gets to operate this way, because its a side project they choose to subsidize.
I don’t think this is a bragging point though. They’re bragging that a human is unnecessarily involved in a curation process, to give warm fuzzies to …. who? Something we’ll never be able to verify when it changes.
They’re bragging that engagement isn’t a priority because…. they’re wasting money in a way that people passionate about making games can’t afford to.
Should have just kept this one in drafts.
I don’t think this is a bragging point though. They’re bragging that a human is unnecessarily involved in a curation process, to give warm fuzzies to …. who? Something we’ll never be able to verify when it changes.
They’re bragging that engagement isn’t a priority because…. they’re wasting money in a way that people passionate about making games can’t afford to.
Should have just kept this one in drafts.
I guess I totally don’t get your point. Some organizations have resources to create side efforts that people like. And the Times has a game subscription so it’s not that much of a loss leader.
Personally I thought it an interesting view into how they go about developing a game.
Personally I thought it an interesting view into how they go about developing a game.
Maybe I’m feeling especially cynical today
Games are part of The (new) New York Times digital bundle that I pay a not inconsiderable amount for. In the past I'd have paid for other bundled items such as (if I lived in NYC) the classifieds.
The Economist seems to be doing well on its own terms as well-though that seems to be more around their research arm and their events arm. But the NYT is working to assemble an appealing subscription--which isn't all that different from Apple is doing with different particulars.
And, as always, that disadvantages individuals and organizations who have to make a singular item work. Which at the moment with games seems to lead to "free to play" and other approaches that aren't especially consumer-friendly but where you probably are standalone with a price-sensitive audience.
The Economist seems to be doing well on its own terms as well-though that seems to be more around their research arm and their events arm. But the NYT is working to assemble an appealing subscription--which isn't all that different from Apple is doing with different particulars.
And, as always, that disadvantages individuals and organizations who have to make a singular item work. Which at the moment with games seems to lead to "free to play" and other approaches that aren't especially consumer-friendly but where you probably are standalone with a price-sensitive audience.
as a developer i enjoyed this article thoroughly, and were i passionate about making games i suspect i'd have enjoyed it even more. game makers know that engagement-above-all is a cancer on games, either because it leads to dark patterns that divorce "engagement" from actual fun playing the game, or because it leads to the game being watered down to appeal mildly to a lot of people.
similarly, while algorithmic, procedural or more recently AI generated content is an efficient and cost-effective way to make games, having a human in the loop can optimise for fun in a way that a pure machine-driven process cannot. again, as a game maker i would be thrilled that the NYT is putting resources into supporting this sort of human involvement in a game.
similarly, while algorithmic, procedural or more recently AI generated content is an efficient and cost-effective way to make games, having a human in the loop can optimise for fun in a way that a pure machine-driven process cannot. again, as a game maker i would be thrilled that the NYT is putting resources into supporting this sort of human involvement in a game.
I think you make a valid point. A lot of people today (mostly influencers) increase their engagement through something colloquially known as “humblebragging”. This is bottom of the barrel content that doesn’t inform the reader but entertains them. It’s also been known in the past as yellow journalism.
When the NYT does it I agree that’s a new low. I don’t expect humblebragging from them.
When the NYT does it I agree that’s a new low. I don’t expect humblebragging from them.
the increasingly misused term "humblebragging" refers to bragging about something while pretending to put yourself down in a show of humility[0]. this is just plain showing off something you have done and are proud of, which is a wonderful thing.
[0] depicted wonderfully in "pride and prejudice":
[0] depicted wonderfully in "pride and prejudice":
"Oh!" cried Miss Bingley, "Charles writes in the most careless way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest."
"My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them -- by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents."
"Your humility, Mr. Bingley," said Elizabeth, "must disarm reproof."
"Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast."
"And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty?"
"The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance.Not sure if I agree you. As someone who has play games for 20 years but didn't know nyt has games, I found it informative and fascinating. As long as they keep it factual and informative, I'm fine with it
Er, what?
Why do you think that people who are passionate about making games are in poverty?
Why do you think that people who are passionate about making games are in poverty?
that’s not what I wrote or implied. the article makes a clear distinction about other game studios and there is a clear reason other game studios act the way they do.
