Yet another Hacker News

Show HN: Wonderhop – A daily game: guess what most people say, or what none do

98 points mtlduo 3 days ago 77 comments

Hello HN!

Wonderhop is a small browser game with no account needed to play, everyday there are 4 rounds of 7 quesitons like "Name a food that a lot of people hate" The goal depends on the mode: Either gives the answer most people would give, the one no one would give, the oldest answer or the most recent one and there's a leaderboard for the day.

The most interesting part of the project was understanding answers that are typed freely and in 10 languages, there was some typos, plurals, nickname, or even duplicate way of sayign the same thing. We needed AI judge that checks it really existes conencted to some API like wikipedia to judge the veracity of each answer really quickly (less than 1s on average)

The percentage starts from an estimate but move really fast with the answers of real players. If the list missed a good answer, it gets added as soon as a few different players give it.

(There are also a lot of secrets and pop culture references added in the game :) )

A large part of the code was written with AI tools, but the artistic direction the concept and every choice design are human-made

We'd love to know if the goal is clear from the very first question while playing and were any good answers rejected unfairly

We are a couple of developers from Montreal that like guessing games so we built this in about two month.

Thanks a lot!

arm32 3 days ago | parent

I love the visual aesthetic. Fun idea!

mtlduo 3 days ago | parent

Thank you so much! The pixel art took a lot of iterations, glad it shows!

dooglius 3 days ago | parent

The agent is too helpful, I got away with stuff like "The one with the southmost shinkansen" for rarest Japanese city, which it substituted for the answer to that (which I didn't know)

mtlduo 3 days ago | parent

I see, thanks a lot for the feedback! That's a real hack of my LLM haha, I'll fix it within the hour!

jwstillwater 3 days ago | parent

This was so fun! What a delight, thank you. After the first round I wanted to keep playing, so habitually I just tapped whichever button that most closely resembled ‘play again’, and it took me a couple questions to understand that it was a different mode. Maybe putting “type the OLDEST answer”, or “the deepest cut” above the prompt box would help.

Also the model’s feedback was surprisingly astute! I expected “incorrect”, but got “Help was a top-selling Beatles album, but it sold under 20 million copies.” Love learning during games.

Great work, the lot of you!

mtlduo 3 days ago | parent

Thank you so much for your message, it's really encouraging to read, and it means a lot to us!

Good point about the mode switch. My girlfriend actually warned me about it, and I told her it wouldn't be a problem but she was right haha.

We'll take your advice and give it a clearer name.

And I'm really glad you liked the feedback. Thanks again for playing! :)

baud147258 2 days ago | parent

Most wonderful fact is that 55% of people dream of visiting Paris. Of course living just next to Paris puts a damper to any desire to visit

mtlduo 2 days ago | parent

I also grew up next to Paris so I completely get it. Once you know it, it's less of a dream. Thanks a lot for your feedback :)

garah 2 days ago | parent

Just tried this on my phone and had fun. Got 260/700 in Sky — somehow “peanuts” and “Michael Jackson” were my only perfect answers lol.

mtlduo 2 days ago | parent

Thanks for trying it garah!

piperswe 2 days ago | parent

I love that I could justify my answer to it - spoiler below

I chose CompuServe for oldest file sharing service, and it told me that it was an online service not a cloud file hosting service. I then answered "CompuServe had file sharing" and I received 100pts

mtlduo 2 days ago | parent

I'm really glad you liked it! That's one of the big advantages of using LLMs instead of relying on a fixed list of answers. Thanks so much for playing! :)

truehaley 1 day ago | parent

Lots of fun, but one really annoying bug that makes it hard to play: anytime I have an answer that isn’t accepted, and then go to type in a new answer, the keyboard completely covers the text box which makes it impossible to delete or edit the previous answer! Safari on IOS 26.6.2

mtlduo 1 day ago | parent

Thank you so much for reporting this bug! It should be fixed now, let me know if it still happens. Thanks again for playing! :)

looperhacks 17 hours ago | parent

Firefox on Android, sometimes the question is off screen after answering a question

unsnap_biceps 16 hours ago | parent

Mobile safari has the first question of each round covered by the keyboard. The resort of the questions are correctly laid out

Benjaminsen 1 day ago | parent

Love the visual style!

mtlduo 21 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot! Glad you like it

cwnyth 18 hours ago | parent

Plenty of good answers were rejected, especially where typos were concerned. On the coffee shop question, CK's coffee shop wasn't found and Waffle House was rejected, but Paul's was a top answer? Paul's also serves breakfast food. Seems arbitrary. Memphis Colosseum was rejected probably because the proper spelling is Coliseum. But how could it not find it from "Memphis Colosseum"? It's easily found (and the spelling corrected) in Google Search.

mtlduo 18 hours ago | parent

Hey, thanks a lot for the feedback! Most answers are first checked against a fixed list, to avoid making too many LLM calls. Unfortunately, for latency and playability reasons, we can't do much deeper online searches: every call would cost a lot and take too long. So about 1 to 1.5% of answers end up judged a bit unfairly, but we're actively working on improving the model. Thanks again for your feedback!

k33P1Tr3aL 18 hours ago | parent

queue jev...

elektor 18 hours ago | parent

I'm sorry but is this not just another AI remake of a very common game type?

