Letās learn from some failure!
Longtime readers know Iāve been fascinated by Cine2Nerdle, a game that involves sorting tiles until theyāre in structured rows and columns, representing movie facts. While the creator, Nilanth Yogadasan, puts up multiple puzzles himself every day, the user-submitted puzzles are the lionās share of available content on the site.
As a contributor, Iāve taken some big swings that havenāt worked for the user base at all. But such experiments are useful in testing audience reactions, which can help me with higher-stakes projects.
You might recognize this puzzle as working off the Barbenheimer summary I did: the green strip represents both Barbie and Oppenheimer. The columns, in order, are Donāt Worry Darling, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Blue Is The Warmest Color, and the original Star Wars.
Barbenheimer went over well when I played with it here, but this puzzleās got my lowest rating on Cine2Nerdleāaverage 1.1 stars, which is almost right down at the bottom in a 1-to-5-star rating system. Impressive, in a way!
The data also tells me that the people who solved it got an average of 4.5 correct answers out of 5. So it wasnāt unpopular because it was too hard for solvers to get. They just didnāt like what they got.
Itās possible the āfailed romanceā tile aroused some dislike. Itās more of a story spoiler than the other tiles, since the failed romances in Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Blue Is The Warmest Color arenāt shown to be failed for quite a while. But I think most of the low score comes from defying puzzlersā expectations in a way they didnāt appreciate. Barbenheimer isnāt a real movie, so this puzzleās not playing by the rules.
My next biggest clunker, at 1.9 stars, is above. The movies represented are (columnds from left to right) The Terminator, Singinā in the Rain, Smile, A Bugās Life, and (green) The Emoji Movie.
Hinging a puzzle on a widely panned movie is a risk all by itself. The Emoji Movie was a disaster. Reviews were savage, and the public was scarcely kinder. To my own eye, it seemed like a version of Pixarās āthings are peopleā formula (found in better films from Toy Story to Inside Out), combined with a tryhard desperation. Itās probably the favorite of somebody somewhere, but Iāve sure never met them or read their work.
But I donāt think thatās the most likely explanation for the reaction. I think asking the solver to think in terms of emojiāthe āmehā face and robot for the emotionless Terminator, the umbrella and laughing face for Singinā in the Rain and āMake āem Laugh,ā the skull and smiley face for the haunted smiles of Smile, and the ant and poo for A Bugās Lifeāall that mightāve been a little too much to ask of the casual solver.
Emoji have changed how we use languageā¦but not that much. Most of us still think in words, not emojis, most of the time.
Plus, the format made the emojis look quite tiny on the screen. Straining to tell āmehā from āsmileā canāt have made solvers like it any better.
Finally, there was this one, my third least popular at 2.1 stars. I worked harder on this one and thought it had a shot at doing better. But this too offers something to learn.
Movies in question are Antz (green), and from left to right, Rambo III, Basic Instinct, Saving Private Ryan, and Wreck-It Ralph.
A few tiles are misleading by design. A military sub-theme runs through several unlinked entries (SUPER SOLDIER, SQUAD SEARCHING, SHOUTY SERGEANT), and thereās at least one important military figure in four out of the five films.
An easy explanation for this one doesnāt leap to mind. This grid doesnāt seem like itād ruffle audience feathers the way the other two did. Itās following the rules; itās not asking users to jump too far out of their usual thought-patterns.
The best theory I have is that it may feel like itās trying too hard. A few of the tilesā S-words are a bit forced, especially SCHLUB SEEKING SELFHOOD, which could describe the plots of a lot of movies beyond Antz and Wreck-It Ralph.
Puzzle-makers are a bit in love with their own cleverness. Itās what motivates us to get things done. But thereās always the risk of being too clever for our own good. If we do that, we neglect the most important part of puzzles: to be fun to solve. The solver should get to feel clever too.
Looking at how these puzzles did, I might conclude thereās no place for cleverness at Cine2Nerdle, and Iād need to either stick to the basics or find another venue.
But thereās only so much to be learned from the low-scorers. Next time, Iāll talk about a few of the highs.
How many persoms have seen or head aout WRECK IT-RALPH and BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR?? Ptobably a lot more than I can imagine.
Do such personse watch any every movie made. And, of courde, the nerdle puzzle
format can b adapted to litersture and music, et.al