LetterLock Project Report
1. The Concept
LetterLock is a mobile-first five-letter word puzzle game. Players have six attempts to unlock a hidden word, using green, gold, and gray clues to understand which letters are correct, misplaced, or absent. The experience uses a premium lock-and-key visual style to make each solved word feel like an unlock.
2. The Stack
The Stack: A single self-contained index.html built with vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The game uses local assets, browser localStorage, and no framework, API, backend, package, CDN, or build process.
The AI Assist: Codex helped plan, implement, test, and refine the project in small task groups. It supported gameplay logic, duplicate-letter evaluation, responsive styling, local persistence, accessibility, and iterative UI polish from visual feedback.
3. The 1 Day Sprint
Morning (Hours 1–3): Established the single-file foundation, design tokens, Home screen, How to Play screen, gameplay grid, virtual keyboard, answer data, screen navigation, input handling, and guess validation.
Afternoon (Hours 4–6): Completed duplicate-letter evaluation, tile reveals, keyboard state priority, win/loss rules, result popups, persistent streak statistics, sound controls, accessibility, and responsive behavior.
The Finish Line (Hours 7–8): Added compact player statistics, guess distribution, contextual feedback, a daily puzzle, one-time hints, first-time tutorial, reduced-motion support, final responsive testing, and focused visual polish for the Home, gameplay header, and result popup.
4. The Roadblocks
Roadblocks: The main challenge was preserving a polished mobile layout while the game gained more controls and result content. Small screens had to accommodate the board, keyboard, header statistics, hints, and modals without overlap. Other important challenges included correct repeated-letter scoring, preventing duplicate statistic updates, keeping the Daily Puzzle deterministic, and ensuring all localStorage data remained safe when new features were introduced.
5. Key Takeaways
A focused single-file architecture can still support a complete game when constants, state, rendering, and event handlers are kept organized.
Correct duplicate-letter logic and responsive testing are core gameplay quality requirements, not minor finishing details.
> My final thought: LetterLock shows that a compact browser game can feel polished and rewarding when its interaction feedback, visual identity, and mobile layout are treated as one complete experience.