Strands From Me To You!

But don't tell anyone.

As you might remember, I’ve gone to bat for home-brewed variations on Wordle. I think they’re good for the overall field of word games, and that a lot of aspects of game play are uncopyrightable. So when I found out about an informal online version of Strands where users could make and share their own puzzles, my first impulse was to say, “Good for them.”

My second impulse was to make a few of my own!

These “home-brewed” Strands games are not as sophisticated as the NYT version: there’s at least one feature they’re missing. There’s no in-game dictionary, so you can’t earn hints the way you do in the official game. (You're still given the hint option, but come on, make me work for it!)

You might have to scroll a bit to see all you need to see to play, and I found the interface a bit glitchy at one point. Still, the interface gets the essentials. And I like the festive nature of its “multicolor mode.” (In both modes, the grid-spanning theme revealer is yellow, a brighter yellow than in the NYT Strands.)

I’m a bit nervous about sharing this, just because word may travel to the wrong people. The NYT’s legal department hasn’t been kind to other wordles lately, and while this is a student project with modest ambitions, that’s not always enough to earn a pass. I do wish it disguised its inspiration a bit more: a URL like “customnytstrands.com” and the use of the term “spangram” might be a legitimate trademark infringement. Still, I found out about this from the discussion of the main Strands game on Reddit, so it’s not like it’s a huge secret.

At any rate, for however long they last, you can try out the custom Strands I made here, here, and here. The first one might be a little tricky unless you think in terms of knowing me and my interests, but the later two are pretty straightforward, I think.

I’ll discuss Strands from an (amateur) creator’s perspective later this week. But tomorrow, it’ll be time to get into Journal matters…