# words and numbers ## or, i like games #### 10 oct 2024 So there's a part in *The Hostile Hospital*, the eighth book of *A Series of Unfortunate Events*, where Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire open a can of alphabet soup so they can figure out which anagrammed name is being used to hide their elder sister, Violet, and save her before the villains decapitate her in front of a crowd[^1]. This part of the book always lights my brain up, because I *loved* these kinds of things as a kid and still enjoy them as an adult. I love turning words and numbers into games, or using the two of them together. It's probably why I played so much Wordle before it got bought out. It's why, whenever I see four single-digit numbers, I try to math them together to equal 24[^2]. In that spirit, here are two games I've been playing daily: [alphaguess](https://alphaguess.com/): a game in which you must guess a word based on whether the target word comes before or after the previous guess alphabetically. The words are fairly common, but that doesn't stop me from guessing weird words sometimes. [Redactle](https://redactle.net/): a game in which you must figure out the title of a heavily redacted Wikipedia page. This game is *so hard*. I end up making hundreds of guesses to figure these out and I still get stumped! There is a co-op mode available for this as well, so you can play with friends. There is also [a version of Wordle for the Satellaview](https://krokodyl.github.io/post/2023/07/satebo/) that has me super-interested, and honestly the dream would be to actually play this on a Super FamiCom. But hey, even via emulator is pretty cool! I want more games like these, honestly. They've become part of my daily ritual alongside solving variant sudoku puzzles when I need a mental break[^3]. I only wish I had more hours in the day to play more word and number games. [^1]: Seriously, this series is pretty great. Formative part of my childhood. [^2]: An actual game we played in math class when I was 10. [^3]: Yes, this is a break for me. #games #ramblings