Fun times! I realise the UX might be tricky, but having a way to input things using a keyboard would be cool.

Another issue is that multiplicative identity seems to be used too often. That is, too often the equation boils down to something like "8 × 1 = 8" or "5 ÷ 1 = 5". This would ramp up the difficulty considerably faster, though, so you might want to slow down the complexity increase a bit to compensate.

Oh, and a way to copy the grid into ASCII art would be cool, including for bug reports. For example, after a few puzzles I ran into

  9 4 + 2 = 9 ?

, which is a bit silly. There's only one possibility, and only one given number, so the solution is trivial. And this was after solving ~10 of these.

It would be good if it was stateful. I pressed the Back button by mistake, and when I returned it was back to square one. This could be as simple as saving a starting seed plus an offset per level. Gamifying it with a level counter would be great.

Colour-blind users would probably appreciate more than colour feedback to indicate an error.

Sometimes there are equations which are completely filled in with no holes, so they don't affect the puzzle at all. These could be removed entirely, since they are effectively just noise.

Ordering the numbers which have to be dragged, well, numerically, would be nice - it doesn't make the puzzle any easier or harder, just makes it easier to see how many I have of each digit.

Would you be OK to publish the code online? I'm sure lots of people would want to fork and play around with the idea.

> For example, after a few puzzles I ran into 9 4 + 2 = 9 ? , which is a bit silly. There's only one possibility, and only one given number, so the solution is trivial. And this was after solving ~10 of these.

I noticed this as well, but there's a non-silly subtlety that I think you and I both missed - this easy puzzle was the first introduction of the multi-digit concept. Everything prior had been single digits only.

The puzzles get easy again for a bit when two-digit numbers are introduced, but one unknown and one given number is a bit pointless.

I also think that multiplication and division by 1 should be pared down (if not eliminated). In general, it'd be nice to favor larger numbers instead of using 1/2/3 so much.

I suggest making satisfied equations green (and maybe unsatisfied ones red) as you go, rather than just at the end. There are a lot of equations that are ×1 or ÷1, which is less interesting than it could be. Fractions could be fun.

I got a puzzle with one equation already solved, and only intersecting with one other, so it wasn't actually doing anything. I can't see an identifier to specify which one it is, but it has 11 - 7 = 4 vertically on the left side.

The difficulty seems to plateau pretty quickly.

Painting the equations as you go will increase brute forcing . I think it's beter to keep them in the same color.

Seems fun. One suggestion: ensure that the solution is unique. I just got a puzzle with two solutions.

https://i.postimg.cc/L5bbp2Hy/Screenshot-2024-01-08-at-7-06-...

Great game. Small bit of feedback: I'm having trouble distinguishing the + and ÷ symbols (on an iPhone SE 2nd gen.). You might consider making them clearer.

UX suggestion: allow dropping on an already-played piece. If the tile you are dropping comes from the tray, put the already-played piece into the tray. If the tile was in the grid, swap the locations of the pieces.

Regarding arithmetic games, I much prefer https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/js/keen...

At least half of that preference is the ability to use keyboard controls. The math is also more tailorable to user ability (use the "type" menu), though within each game it goes from hard to easy.

This doesn't even work on mobile, so much for better UX

Yeah, you probably need the app version for a good mobile UI. The emulated right-click means mobile UI is fundamentally slower though.

Would be nice to know what "level" you're on.

This is really neat! It's kind of fun to play as an adult, but it also would make for a great educational tool for elementary school students.

Please understand that the reason I'm offering these suggestions is because of how much I like what you've made :-)

On mobile I would imagine the dragon drop UX is great, but on desktop it's fairly clunky. If I could type in the number with the keyboard and have it grab and drop the correct tile, that would be an awesome improvement.

It would be nice if there was a way to skip forward levels. The first time through the way you did it is perfect as it teaches you how to play, but every time after that it's kind of annoying (especially by the drag and drop interface on desktop). If there was a button you could click or something that would let you skip ahead to certain levels, that would be a real nice improvement.

This is really awesome work, thank you for sharing!

Beautiful interface! This would be an excellent replacement for the traditional "times table" approach to teaching basic arithmetic. My only suggestion would be to limit multiplication/division by 1, as this makes some puzzles trivially easy to solve by process of elimination.

I'm having difficulty telling "+" and "÷" apart when the font gets small.

I was going to suggest changing to the Ken Ken convention, which uses '/' instead. Much easier visually.

This is fun. I'm gonna show it to my 8 year old, who I suspect will like it, but the problems will be too difficult after just a few levels. Would be cool to have some way to limit the difficulty.

This would also do well on paper, so I wonder if it can be printed.

my 8yo daughter caught me playing and now she's hooked!

I would like to see somewhere just a counter of how many I have finished, so that I could compete with my coworkers!

I have a puzzle with no correct solution:

https://gcdnb.pbrd.co/images/T5vHCnVvd3Da.png?o=1

Edit: I read that as 3-x=3. I would assume that when reading up that should be the case. Reading x-3 with = above it doesn't seem intuitive to me.

You have to read the verticals downwards: 3 = x - 3. There's a note about it in the "↓01" button. Otherwise things like 8 - x = 9 - y vertically would be ambiguous.

There is a solution. Your 1 and 7 should be swapped.

Try swapping the 1 and 7 :)

It seems to save progress. I'm on my phone so I can't check how it does it. A cookie?

The reason I won't use this is because it's drag-and-drop. That's just begging for an RSI during long-term use. For desktop using keyboard shortcuts would solve this, on mobile it would be pressing on something.

Very nice simple puzzle game!

I think the game would be much more enjoyable if you have curated levels rather then getting them randomly generated.

Also it seems that my progress is lost whenever I refresh the page.

Great! Love it!

Could you add a way to race other people to solve the puzzles?

Seems like this one is broken? https://postimg.cc/T5hVQCXd

No, it's fine, but the second vertical should be 14 = 21 - 7. Then the first vertical is 39 = 8 + 31.

Are they randomly generated or you have a curated list? The difficulty increase too slow, but after 10 puzzles it starts to get tricky.

Hi! They are randomly-generated but in a controlled way (e.g. I tell it to make 1 equation with 1 option, or 5 equations with 8 options for some level).

I've made the first few levels easy on purpose just to get people used to the game.

And yes, it gets very tricky. Specially after 20-25 puzzles. :)

Is there a counter hidden in the page or a JS variable? I think I went further than that but it didn't get any harder.

I love this, very fun to play... I can imagine my younger cousins having a good time using this!

Nice!

Sometimes it generates ambiguous situations, where two solutions are both equally valid.

For example

equation: 5 - _ = _ available numbers: 3 and 2

Pretty cool. I really like your website! How does the sonification of space sounds work?

Love the PI visualisation. Would be better if the number is not increased linearly

Congrats! and Well done! Feedback: A points system would be great.

This is a really fun and useful app for kids, thank you!

This is really good. It reminds me of sudoku.

This is like math dominos, nice.

What a fantastic nerd-snipe.

This is great, very cool!

...

You have my personal thanks. Thanks!