Currently, because this is initial testing, there is a small number of puzzles available in each category, and no efforts have been made to guarantee different puzzle sizes (number of onigiris) in each category. The number of puzzles will go up, and there will be balance between small, medium, and large puzzles.
As an open question, I am having trouble with the naming of the JLPT (General) puzzles. Right now, they are only #1, #2, #3, but that seems a bit dry. Textbooks obviously don't have this problem.
Don't know if it helps with the names, but generally English language crossword puzzles use either the date of the paper the puzzle was issued in for the title, or a name/pun based off the general theme of the words in the puzzle.
Thanks for the response! They'll come out in packs so the date style won't work, and there are no themes in the puzzles either :(. What I'm thinking (although this might make the ui more confusing) is doing secret words - where, for example, a certain puzzle might appear as _ _ _ _ in the title, and in the puzzle, there are four squares that are shaded differently, each having one of the characters: お い し い. Finish the puzzle, unlock the word おいしい.
Basically, yea. Then, I could "group" the puzzles not based on their contents, but on the solutions, so there could be an animals collection, jobs collection, etc.
I've got all the functionality in, but I'm having a clarity issue with the UI:
There would be multiple categories in a single list, so below Animals there'd be Jobs, and then Family, etc.
My biggest worry is that those puzzles now look like they are puzzles that have clues themed around Animals, not puzzles where all the hidden words are animals.
In that case, can't you make a subtitle e.g. "find the animal that's hiding in the puzzle" or may put more text into the description where you explaine the objective a little?
I used to play a word search game that was similar. After finding all the random words, which had no connection to the topic, a hidden word was revealed. It came with an informational short paragraph fill-in-the-blank style where the hidden word(s) fit in.
It maybe irritating at first, but once you understand the system you get used to it, I'd say.
I'm not sure I'll have time for extra information about each word, especially at the beginning. Also trying to keep the amount of text low so I can more easily maintain the multiple language versions.
I'll have this update..maybe tomorrow, and then I can get a bit more feedback from you guys!
