game-mechanics
The week the game started watching itself
A three-PR refactor trio makes the word-submission pipeline immutable and side-effect-free, then the newly-launched game gets its first stats page, a same-week AI tuning pass informed by it, docs finally caught up to the Postgres stack, and a WCAG 2.2 audit closes the week.
Two kinds of ready
A second design pass swaps oklch approximations for exact designer hex values and a machine-readable spec, then a seven-part bundle declares the game launch-ready: once-per-day enforcement, a streak counter, analytics, and a way to help pay the hosting bill.
Thirty seconds to decide
A tuning pass over daily mode: a per-word timer with a speed bonus, a background-timer bug that punished new players for reading the tutorial, and a board size that flip-flopped within the same day.
A second snake, same engine
Duel mode lands in one day: a turn-based match against an AI opponent that shares the daily engine and a first, cautious idea of what a safe move looks like.
The translation that arrived too early
Day two added a leaderboard page, a unified toolbar, and full Norwegian support. Two of those were deleted within weeks.
Seven phases in one afternoon
From an empty directory to a playable daily challenge in one day, and why the game engine never learned what a framework is.