How I Built It: Word Zearch


Mark Mahoney

This is a collection of code playbacks that show how I created the game 'Word Zearch'. I was inspired by the love people have of Wordle and decided to invent a new game. When playing Boggle, I have designated myself the 'checker' of other peoples' words. I enjoy finding words on the board that I couldn't find myself while playing.

The game presents the player with 49 letter groupings and asks them to find words by clicking on the letters. Only adjacent letter groups can be used to make a word (up, down, left, right, and diagonal). A letter group can only be used once per game.

I built the game using a Javascript, HTML, and CSS. Some knowledge of these will be helpful but these playbacks will also be a great way to learn about these topics. If you are interested in learning more about web development I have a free book of code playbacks on the subject, "An Introduction to Web Development from Back to Front" that you can find on this site.

Along the way I build some interesting data structures, discuss recursion, and efficient searching of words. Watch these playbacks to see how I coded it from start to finish.

If you'd like to stay connected and get updates when I add new playbacks you can follow me on twitter: @markm208.

1.1 Building a Trie Data Structure
1.2 Modeling Letter Frequencies
1.3 A Simple Web App
1.4 Building the Game Board
1.5 The Front End