August 1, 2026
149 points • No mistakes
But didn’t get green rationale before reveal probably would have, if thought longer, but was hoping for the 30 points for “solved in 90 seconds”, which I did get
August 2, 2026
165 points • No mistakes
Second straight day that I didn’t get last rationale before reveal, again answering before thinking longer to get 90 second bonus. today I doubt I would have gotten the rationale anyway
August 3, 2026
121 points • No mistakes
exactly same thoughts about third day in a row
August 4, 2026
172 points • No mistakes
August 5, 2026
148 points • No mistakes
score info
Is today lower because I didn’t choose the common item as my second click each time?
August 6, 2026
Out of guesses • 3 mistakes
no idea after the first grouping
August 7, 2026
96 points • 2 mistakes
Fortunately you have a sure win, barring a blunder, if you get the first two without a miss. Here I was sure what the Green connection was but didn’t know Adrian was the third. Actually I was only sure of the Rocky movies, not sure that it must be Rocky 2. I’ve never heard of Project Hail Mary
August 7, 2026
155 points • No mistakes
WTF? Not much of a challenge. Note the date. Yes, same puzzle as yesterday, and same date shown. But this is the puzzle I got today, playing on same device I played it on yesterday.
August 8, 2026
122 points • No mistakes
Must have barely missed 90 seconds.
August 10, 2026
164 points • No mistakes
Very easy again, IMO. YMMV
Not sure why blue first was 5 points. :shrug:
August 11, 2026
Out of guesses • 3 mistakes
never close
August 12, 2026
76 points • 2 mistakes
August 13, 2026
132 points • No mistakes
:duh: misclicked to not get the common link in the center of guess 2. Actually a very strange misclick way to get it not in the center. Had it selected, and chose it second, then accidentally chose Shuffle instead of Submit. But they remained highlighted, so I just hit submit. Apparently that changed the selection order. :crazy:
August 13, 2026
151 points • No mistakes
my first time
Welcome to the club. I think his SMUSH is a better game, but several orders of magnitude harder to do very well on (and I usually do spend a LOT of time on trying to do well, usually succeeding at least in part.)
It’s a word game, trying to make words from 9 scrabble tiles. 8 tiles you can use only 5 times. 1 tile you can use unlimited times, but must be used in every word. Big bonus for using all nine tiles in one word, especially if it is your first word. Bonus for using all 8 5-use tiles, 5 times. Some additional bonuses (“spicy letters”). Recently, though not quickly, I have used all the 5-use tiles 5 times. Surprised myself how often, including today, I used all 9 in the first word.
One frustrating thing: their word list is not the same as any official scrabble word list. I’ve been aghast at some of the words not on it. You can only find if a word is allowed by trying it. Once I missed the “using up all the 5-use tiles” because I learned too late that a word was not allowed. So now I try to use words I think might not be OK earlier with more time to recover. Recently MOOR was not allowed, but no problem since ROOM was. I hadn’t considered MOOR doubtful.
I spend too much time on the spelling games. Too OCD to just pick a non-perfect word
Played Blossom until everyone else quit
I only finish about 1 in 5 Smushes because of the same. I let it sit in the background and when I have a moment and need a brain zap, I go back to it for a minute. But usually I dither too much.
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Ah, but except for the first word (and maybe near the end) there is no such thing as a non-perfect word. Undoubtedly best first word is one that uses all 9 tiles. Anything else is considerably worse. In the unlikely choice there were two such words - I haven’t seen one - it would never matter much. I would never spend any time looking for a second. After that, the highest scoring word may not be the best choice. What takes me the most time is finding a way to use all the tiles, and I usually take the time to map that out before word 2. After that I spend a little time at each guess deciding which is the best word to use, but that is not a big deal.
There’s often a lot of elapsed time before the first guess, but that’s because I haven’t found the pangram (using all tiles), not because I’m actively thinking about what it is. Some active thinking, but then just doing something else in case it will come to me. Using all the tiles is much more active thinking time (Can start right away, but usually don’t finish until I have the pangram, in part because the pangram might use a limited tile more than once.)
Today I have the pangram and have entered it, but don’t expect to do any other thinking until this afternoon.
Almost 10 minutes to decide how to use all the tiles. I suspect that’s faster than usual.
Just over 8 minutes to enter the words into the game. Probably about average. Slower than necessary since I have my chosen words in an Excel workbook (to tally use of each word), and I have to move them in there as I use them (not really important, but works better for me. Plus is very helpful for trying to recover if a word is not allowed).
In any case, there is major mental activity in the first of those two phases, and very minor in the second.