The games department at the NYT is extremely lucrative. They get to charge extra for it and the customers love it enough to pay for it. My favorite job there is the person who "edits" Wordle. That's right. There's someone with the job of picking the right five letter word for the day. Now it's true that some words are harder than others, but the choice isn't that hard.
I assume the person who picks the word does a great deal more than that in the course of a day.
Looking at https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015852367-Digi..., it doesn't seem like they charge extra to access the games? The all-access subscription gets you everything, and the news-only subscription gets you the news only. There's no "pay $x extra for games", only this https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/games#view-subscription... $40/yr.
At $40/yr I would much rather get Apple Arcade, that's quite a shocking price for a subscription to a crappy indie studio.
At $40/yr I would much rather get Apple Arcade, that's quite a shocking price for a subscription to a crappy indie studio.
Gizmodo has a piece awhile back lamenting this fact. You’re subjected to the whims of someone’s jokery.
They example they have (if I recall) was that they couldn’t guess the word, only to find out that it was related to holiday XYZ that was in the next few days and it seemed so obvious and dumb -- because now instead of having to figure out a word based on missing letters, you now needed to take into account current events, time, etc.
Of course, I can’t find the link at the moment… (so, maybe I’m making it up).
They example they have (if I recall) was that they couldn’t guess the word, only to find out that it was related to holiday XYZ that was in the next few days and it seemed so obvious and dumb -- because now instead of having to figure out a word based on missing letters, you now needed to take into account current events, time, etc.
Of course, I can’t find the link at the moment… (so, maybe I’m making it up).
I didn't realize Wordle stopped using the preset answer list that was distributed with the source since its inception. Looking it up, appears to have changed last November.
Thought this was gonna be an article about how they invented Wordle
i have an iOS cooking app i’d love to sell to the New York Times.
they have the best sudoku games I could find
An interesting choice. From where I stand, they have a pretty bad sudoku implementation. While the UI is generally fine, it has iffy definitions of difficulty, an woeful hint system, and does nothing to make you get better.
I compare it to, say, Good Sudoku by Zach Gage (No affiliation). It has a wider differences in difficulty levels, based on the algorithmic patterns humans would need to use to solve them. The game includes a list of all the patterns you might need to use for a given difficulty level, and the hints are based on those patterns, which are the same you can find in any high level sudoku solving site.
Where The NY Times sudoku would point you cryptically to a cell, a hint system would say 'Given that one of this two cells must be a 9, that means that this other cell cannot be a nine', so you learn how you missed.
Not that NYT games is bad at all, It's just their sudoku that needs some help.
I compare it to, say, Good Sudoku by Zach Gage (No affiliation). It has a wider differences in difficulty levels, based on the algorithmic patterns humans would need to use to solve them. The game includes a list of all the patterns you might need to use for a given difficulty level, and the hints are based on those patterns, which are the same you can find in any high level sudoku solving site.
Where The NY Times sudoku would point you cryptically to a cell, a hint system would say 'Given that one of this two cells must be a 9, that means that this other cell cannot be a nine', so you learn how you missed.
Not that NYT games is bad at all, It's just their sudoku that needs some help.
I cannot speak for Good Sudoku because I never play the game on mobile, so I suppose our use cases for UI are completely different.
Funny because what I like the most about nyt sudoku is the difficulty (level design): they are on point for me, I always do the 3 in sequence, and it's always a pleasure. Hard is just hard enough for a good pastime. Sometimes Medium is harder than Hard, although it's rare, lol.
Funny because what I like the most about nyt sudoku is the difficulty (level design): they are on point for me, I always do the 3 in sequence, and it's always a pleasure. Hard is just hard enough for a good pastime. Sometimes Medium is harder than Hard, although it's rare, lol.
If you like Sudoku, check out Sudoku + extra rules. This channel solves them daily, which I really enjoy watching, but they also have a link in the description to a great website where you can solve it yourself, for free. They are all hand-made.
https://youtu.be/ejhtYYvUs5M
https://youtu.be/ejhtYYvUs5M
seconded! i don't even like regular sudoku all that much, but i'm totally hooked on the variant ones from that channel.
Btw, and in case anyone is interested... I made a Sudoku game for fun: https://kjabr.github.io/Sudoku/
They buy it.
It's not interesting to make glib comments based on the headline. The article describes an extensive in-house game development process.
Get a sense of humor.
I came here to say the same thing