Wonderful writeup about the incredible overcomplexity of modern web UI frameworks by @haul-pebert.bsky.social. Why use a native #HTML element if you could jump several hoops using multiple layers of dependencies and a lot of #JavaScript instead? paulmakeswebsites.com/writing/shad... #WebDev

What a lineup! Congrats to all the winners. I was honored to win Players Choice with my game Tiled Words! Thanks so much to everyone who played or voted!

If you haven't played the 2025 Players' Choice winner yet, what are you waiting for? Tiled Words is a community favorite and an absolute blast to play. Well deserved! 🌟

#TiledWords won the Players' Choice Award at the 2025 @playlin.bsky.social Daily Game Awards!! It was also runner up for Best Word Game and a finalist for Best Classic Game Reimagined and Best Visual Design! #GameDev #Puzzles #DailyGames

It's been fun watching @timotab.bsky.social playing #TiledWords! He's done the last couple of puzzles and posted them on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4tw...

It was really fun stumbling upon this video of Simon at Cracking the Cryptic playing #TiledWords! It's kind of weird making a daily game. I spend a lot of time on it but rarely get to watch people play. It was really fun watching him solve this puzzle! youtu.be/zA4PshGRoVk?... #GameDev #Puzzles

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast

the Black Panthers were right

I just released a small performance optimization to #TiledWords! This should help the game run smoother and crash less often. Please let me know if you notice any game play issues! #GameDev

Anyone else playing Tiled Words? Just saw it mentioned yesterday by @gri.gs and I’m really enjoying it! tiledwords.com

I just made a small update to #TiledWords that makes it work a little better if you install it as a "home screen app" or PWA: - It now launches in "standalone" mode so it feels more like a native app - The game has a shiny new icon for your home screen! #GameDev #WebDev

I just released an update to #TiledWords that changes how progress and streaks are tracked. Please let me know if you run into any issues! If your streak gets messed up or anything let me know and I can help you fix it. Thank you!

Writing code was never the bottleneck, thinking was. If you let a tool remove the friction of typing, you skip the friction of understanding the problem.

I accidentally nerd-sniped myself and built a quick CodePen to quickly preview how your logo will look in different contexts: codepen.io/phebert/pen/...

I just pushed a small change to #TiledWords If you keep the "Daily" page open and use the same tab multiple days in a row it should now auto-refresh to load the new day's puzzle. Please let me know if you notice any issues or anything weird that may be related to this. Thanks!

Today I released the 100th #TiledWords puzzle! My wife and I make each puzzle together creating themes and clues for the puzzle. Each puzzle takes 5-10 minutes on average so that’s like 10 hours or puzzles! tiledwords.com #WordGames #Puzzles #GameDev

I'm exploring a small change to #TiledWords. I've gotten feedback that it's annoying to accidentally rotate a word you've already completed. I'm considering "locking" the rotation of completed words/tiles so they can't be spun. What do y'all think? Would you like this change? #GameDev #Puzzles

I'm officially a curmudgeon. Here's a rant about the Shadcn component library and how over-complicated its radio buttons are: paulmakeswebsites.com/writing/shad... (Inspired by this week's work frustrations lol) #WebDev #CSS #HTML #JavaScript

#TiledWords was nominated for the Playlin award for best daily short form web game! If you like the game it would mean a lot to me if you took a second to vote for it! playlin.io/awards/vote/

We went to the snow yesterday and I was reminded of one of my favorite blog posts I’ve written: Coding a Snowflake Generator cloudfour.com/thinks/codin... #WebDev #Programming #JavaScript #SVG

A friend shared this with me and it made me chuckle: fuckyouiwontusetailwind.com My hot take is people coming from bad CSS code bases love Tailwind and people coming from good CSS code bases hate Tailwind #WebDev #CSS

An illustrated recap of my favorite games of the year: tylersticka.com/journal/favo... #VideoGames #IndieGames #FanArt

On day 15 of this year’s #HTMHellAdventCalendar, I “break” down (pun intended) an aspect of #HTML we often take for granted: Line breaks! htmhell.dev/adventcalend... #WebDesign #WebDev #CSS #Typography

Hey, I need your feedback on a potential change to #TiledWords! I’m exploring having a tile “push” other tiles out of the way when you drop it. If you have time, please try this dev demo and let me know what you think! shift-tiles-demo--tiled-words.netlify.app/puzzles/2025...

Today’s #TiledWords puzzle is the second community puzzle! tiledwords.com/puzzles/daily It features Rain clues from Omiword, Mellywong, Raven, Carolina Wren, Magdalena, Bahadir and Betul, Tyler Sticka, Viper, Shelly, Patti & Charlie, Adam Y., Alex, and Benny.

Minor correction for today’s #TiledWords puzzle. The 5th clue should be “This comes in black, yellow, and chocolate varieties” Previously it said white which was incorrect. (A good reminder to not trust Google summaries) This has now been fixed. Sorry for any confusion/frustration.

