May 5, 2026
All aboard the word-game drama
Show HN: I built a new word game, Wordtrak
New word game drops, but the comments are fighting over giant face pics and impossible vowels
TLDR: Wordtrak is a new family-inspired head-to-head word game built to feel faster and less exhausting than Scrabble. Commenters were split between praising its charm and complaining about giant photos and frustrating vowel-heavy gameplay, turning a sweet launch into a very internet-sized debate.
A new word game called Wordtrak rolled onto Hacker News with a wholesome origin story: one dad, one very competitive family, and a mission to make "Scrabble that doesn’t drag". Creator Nick Quaranto says he built the 1-vs-1 game after years of getting cooked by his mom and wife at word games, then leaned into a train theme, clacky letter displays, and a simple pick-up-and-play format. Cute? Yes. But the real action was in the comments, where readers immediately turned the launch into a mini soap opera.
The biggest split was between "this is delightful" and "why is your website assaulting me with a giant face photo?" One early commenter said the page loaded an absurdly huge image of Nick and family Scrabble shots, forcing them to scroll in two directions just to escape it. That instantly gave the thread a classic internet energy: half product feedback, half accidental roast. On the sweeter side, fans praised the game’s personal touches, especially the family references hidden in the design, calling it a smart example of using artificial intelligence as a creative helper instead of a replacement.
Then came the gameplay grumbling. One player reported getting trapped in a nightmare hand full of vowels, swapping vowels for... more vowels, and basically rage-posting their way into a soft defeat. Others chimed in with proud fellow-builder energy, saying they’d made family word games too. So yes, Wordtrak launched as a cozy family project — but the comments turned it into a debate about taste, luck, and whether giant homepage selfies are the real final boss.
Key Points
- •Nick Quaranto created Wordtrak as a new 1v1 word game after experimenting with other word games, including NYT’s Crossplay.
- •Wordtrak is played across three or five “traks,” and players compete to win each trak by achieving the highest point total.
- •The project began with a design phase using markdown documents, mock gameplay, and iteration with Claude before code was written.
- •The game’s visual identity was built around a train theme and split-flap-display-inspired interface, partly influenced by Vestaboard.
- •Wordtrak was implemented using Rails, Expo, and Claude Code, with early versions including a basic CPU player and experiments with special-power mechanics.