@lbarraganjr generally place names and demonyms (names for groups of people from certain places) are excluded. Archaic and rare words are excluded if they are also boring — we might occasionally include a rare word if we can tell an interesting story about it under its definition section. I have a tendency to enjoy words about words so something like "mononym" or "tercet" would be included Highly technical terms (chemistry terms, astronomy terms) are excluded unless they are well known. Same goes for the more obscure flora and fauna (something like "Tiger" would be included but "Acara," a type of fish, would not be) Some pop-culture references are included, especially if it relates to the 1970s or 80s. For example, "Atari" would be in, "Trekkie" would be in (Star Trek fan). "Barbie" would be in (this was the interesting related fact for that word: https://twitter.com/RetrogramApp...) We will occasionally remove a word ending in "er" if it just seems highly likely to be missed, or underused in general (or really hard to use in a sentence). An example of this might be "blubberer" (as in, someone who blubbers). I will typically go through these and attempt to use them in a sentence, check their Google ngram usage vs. alternatives, prior to including them We like literary references with interesting origins. So "gamgee" (a surgical dressing named after Joseph Gamgee) might be included, because that word became the colloquial word for "cotton wool" in Birmingham and possibly led to the character name "Sam Gamgee" in The Lord of the Rings (I include these stories with the words) On the whole, the goal is to make a fun puzzle where someone who is trying hard will reach "Wizard" level consistently. So even if we include a word they may not know, they can learn about it in the "Yesterday's words" word list and read up on it. It will be included in future puzzles so hopefully they enjoyed discovering something new and can remember it for next time "Mastermind" (hitting all the words) is achievable but we definitely don't want people to feel compelled to do that. Which is why progress is no longer shown after "Wizard" level and it's purely a bonus for someone with too much time on their hands

Ash Menon

Jigsaurus

I love the design, @twolivesleft!

3yr ago

Simeon

Retrogram

Maker

@ashvinmenon Thank you!

Luis Barragan

Dot Brandables

Is the weekly game Monday - Sunday?

@lbarraganjr the weekly game is the Sunday one. If you subscribe you get every day (including Sunday)

I’ve noticed some words aren’t valid even though they are in the dictionary. How are words selected for the puzzles?

Retrogram is a word game by me (@twolivesleft) and Courtney (@alittlecj) As huge word nerds we wanted to share our love of word puzzles in a hobby project. We basically create a new puzzle by hand each day — edit the word list, research the most interesting words and the stories behind them, and publish it for you to play The game is free to play (weekly) or paid (daily). We wanted a game with no ads, stylish aesthetic, and clever puzzles, so we made it The goal? Nothing crazy. Just to earn enough to cover ongoing costs plus a little extra for the 30 minutes or so each day it takes to create a puzzle It costs $0.99 / month for 30 daily puzzles, or $6.99 / year for 365 daily puzzles

Retrogram

A daily word puzzle from the 1970s