Project Idea #2 — Words Countdown

Welcome to the second post in the Fun Weekend Projects series — where I share cool project ideas that you can build over a weekend. These projects are a great way for you to improve your coding skills while having fun in the process.

I love British panel shows, and Countdown is one of my favourites. This game is inspired by it. I initially thought it would be a simple game and I could complete it in a day, but it ended up taking a week to finish. I enjoyed the overall process of building this game. If you love words games, this is a perfect project for you.

Here’s the demo for the game: Words Countdown

If you’re learning backend languages like Python/Java, you can use command-line approach instead of building a web application or using a GUI framework.

What is the Words Countdown game?

You are given a set of 9 random characters and you have 60 seconds to come up with as many valid words as possible. This project is great for sharpening your coding skills while building something enjoyable. Playing this game made me realise that I’m very bad at English language and could use some improvement.

Step-by-Step Guide:

Start the game

• Randomly pick 9 characters when user starts the game
• I found it challenging to come up with words when the characters are truly random. To improve the gameplay, I made the following adjustments
• Make sure that there are 3–4 vowels in the set
• Use more common consonants (like T, R, S, N) instead of rare ones (like Q, Z)

Read user input

• Apply the following validations on the user submitted words
• The submitted word should have at least 3-letters
• Ensure the word can be formed using the given characters, and characters cannot be repeated
• Verify that the submitted word is a valid one — I’ve used scrabble words to verify the word validity
• Show appropriate error messages to the user for invalid words

Timer Functionality

• Implement 60 second countdown timer
• The timer should start when user click on new game

End Game

• When the timer reaches 0, stop reading the user input
• Show the list of all possible words that can be formed using the given characters

Restart Game

• When the user clicks the “New Game” again, generate a new set of random characters and restart the timer

Build Your Own Version

Build your own version of the game and share it with your friends. Improve the design, add new features and experiment with the rules. I’d love to see the variations that you come up with, so please share your version of the game that you have built.

Need any help?

If you run into any issues or have questions while building the app, feel free to ask here.

You can also reach me on Twitter. Thanks and happy coding!

Have you checked out LinkedIn Games? I’m addicted to them, especially the Queen’s Game. I’d love to build it in the future. Check it out here: Demo