nowfound

Dev tools · March 31, 2024

Truncate, a word-based strategy game

Truncate is a chess flavoured word game that blends spatial reasoning and wordplay. In puzzle mode, you beat back your NPC opponent's words and take over their territory. Truncate started as a pen and paper game between a friend and I, evolved into a handmade board game, and finally arrived at an online puzzle game. Like any good word game, there is of course a daily mode, shareable with the tried and true grid of emojis We've been playtesting it with friends and family for a few months, which has helped iron out the tutorials and gameplay, and we're finally happy with an MVP worth sharing!…

Truncate, a word-based strategy game launched on March 31, 2024 with 188 votes, #260 of 4,270 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 2 years on.

Visit truncate.town ↗Alternativestop 6% of March 2024

In plain words

Truncate is a word-based strategy game that combines spatial reasoning with wordplay in the style of chess. Players face off against NPC opponents, creating and placing words to claim territory on the board. The game evolved from a pen-and-paper concept into a handmade board game before becoming an online puzzle game. It features a daily puzzle mode with shareable results and is built using Rust for both client and server, with visuals created in egui. Players compete to outmaneuver opponents through strategic word placement.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Spell words to cut off your enemy and conquer their town

Truncate was created by Liam Bigelow and Blake McAlevey-Scurr . Truncate's client and server are both available as open-source code on GitHub at TruncateGame/Truncate . Truncate's sprites are available to use under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licensefrom truncate.town

In the maker’s words, at launch

Truncate is a chess flavoured word game that blends spatial reasoning and wordplay. In puzzle mode, you beat back your NPC opponent's words and take over their territory. Truncate started as a pen and paper game between a friend and I, evolved into a handmade board game, and finally arrived at an online puzzle game.…

Does a similar job

all alternatives →
  • Whittle – A shrinking word game2025 · playwhittle.com · ▲141

    Whittle is a small word game I've been working on. Each phrase must be whittled down by one letter (or space) each turn. The remaining phrase must still consist of valid words. That's it! There's a daily puzzle, as well as an archive of old puzzles. The idea for the game came to me in a dream (really) and I built the puzzle generator with my partner, who's also a software engineer. It's a labor of love! Any feedback or suggestions are welcome. Thanks for playing!

  • Huewords, a Word and Logic Puzzle2024 · huewords.snellman.net · ▲114

    This is a game I wrote over the last month and a bit. The effort allocation was pretty different from what I've done in the past. The game design snapped together very quickly: I had the initial idea, played a couple of games on a spreadsheet to get a feel for the idea, and made one change based on those plays. After that everything felt just right through multiple rounds of playtesting. Likewise the puzzle generation is nowhere near as elaborate as in my previous game, fairly simple methods worked well and provided good variety. Instead I ended up spending silly amounts of time on curating…

  • Anagramish2023 · anagramish.com · ▲58

    web based word game combining anagrams and word ladders

  • Matle – A Daily Chess Puzzle Inspired by Wordle2025 · matle.io · ▲85

    Hi HN, Matle is a daily chess puzzle inspired by Wordle. You're shown a checkmate position with 5 hidden squares, and your goal is to guess what’s on them to complete the mate. Someone kindly shared it here a few months ago before I had the chance to post it myself. I’m the creator, and wanted to share a few new features based on feedback, and hear your thoughts. You can now view the original game behind each puzzle, get explanations for why a guess isn’t checkmate, and see daily solving stats. Would love to hear what you think: https://matle.io

  • TW
  • Cobble – A hard daily word game2025 · wilf.live · ▲30

    My friends and I love playing description games, but got tired of the same old cards - so I made a simple web app with a fresh set of prompts, and a different timer mechanic: Rather than teams taking turns, everyone sits together, and you describe only one prompt at a time. As soon as you're done you pass the phone to the player on your left, who gets a new set of prompts to choose from, and so on. After an exponential (memoryless) random amount of time, the round ends (loudly!), and whoever was holding the phone at the time loses a life for their team. It's like Hot Potato. The prompts are…

More dev tools this month

the category →
  • /dev/null▲484

    a social network for devs

    Dev tools · 3d ago · dev-null.sh

  • open-source IDE for thoughtful software design. Contribute to devdotfast/whiteboard development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Dev tools · 28d ago · github.com

  • Contribute to reladraw/reladraw development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Dev tools · 26d ago · github.com

  • OpenBot▲362

    Grok Bot alternative: free, local, open-source, multiplayer

    Dev tools · 23d ago · openbot.run

  • Talanoa▲346

    Hi HN, I’m a fullstack developer, and honestly, I’ve lost count of how many side projects I’ve worked on over the years. But one idea kept coming back to me: a different kind of email client. It first came to me in 2014: “What if we could handle emails more like conversations?” Every year, I’d revisit this concept in my “Build Notes.” Ten years later, no one had built exactly what I had in mind — so I finally decided to do it myself. That’s how Talanoa was born. I wanted something focused on people, not timelines. I was tired of marking messages as unread just to remember to reply later, or…

    Dev tools · 21d ago · talanoa.email

  • CoreSpeed▲332

    One MCP for everything your agents need: apps, memory, tools

    Dev tools · 28d ago · corespeed.io

Source: Show HN post ↗ · launch text quoted in part

Launched alongside, March 2024

the whole month →
  • Dub.co▲1,475

    Short links with superpowers

    Dev tools · 2024 · dub.co

  • 🌐 The Internet Computer! Free, Open-Source, and Self-Hostable. - HeyPuter/puter

    Dev tools · 2024 · github.com

  • Microlaunch▲1,115

    Launch and get feedback on both the idea and product

    Dev tools · 2024 · microlaunch.net

  • Milestone▲1,113

    Interactive, gamified product tours for SaaS

    Growth · 2024 · milestoneflow.io

  • Hunted Space▲1,004

    Insights on Product Hunt launches

    Growth · 2024 · hunted.space

  • Creatie▲850

    The one-stop product design tool amplified by AI

    AI · 2024 · creatie.ai