completely refactored backend code. the game should load a lot faster now, and the backend now supports leaderboards.
fixed:
fixed bug that prevented c-c-combo streak from being visible
fixed bug that was causing some countries to have more/less than 400 squares in their visualization due to rounding
removed:
US State gameplay mode (temporarily?) removed
v.0.3.0 – 6 Feb 2025
added:
new gameplay mode: Explore
v.0.2.0 – 24 Nov 2024
added:
new difficulty mode: easy
new gameplay mode: US States
fixed:
removed exploit where you refreshing the page after losing/surrendering didn't reset your streak
v.0.1.3 – 17 Nov 2024
added:
streak counting (with fancy animations for high streak counts)
game now displays all hints upon surrender or correct guess (for learning purposes)
changed:
rejiggered some regions for balance purposes (split off the Horn of Africa from East Africa; split West Africa into the Senegambia and Gulf of Guinea; split the Middle East into the Levant and Arabia; renamed West Asia to Transcaucasia and gave it Iran and Turkey; renamed SE Europe to the Balkans and made Cyprus part of the Levant; split the Caribbean into Greater and Lesser Antilles). none of this is meant to be a political statement, I'm just trying to create roughly evenly-sized regional groupings. geography nerds don't @ me for grouping the Bahamas with the Lesser Antilles
prettier fonts and styling
fixed:
removed some broken countries (Montenegro, Montserrat)
v.0.1.2 – 16 Nov 2024
added:
new hints:
total power generation
electricity imports
continent
per capita power use
region / subcontinent
input box filters down after continent and region clues
changed:
griddle has always been griddle
removed many smaller countries and dependencies with uninteresting grid mix data, in order to increase average !!FUN!!
fixed:
cleaner hint display
fixed errors with data for some small countries (Niue, Western Sahara, Turks and Caicos Islands). but then i removed those countries from the dataset anyway so it doesn't matter lmao
v.0.1.1 – 15 Nov 2024
added:
surrender button
it's a secret (:
changed:
country selection now exclusive dropdown
selection now clears after each guess
fixed:
cleaner hint display
v.0.1.0 – 14 Nov 2024
added:
mixdle
forthcoming features
features:
color-coding guess boxes
state persistence / date seeding / once-a-day gameplay
streak leaderboards
display grid mix of incorrect guesses on mouseover
nicer animations
new difficulty: hard mode
changes:
better-looking legend? (squares should identify energy type on mouseover – doubles as accessibility feature)
bugfixes:
off-by-one error on grid generation (rounding)
streak disaggregation between difficulty modes
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about
griddle is a game where you attempt to identify countries by looking at the primary energy sources that power their electricity grids. Inspiration for this project came from Nicolas Fulghum, who curated and posted similar data visualizations from his work at Ember Energy (which is also the primary data source for this game).
griddle is a janky, brittle, poorly coded minimum viable product. It is ugly and probably broken. This did not stop me from playing it for hours while I should have been working. I hope to continue polishing the game, adding new features and improving the UI. Check back later and click on the version number to see a changelog of new features and bugfixes.
how to play
You should see two 20x20 grids – one labeled "2000" and the other labeled "20XX".
The colors of boxes in these grids represent the various sources of domestic electricity generation used in the electricity grid of a mystery country – pink represents nuclear, yellow represents solar, various shades of gray represent fossil fuels, and so on. If you are colorblind ... sorry, and I hope to add accessibility options soon. Each box represents 0.25% of the total grid mix.
Your goal is to guess the country within six guesses. After one incorrect guess, the game will reveal the total energy generation of the country (in 2000 and 20XX) in terawatt-hours. After two incorrect guesses, the game will reveal the country's net electricity imports or exports, also in TW·h. After three incorrect guesses, the game will tell you which continent the mystery country is located in. After four incorrect guesses, the game will reveal the country's per capita energy usage, and after five incorrect guesses the game will narrow down the continent into a subcontinental region.
