Wordsutra Is Here!

A new word game launches today.

The number of Indians who play word games on their mobile phones is surely vast. You can’t easily count us, but we are there, silently and happily arranging words, typing out guesses, and making random connections every single day.

Why not design a new game especially for us?

That was the challenge me and two school friends set ourselves in February 2024. And today, more than 19 months later, here is WordSutra!

You can find only one game, the inaugural one to play now. But I’ll upload a new one on Monday and Tuesday as well. After that, I’ll upload a new game every other day. This is the beta version, and I’m hoping that once we get some good feedback, we’ll make the changes and publish daily from then onwards.

Important: If the instructions don’t feel intuitive, you will find a detailed ‘how-to-play’ set below, after a short introduction.

WordSutra is a word game of connections. It rewards the basic knowledge of all things Indian that we take for granted. It also rewards the ability to spot patterns, and a little bit of thinking out of the box. If you like wordplay, you will some of that too.

WordSutra is designed to invoke the manifold ways of being Indian.

While designing this game, I was also clear about a few things:

No sign-ups,
No pop-ups,
No advertisements.
(At least not the annoying kind.)

It’s just you, the player, and the game.

Once you click on www.wordsutra.in, you will see a starting screen with the word “play” at the bottom. Clicking on “play” will reveal a screen with instructions on how to play.

This is the first thing you will see.

I know, I know! There’s a lot going on in the starting page. There’s the unfamiliar shape. And that shape has symbols in multiple languages.

Tapping on this screen will take you to the instructions.

The best way to learn how to play though is simply to start playing. Once you go through the game a couple of times, it should be a smooth experience.

A sample game

Here’s a sample game. On hitting ‘play’, you see a screen with 10 words on it. The idea is to find a common thread (hence sutra) between any three words.

The words are: Kapil, Shivaji, Border, Akbar, Chak De, Dangal, Dhoni, Lagaan, Ganguly, Prithviraj.

(This example is not about wordplay or pattern thinking. It is a test of trivia about India with a little bit of challenge thrown in.)

There are three blue dots at the bottom of the screen. They represent three lives or chances. At this stage, you can afford to make two wrong guesses. But if you make three wrong guesses, you will be asked to come back for the next game.

(You can also try afresh in a different browser.)

Let’s say you tap on the three likeliest words with a common theme.

The words you choose are Shivaji, Akbar, and Prithviraj. You think they refer to three kings from India’s history. And you hit ‘submit’.

You would be right!

Having finished the first layer, your next step would be to choose another set. Here, you think it’s got to be Kapil, Ganguly and Dhoni. You select them, and press ‘submit’.

Here too, you would exactly right! They’re all former captains of the Indian cricket team.

You’re now on a roll. You select Dangal, Border, and Lagaan, thinking they’re all Bollywood films.

Here, you would be wrong. And you’re now down a turn.

After a little bit of thinking, you decide that all four are Bollywood films, but three of them also have sports as the common theme.

You decide the correct set is Dangal, Chak De and Lagaan, and hit ‘submit’.

You would be correct in your guess! This leaves you with just the word ‘Border’. You click on it, and hit submit, which leads you to a multiple choice question.

This is the last and final step before you complete the game.

Notice once again that the three blue dots have reappeared. Three more lives. Which means you can afford to make two mistakes.

Option 1 is “A 1997 JP Dutta war film starring Sunny Deol.”
Option 2 is “The edge of a cricket bat.”
Option 3 is “Allan Border, after whom the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is named.”
Option 4 is “Both 1 and 3”

You think a little and through trial and error, you hit on the last option, “Both 1 and 3” and complete the game successfully.

I’m hoping that doing this each time you play will give you a small dopamine boost.

How often will I get a new game?

At least 3-4 times a week. This publishing cadence is to ensure we have time for feedback.

Is this not the final version?

WordSutra is in its beta phase. We already did an ‘alpha version’ and tested things with our generous friends and relatives (if you’re reading this, thank you again!).

We made some changes based on their feedback, and then added some more changes.

We might have ‘killed it with improvements’!

Hopefully, this beta version will bring in lots of feedback! We will then make the necessary changes.

How do I give feedback?

You can give reach us in a few different ways:
- Reply to the emails you receive from this Substack
- Comment on this post
- Give me feedback on X (formerly Twitter) or LinkedIn. Or simply email: hrvenkatesh96@gmail.com

Will I be notified when there’s a new puzzle on?

Since this is not an app, the easiest way is to refresh wordsutra.in every now and then.

Happy WordSutra-ing! And Happy Diwali!

For those of you who have signed up to receive my occasional writing on all things Indian, (ir)regular service will resume soon!