Daily Puzzling in Antigonish

I put a word puzzle on the Reel back during the soft launch without much of a plan for it. One five-letter word a day, six guesses, resets at midnight. No account, no email address, no app to install. Solve it and you can leave three letters on the day's leaderboard. That's the whole thing.

Yes, it's Wordle. I am not going to stand here and pretend I invented anything. I wanted a version that lived on the Reel, cost nothing, and did not ask you for user data to play it. So I built one, and tried to keep it to a local theme. It was mostly to test out whether the Reel's privacy settings could provide an interactive experience without requiring users to give up their information.

I expected it to be a novelty. Something people tried once or twice.

That is not what happened. There is a solid group of locals who have been at it most mornings since July, and the board has been getting busier rather than quieter as the summer has gone on. That was never the plan and it is somehow my favourite part of the whole site. It's got me playing it and despite having built the thing, I'm still fairly terrible at it.

This brings us to something fun. I don't know who these users are, but assuming they use the same initials each day, here's the overall standings.

MOST POINTS: MMT with 9,600, DMP with 8,800, SIT with 8,000. MOST DAILY WINS: MMT with 13, WAM with 7, JMD with 6. MOST TOP THREE FINISHES: MMT with 22, DMP with 19, then SIT and WAM tied at 13 apiece.

MMT tops all three, so I think we can call that settled. DMP has the most remarkable record of the lot though: 34 solves, more than anyone else!

Fun fact, there is a second board most people haven't found yet. Reel Five has had a Scot Gaelic track since just after the Highland Games, same rules, words drawn from Scottish Gaelic with the meaning revealed at the end. A little more forgiving with the rules. If you have ever wanted to learn a few Gaelic words, this is a decent way to do it. For those of you more experienced with the language, please drop me a line, I'd love to build up the word list and get some feedback.

What started as a quiet little side project has turned into something special, and if that isn't an Antigonish thing, nothing is.

The puzzle is at antigonishreel.ca/puzzle. New word every morning.