I recall playing an identical game a few months ago, also on the HN front page.

https://www.krillion.org/

mtlduo 18 hours ago | parent

Thanks you for the feedback, the concept doesn't come from Krillion or from me, there was already a game called Pointless on TV way before that, and Sky is straight up Family Feud, Past and Future are our own concepts And the graphics, even if the code and the implementation were obviously written with AI like 100% of people coding a big project today, they're human made

pavel_lishin 17 hours ago | parent

But the Abyss mode looks almost identical to krillion - from the very concept of trying to guess rare answers, to the nautical diving theme, down to the almost-pixel-art style..?

It's incredible to suggest that this wasn't based on either Krillion, or that both games were based on something else.

(To be clear, I'm not accusing you of explicitly lifting the concept - but that's the problem with using AI to generate too much, it'll obviously re-use what it's seen before.)

edit: actually, you say "A large part of the code was written with AI tools, but the artistic direction the concept and every choice design are human-made" - it's just wildly improbable for the two to look and feel so similar.

rockostrich 16 hours ago | parent

The UI and graphics are 100% just a reskin of Krillion...

unsnap_biceps 16 hours ago | parent

That site just opened a malware page and tried to make phone calls. I had to force kill my browser to get it to stop.

nicholsonpk 15 hours ago | parent

I think https://krillion.io/ is the original.

burkaman 14 hours ago | parent

Yes this is clearly just a minor extension of Krillion, but that one was also AI-generated so it's hard to feel bad for them.

EddieRingle 11 hours ago | parent

Actual site is https://krillion.io/ - the one you link embeds it in a frame.

cesarvarela 18 hours ago | parent

Very nice visual and sound experience, congrats!

mtlduo 17 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot!! glad you enjoyed it :)

wccrawford 17 hours ago | parent

Are there no accounts? Can I not continue playing on a different PC?

looperhacks 17 hours ago | parent

The sloppiness shows, the performance is awful (Firefox on Pixel 8)

mtlduo 17 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot for the feedback chrome tells the page exactly where the keyboard is and firefox doesn't... and in that case my layout keeps the question above the visible area. I'll try to fix it Thank again!

slop 7 hours ago | parent

It's not slop.

wccrawford 17 hours ago | parent

Rarest is terrible. I absolutely know that baked ube is a street food, and way less likely to be guessed than Udon, and yet I'm penalized for nobody else guessing it yet?

I didn't even play latest and oldest, because that's just a guessing game.

unsnap_biceps 16 hours ago | parent

Oldest is fine and fun. It's oldest in terms of when, not answers. The oldest pyramid for example.

I agree that the rarest wasn't nearly as entertaining or fun. Perhaps that one needs a list to pick from.

l3x4ur1n 16 hours ago | parent

It was fun!

mtlduo 15 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot for playing!! :)

TechDevar222 16 hours ago | parent

love it, the sound effects make it feel so immersive

mtlduo 16 hours ago | parent

thank you!! Sound was a big part of the feel we wanted it's really nice to hear

bonsai_bar 15 hours ago | parent

That was a lot of fun! Thank you:)

mtlduo 15 hours ago | parent

Glad you had fun, thanks for trying it!!

amirkhanian 14 hours ago | parent

Love the "what none do" twist, I bet my first instinct would always be the most popular answer. Is it the same question for everyone each day?

mtlduo 14 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot! Yes, everyone gets the same 4 rounds each day (in their own language) that's what makes the daily leaderboard

amirkhanian 14 hours ago | parent

Is it possible to see how many people are playing today?

mtlduo 14 hours ago | parent

Yes! You can see the Leaderboard it shows how many people played each mode today

knownandunknown 14 hours ago | parent

Fun game! But it looks like matching has a bug:

The question was "Name something that's expensive when travelling" in the most common answer category.