Has anyone had issues with tiledwords.com crashing or not loading? Someone mentioned it on a forum but I haven’t heard that from anyone else. Thanks! #TiledWords

Summer Afternoon

Always nice to get a shoutout at the start of a @joshwcomeau.com article! This one's on subgrid. If you haven't been using it yet, as you'd expect, it's great, and you should give it a read 🙂 www.joshwcomeau.com/css/subgrid/

Today’s #TiledWords puzzle is the first community puzzle! It’s made entirely of user-submitted clues. Over 50 players submitted over 280 clues and 20 were selected for the final puzzle! Thank you to everyone who submitted clues. You can play it here: tiledwords.com/puzzles/daily

A little over a month ago, I was nervously getting ready to launch #TiledWords. In the first month 36,000 people spent nearly 6,000 hours playing. I wrote about my experience launching Tiled Words, and the next steps for the game: paulmakeswebsites.com/writing/a-mo... #GameDev #Design

Every few years there's a new "default styles" for websites. People complain that all websites look the same and others respond saying that it it makes them easier to use. But websites don't have to look the same to be usable. Add a little ambience! paulmakeswebsites.com/writing/desi...

I just learned about this game yesterday and I'm hooked (literally taking a break from a game to type this): tiledwords.com Think crosswords and Tetris combined into one game — more like crosswords broken into chunks that you rotate pieces to make words.

I just released an update to Tiled Words based on player feedback: - Your progress is saved if you leave and come back - If you switch tabs or close your browser the puzzle timer is paused Please let me know if you spot any bugs or have ideas for how to improve it. Thanks! #TiledWords #GameDev

Tiled Words is a really well crafted crossword variant by Paul Hebert. tiledwords.com The UI is so intuitive that I never needed instructions --unfamiliar rules were instantly inferable from the interface. Curious how he's generating the puzzles.

Help build new Tiled Words puzzles! Every week or two I’ll pick a theme and ask players to submit words and clues for that theme! The first community puzzle’s theme will be “Fall.” tiledwords.com/submit-clues Let me know what you think. I’m excited to play your puzzles!

Doing our final “last pepper harvest of the year” and getting ready to plant garlic! #Gardening #GrowYourOwn

@perfnow.nl I have #a11y #accessiblity related stickers with me from @lloydi.com come find me if you’d like one Cc @marcysutton.com

We’ve got an extra scary #TiledWords puzzle today for Halloween! 💀 (Don’t worry, it’s not actually scary) tiledwords.com/puzzles/2025... #Daily #WordGame #Puzzle #GameDev

I'm thinking about changing how the "Reveal" system works in #TiledWords and I could use your feedback! Currently: - You get 3 reveals per puzzle - Clicking the (?) next to a clue reveals the word This is useful as an escape hatch but is "all or nothing" and not very fun... #GameDev #Puzzles

I just made some changes to how puzzles scores and sharing works in Tiled Words based on your feedback. Let me know what you think! ___ I solved today's #TiledWords puzzle! 👶 “Baby” 🕒 1 minutes, 36 seconds 🫣 1/3 reveals used tiledwords.com/puzzles/2025...

Tiled Words bug alert! 🚨 If you leave the game open in a browser tab for multiple days, please refresh the page before playing! There’s a bug where sometimes you may see the wrong puzzle at first. I’m working on a fix for this but time is limited with a 7 week old baby. Thanks! #TiledWords

I just pushed a couple of small bug fixes to Tiled Words related to "daily streaks" Please let me know if you notice anything odd about the daily streaks while you play! And if you haven't played it yet, check it out at tiledwords.com !

I am really enjoying the Tiled Words puzzles. Maybe you will too https://tiledwords.com/

I’m blown away by how many people are playing Tiled Words. Over 400 people completed yesterday’s daily puzzle! Today’s theme is “Coffee” and it’s a great puzzle to play with a cup of Joe. Can you find all the coffee-related clues? tiledwords.com #Coffee #WordGames #Puzzle #GameDev #TiledWords

I had a great time showcasing my daily word game Tiled Words yesterday at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo with the Portland Indie Game Squad! There’s a new puzzle today! (And every day) tiledwords.com Today’s theme is “Preserved” Can you find all the clues? #GameDev #Puzzle #Daily #TiledWords

Go try out the first daily puzzle of Tiled Words today! It's a crossword with rotating word fragments!

Today I'm launching Tiled Words, my own unique spin on the daily word puzzle genre. tiledwords.com Tiled Words merges tile-placing board game mechanics with crosswords. This game has been a labor of love. Share it with your friends and check back tomorrow for a new puzzle. #GameDev #WordGame

I love the barter system! I traded my neighbor some garden goodies for some high quality poster prints for the Portland Retro Galing Expo this weekend! #GrowYourOwn #GameDev