© 2025 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/omiword/
In certain dialects of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, the word for ‘four’ sounds very similar to the word for ‘death’1. Consequently, the number 4 is considered by many people in East Asian nations to be unlucky. It is not unusual for buildings in that region to skip the number 4 when labeling floors, much in the same way 13th floors are omitted in some parts of the world2. In Hong Kong, at least one skyscraper avoids the proper numbering for floors 40-49.
Four is the smallest positive non-prime number3. It is the only natural number where one can get the same result by multiplying its square roots (2×2), or adding them (2+2). Four happens to be the only number that has the same number of letters as its actual value4. The four color theorem tells us that four is an adequate number of colors for any two dimensional map—no two bordering regions would need to share a color. Four is the number of bonds that a carbon atom can make, which is why life can exist, a quality known as tetravalency. Fear of the number four is known as tetraphobia, and anyone suffering from it has almost certainly stopped reading by now, or at least uttered some four-letter words.
It’s no secret that direct donations to Damn Interesting have been on a downward trend in recent years, so we are aiming to diversify. To that end, we’ve made something new, and it’s called Omiword.
Way back in the days before Covid, predating the Wordle craze, I started working on a daily browser-based game with draggable tiles and intersecting words. Whenever I have a small pocket of time, when it’s insufficient for a writing groove, I find that making games is a meditative way to occupy it. I shelved this game in 2020 when the world went weird, and I didn’t find my way back to it until recently. It’s ready now, and I hope some people like it.
In this game, the player’s objective is to spell four common American English words by dragging letter tiles within sectors. The puzzles start out easy on Mondays, and grow more difficult daily, becoming downright hostile by Sunday.
It’s totally free, though we’re hoping that some people who enjoy it will donate via Patreon to support ongoing puzzle design. If we reach $300/month in supporters there, we’ll commit the effort to add access to the entire archive of daily puzzles. There has been one puzzle per day since limited user testing began on 01 January 2025, so that’s over 200 puzzles in the archive so far.
Omiword is not our first game, nor is it likely to be the last. Let us know what you think if you are so inclined, feedback is welcome. Money is also welcome, it’s hard to survive without it.
2 Triskaidekophobia
3 Mathematicians define a prime as a number with exactly two distinct positive divisors—1 and itself—thus excluding 1.
4 In English.
© 2025 All Rights Reserved. Do not distribute or repurpose this work without written permission from the copyright holder(s).
Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/omiword/
Since you enjoyed our work enough to print it out, and read it clear to the end, would you consider donating a few dollars at https://www.damninteresting.com/donate ?
Fun game! You should add www. to the front of the shareable link to make it format as a hyperlink when shared