When I came up with the idea for this year's contribution to the April Fools' shenanigans, I wanted to make something that, if people liked it, wouldn't just be thrown away the next day. There's still only one of me working on light.gg, so I have to pick my battles and spend my time wisely. While Rolldle only took ~12 hours to create, I try to work on things that will keep people engaged with the game and will be useful for many years to come.
Luckily, the reception to Rolldle has been even more amazing than I could've anticipated.
In the first 24 hours, Rolldle was viewed just shy of 3 million times. Hundreds of people shared their results on different platforms, with the resounding conclusion seeming to be "wow, this is actually pretty fun for an April Fools' joke."
When I got the code far enough along to be able to actually play a game or two all the way through, I had a feeling I was on to something. There's always an uncertainty when creating something new, along with an anxiety that what you think is cool might not be seen that way by everyone else. Being able to see that I'm not (entirely) crazy and that people think Rolldle does have legs in the long term is both reassuring and exciting.
So, let's talk about what that long term looks like.
Part of the charm of Wordle is that everyone has to figure out the same word every day. Being able to see how different people get there (or don't) in their emoji shares is a big part of the fun.
The April Fools' version of Rolldle didn't go this way and was built to present each person a different roll every time for a few reasons:
Now that I've seen that I'm not just setting effort on fire, there's definitely good reason to build out the idea further.
Starting today (2 April 2022), Rolldle will evolve to have two modes: Normal and Infinite.
Normal mode will behave like traditional Wordle. Once a day (at the same time as the Destiny 2 daily reset - 1700 UTC), a fixed Rolldle with one answer will be presented to everyone.
The weapon icon will have a blue number in the lower left indicating that it is the fixed Rolldle for that day. Post-game shares will include that number so that if people want to have a conversation about it, they'll know they were playing against the same board.
The answer list was built with a few guarantees:
In the first version of the list, there are 366 answers with 61 coming from each popularity tier. With each season, the list will be regenerated to deal with any perk pool changes, bring in new weapons, and so on. Currently the list consists of all randomly rolled legendary weapons, excluding those that match any of these criteria:
Popularity ranks take a while to build up consensus on new/updated weapons, so trying to guess rolls on them isn't very fun as it's almost entirely random. Excluding them for a while will give the stats ample time to build up and make guessing against them more fun in the long run. At the beginning of each new season, the previous season's weapons (that match the criteria above) will make their debut in Rolldle.
After you've completed the daily Rolldle, you'll be given the option to switch to Infinite Mode.
Infinite mode is essentially April Fools' Rolldle - you can play as many times as you want, over and over. A ♾ emoji will show on the weapon's icon and in post-game shares to make it clear that the board was randomly generated.
Another part of the fun of Wordle is trying to maintain your streak. I wanted to allow people to keep playing if they want to but not feel like "going infinite" would put their normal streak at risk. With that in mind, Normal and Infinite mode will keep separate statistics from each other. The post-game screen will say at the top which stats you're looking at when summoned up. Your stats from April Fools' will become your Infinite stats, so everyone will start with a blank Normal stat history beginning today with Rolldle #1.
If you start a new game in Infinite mode when the daily reset happens, you will be swapped back to Normal mode and presented the Rolldle for that day. The ♾ icon will be replaced with whatever Rolldle # it is, so keep an eye out for that indicator and keep your streak rolling!
While I don't foresee the need for a ton of additional bells and whistles (simplicity is part of what makes Wordle so appealing), there are a few things I could see adding in later if interest in the game remains high:
If you have any other ideas for the game, website, or anything really, I'm all ears.
Ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to make video games. While building websites about video games is pretty close to the dream, it's not exactly what I set out to be doing with my life. Though it's not a completely original concept, and it's almost entirely enabled by the amazing capabilities Bungie allows through their one-of-a-kind API, I do feel like I've finally actually made a game myself. I'm super thankful to everyone that gave it a try. As cheesy as it sounds, having a game I made be well-received and in the hands of the world is something I've dreamt of for a very long time, so thank you all for being a part of making that a reality. You probably get tired of hearing me blather on about how grateful I am, but I genuinely mean it and hope to keep giving back to this community for years to come.
I can't wait to see how people start to tackle the set daily challenges over the next few weeks! Be sure to share your results. I might pick a few at random for something special in the future 👀
Thanks again for all of your support. ❤
PS: If you feel like giving back, check out the site's Patreon, which will give you some awesome perks for helping keep the site running. I don't have any ads on Rolldle and would prefer not to, so any support is greatly appreciated.
