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Show HN: My saturday project. For when your co-founders can't 'Draw Something'.

54 points| sgk284 | 14 years ago |omghalp.com

48 comments

order
[+] naush|14 years ago|reply
Funny, I wrote a script for my girlfriend a week ago too. I just grabbed my word list from /usr/share/dict/words though.

https://gist.github.com/2069501

[+] naush|14 years ago|reply
Update: use the official word list from DrawSomething...
[+] hellokhoaphan|14 years ago|reply
Real awesome tool, great job Steve.

On a side note though, anyone who seriously uses this tool to play 'Draw Something' is missing out on the concept of the game, which is to use your creativity to draw up something that users can then guess.

If you're using a tool to help you guess a word the correct word, then you're doing the "drawer" a disservice by basically saying to them that their drawing is good enough, when it really isn't... seeing as you couldn't guess what it was.

It's like funding a start up that you know is destined to fail and you keep telling them to keep on keeping on with the doomed idea; or in this case, their crappy drawings that you can't guess!

[+] wizzard|14 years ago|reply
While I agree with you in spirit, I just want to point out that it's not always the drawer's fault that you don't recognize a pop culture reference ("katniss") or something a bit obscure ("golem").

Also, you might have too much riding on the game if you can use startup funding as an analogy!

[+] tylermenezes|14 years ago|reply
I think you're sort of missing the point of the game, which is to be a game. If you're cheating anyone, it's yourself. Cheating (unless you're developing the cheat yourself) is almost never fun for more than 3 minutes.
[+] roryokane|14 years ago|reply
It would be nice if you made the text "Draw Something" in the subtitle link to the app. I didn't know what Draw Something was, but clicked the link anyway, assuming I could figure it out by analogy to hangman and Pictionary by looking at your site's interface. I couldn't; I had to look it up.

Possible link destinations:

http://omgpop.com/drawsomething

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/draw-something-free/id4886282...

[+] sgk284|14 years ago|reply
Thanks for the suggestion! Just deployed a new version that links to their page.
[+] sgk284|14 years ago|reply
This is just a quick project I threw together this Saturday. It simply finds all possible words that meet the criteria you specify and ranks them according to their English frequency.
[+] Gigablah|14 years ago|reply
I'm surprised that domain name was available :)
[+] chime|14 years ago|reply
Which wordlist/dictionary are you using? I use WordNet for my word finding app: http://chir.ag/projects/tip-of-my-tongue/

FYI, the search is broken right now, probably due to HN traffic. I get the error: Internal Server Error.

[+] keithpeter|14 years ago|reply
I tried the word 'parallelogram'. The web page keeps changing 13 letters to 12 letters in the number of letters box then saying it can't find a word.

I've never heard of 'draw something' as a game before so perhaps I'm using a word that isn't allowed or something.

Stuff like this is handy in teaching especially if it works on a mobile phone (blackberry for teenagers, iPhone for colleagues :-)

[+] sgk284|14 years ago|reply
Hey, thanks for the feedback. You can only specify 12 letters, so it doesn't make sense to search for a 13 letter word.

Re: teaching, I'll clean up the code a bit and put it up on github. There isn't anything too novel in there though.

[+] kirillzubovsky|14 years ago|reply
Steve, "Scoutzie" is not a word! ugh :) It's good to see you guys are still having fun!
[+] sgk284|14 years ago|reply
Haha, thanks Kirill :) Everyday you gotta have fun!
[+] mopatches|14 years ago|reply
Cool - where are you sourcing the candidate words?
[+] sgk284|14 years ago|reply
I used the frequency lists from Wikitionary for searching an ranking. They've got the 40,000 most frequent words.
[+] shinji97|14 years ago|reply
you should consider allowing users to input all the letters into one single input box, might just a little bit less effort for the users =)
[+] jurre|14 years ago|reply
You can just keep typing while you're in the first text box :)
[+] taofu|14 years ago|reply
Why "co-founders"? Surely you mean co-players
[+] sgk284|14 years ago|reply
Heh, it was a jab at my co-founders.
[+] madzito|14 years ago|reply
nice.. so you put a limit on the number of letters, and shuffle the letters in all possible combinations searching your wictionary. Interesting.
[+] sgk284|14 years ago|reply
Thanks :) I also order the results based on frequency and I just pushed an update to the site that uses the official word list of "Draw Something".