How does one submit a word SUCCESSFULLY
15% of the ClueDay cases till today have been created by someone other than me. I want to say thank you to all the contributors!
I want to show you all how the submission process works. Grateful to the 19 people who found the Create a Case form, filled it in, and trusted me with a word and five clues. :) Hope I've been doing justice to your vision!
What arrives from the submission form
The Create a Case form is short on purpose so you get to submit a six letter word, five clues, and a display name. Everything else is pretty much optional: a link for the name to point at if you want to connect your socials, an email if you want to be notified before me posting it, and a free text comments box to capture anything else.
Submissions land in a Supabase table and I read them there. Think of it like an excel sheet behind a Google Form. I have no automations connecting the submission back to the website. And there is no dashboard, no queue or a review workflow. So I open the table and manually scroll through the submissions.
How a submission becomes a case
I usually have clues designed for the coming week. Once I accept a submission, my rule is to slot new community cases a week out. That gives me a buffer to design the explanation, record a Case Debrief if I want one, and change my mind without touching anything already scheduled. If I need to move the clues I have already written, I sometimes do that too.
What makes a clue arc work
The thing I look for first is the gradient. Clue one should feel unfair and clue five should feel obvious. If I can solve the word from clue three, the last two clues are unnecessary and the case ends early for everybody. I myself have been guilty of overestimating the difficulty of clues sometimes so ofcourse this has trial and error behind it.
Some of my favourite ones are those that create a compelling story. Like the one thejayisnotsilent creeated for SCREAM opened with 'Munch on paint, tasty?' and closed on 'What's your favourite scary movie?'. The first clue was a painting wordplay and the last is a much obvious movie reference. thejayisnotsilent also submitted clues for Case #113 on July 25 and Case #120 on Aug 1. Go check them out!
The second thing I look for is range. Five clues that all come from the same domain can get boring. So I try to look for clues that have some diversity in their references, meanings, and wordplay. Each clue opens a different door to the same answer.
If you have submitted a case, let's talk
If you have submitted a word and clues, or you are working on one, and you are comfortable sharing how you built it, I would love to hear it! I am always looking to learn and upskill, plus share stories of awesome people! We can talk about what word you started from and why, what your clue-designing process was, which one you were proudest of, and more.
Every time I get an entry, I'm still always surprised, because writing a clue arc is really hard work. So spending the time to create clues for a game one might play for two minutes a day is really saying something. Thank you again!
Reach me at helloclueday@gmail.com.
Create a Case — Submit a word and five clues. Share the link to show your skills!