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(Play it here, or keep reading for an explanation.)
Q-less is a dice game by Tom Sturdevant. You can buy it here. I own it and recommend it. The rules are simple:
- You roll 12 dice with letters on them
- You arrange the dice into interlocking words
- Every word must be at least 3 letters
- No abbreviations or proper nouns
- You win when you use all the letters to make words
Here are some example solutions:
My adaptation is the same game, but it only gives you one roll each day.1 And like Wordle and its many derivatives, the roll of the day is the same for everyone.
To move the letters, just drag and drop. You may have to do some scrolling around if you’re using a small phone screen. When you make a valid word, all its letters will light up. When you have a winning solution, a dialog will pop up telling you you won.
Bonus features
Unlike real dice, every day’s roll in Daily Q-less is guaranteed to be solvable without any arcane words. And like crossword puzzles, the rolls start easy on Monday and get harder over the course of the week. On Thursdays and Sundays, as a twist, the game generates rolls that would be impossible with the real Q-less dice.2
And as in any good Wordle-style game, you can flex to your friends. If you solved the puzzle in under ten minutes, the game tells you your time, and there are also ten possible badges. (Not all badges are possible on every roll.) The badges are:
- Fast: Won in under 3 minutes.
- Blazing: Won in under 2 minutes.
- Supersonic: Won in under 1 minute.
- Ludicrous Speed: Won in under 30 seconds.
- Nuclear Family: Solution contains a 2x2 square of letters.
- Donut: Solution contains a rectangle with a hole in the middle.
- Sesquipedalian: Solution contains a word with eight or more letters.
- Perfect Balance: Solution is symmetrical.
- Perfect Pair: Solution contains only two words.
- Like Sardines: Solution contains six or more words.
How do you decide what words are legal?
The word list is based on a version of the Collins Word List from a few years ago, which is used in some Scrabble tournaments. Upon review of the Collins Word List, I discovered that a large proportion of words are basically not words. For example abbreviations, words from Scots, words whose only documented usage is Shakespeare, and words for which I could find no definition or usage outside of the Collins Word List. Therefore I am manually combing through the list and disallowing those words.3 I am also classifying some words as “indisputable”, so I can guarantee that no roll forces you to know an obscure word to win.
This effort is not complete, but I’ve gotten through quite a lot of words. If you have any complaints about words that are / aren’t included, or if you want to help me classify words, please do message me.4
Does Tom Sturdevant know about this?
No. I haven’t told him about this adaptation, but I’m hoping he wouldn’t mind. In a show of good faith I have not commercialized the adaptation, and after every win I link players to the official website. Plus there is the one-roll-a-day restriction that you can only avoid with the real dice. I hope that if anything this adaptation would cause more people to discover Q-less and buy it.
Link for those who don’t want to scroll up
https://arcade.damiensnyder.com/daily-qless
https://q-lessgame.com/ for the real thing