I wrote "tickets", meaning plane tickets, and it categorized my answer as "Entrance fees (you)" instead of the top answer of "Plane ticket".

zahlman 9 hours ago | parent

That makes sense to me; people commonly buy tickets for local events while on vacation. Perhaps it should detect and warn about that kind of ambiguity, though.

bennettnate5 14 hours ago | parent

I was playing the "Future" section and put "Milliway's" from The Hitchhiker's Guide series when it asked for a fictional restaurant; it only gave me 10 points and said it was from 70s. Milliways is very explicitly positioned in time at the end of the universe, so I should've been awarded maximum points there :)

mtlduo 14 hours ago | parent

Hi thanks for the feedback! In Past and Future, what counts is when the thing first came out, not when the story takes place, so Milliways counts as 1978 (the radio series). I agree it's not obvious with sci-fi though o I think I'll add a mention somewhere

rsktaker 13 hours ago | parent

Love the soundtrack + very, very fun

mtlduo 13 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot!! Really glad you liked the soundtrack :)

b-karl 12 hours ago | parent

Super fun, great idea and scope!

mtlduo 12 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot!

bookdood 11 hours ago | parent

Didn't accept half my answers even though they were valid. Good luck replicating krillion.io next time.

handwoven 11 hours ago | parent

It incorrectly said that Li Xiang was not acceptable as a brand named after its founder

tigger0jk 9 hours ago | parent

Yeah I feel like it's a core problem with these games, especially when asking for rare answers, it's impossible to get the knowledge base right.

'HashiCorp is not named after a person; the name comes from "hash" (computing) and "corp"'

Nah it's named after the founder Mitchell Hashimoto.

Per the wikipedia summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HashiCorp

> The company name HashiCorp is a portmanteau of co-founder last name Hashimoto and Corporation.

bmfischer3 9 hours ago | parent

Great game. Had a lot of fun and shared this with my friends.

I like the fact no account is required.

mtlduo 6 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot and thanks for sharing it with your friends! we wanted people to be playing within 5 seconds of landing on the page. Glad you had fun! :)

financetechbro 9 hours ago | parent

This is like trivia but you get participation points along the way. Awesome game!

mtlduo 6 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot!! Glad you had fun :)

glitchc 9 hours ago | parent

Down is much harder than up. Loved the ending.

mtlduo 6 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot!! Yes the abyss is meant to be the hard one. Really glad you liked the ending, it took us a while to get it right :)

_bent 8 hours ago | parent

The judging for the "newest" seems a bit odd - for viral toy I answered 'Labubu' which the AI dates to 2015, which might be when they were first introduced to the market, but not when they had their viral hype. For newest palace I answered Berliner Stadtschloss which was opened in 2020, but the AI dates it back to 1443

mtlduo 6 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

Both dates are actually "right" from the game's point of view: Labubu was created in 2015 (the viral hype came way later), and construction of the Berliner Stadtschloss started in 1443, the 2020 opening is the reconstruction. In Past and Future, what counts is when the thing first came out/was created, and the dates come from the Wikipedia API. I agree it's not obvious when the question says "viral" or "newest" though, so I'll make those questions more precise. Thanks again for playing! :)

darraghmckay 5 hours ago | parent

Similarly it asked for Formula 1 World Champion, in the "most recent" game, so I put in Lando Norris, who won last year, but the answer is Max Verstapen because he was born in 1999 and Lando was 1997, it took me a few minutes to even figure out what the leaderboard was saying..

Some clarity there would be much better

jarboot 8 hours ago | parent

Incredible

privacyishuman 8 hours ago | parent

>Name a Christmas film

Die Hard (you) 26.7%

mtlduo 6 hours ago | parent

Haha the debate is settled then, Die Hard is a Christmas film

doodlebugging 7 hours ago | parent

I did it! Almost.

1824th of 1824. Dead last with a score of 60 that your game handed me on a misspelling. I typed Windy's and it changed it to Wendy's and awarded a correct answer.

I'm not sure how to feel about that.

thereitgoes456 6 hours ago | parent

Great work. I’m bored of Krillion because the AI judge sucks and the animations are WAAAAYYYYY too long. This feels like an upgrade in every way. Will add to my daily rotation of snacks, thank you :)

mtlduo 6 hours ago | parent

Thanks a lot, that's really kind! Glad it made it into your daily rotation :)

rensa000222 4 hours ago | parent

I’m from a non-English-speaking country, but I understood how to play right away. I did struggle a bit with questions about things like British TV series, though. The game has a wonderful atmosphere, and I really enjoyed playing it!

jraby3 3 hours ago | parent

This is super fun added it to my home screen.

On my iphone17e, some answers don't scroll so I can't click to continue to the next question.

neronuser 2 hours ago | parent

The artstyle is amazing! Great job!

jdthedisciple 1 hour ago | parent

Creative idea, I like it.

This would be fun to play in groups, comparing answers after each round, but I think the strict timer would make that impossible. Maybe add a different mode?

Also I love the through yet swift feedback on incorrect answers. Did you leverage decision models for that?