Show HN: A Daily Bible Game

49 points by egglemonsoup 130 days ago | 64 comments

I created a daily game where you get a random Bible verse and try to identify the book (e.g. "Psalms", "Genesis", "Luke") in as few guesses as possible.

I have absolutely no clue how I got the idea, other than the fact that I grew up in the Orthodox Church and all my other coding projects have been faith-related (a terrible mobile app (1) and slightly broken Byzantine chant website (2) ). I'm a relatively new developer and I've been hungry for a project to build that people will actually use and share around, so I hoped this would fit the bill.

Sure enough, friends and family have been making it part of their daily routine. When priests AND my nonreligious college friends started sending me their results every day, I knew I had something. It was really exciting.

------

When the idea popped into my head, I started working on it right away. I created the project at 1AM and had a MVP/SLC version done a few hours later. That was a few weeks ago.

I am using SvelteKit, no external APIs, and SQLite for the database. It's hosted on an Ubuntu machine in my living room. Coding agents like Roo/Kilo Code assisted heavily in the development, but after I had already decided on the overall architecture and how I wanted things to work together.

The game is free, has no signup, and I’m not running any ads. I’m looking for any and all feedback, and especially suggestions for how I can make the game more interesting, fun, and/or educational.

Thank you HN!

publicdebates 130 days ago |

This is too difficult:

    Do not trust in a friend;
      Do not put your confidence in a companion;
    Guard the doors of your mouth
      From her who lies in your bosom.
    For son dishonors father,
      Daughter rises against her mother,
    Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
      A man’s enemies are the men of his own household.
    Therefore I will look to the Lord;
      I will wait for the God of my salvation;
        My God will hear me.

Tried [redacted] and [redacted] first, turns out to be [redacted]. I would literally never have guessed that. It genuinely could have been from any [redacted] book at that point. Maybe if I could just give up with a button.

Also yeah it's weird that I have to wait a day to do the next one. I get the appeal of having a daily routine fun site, but why not also let me do a random one each time I pass/fail if I want?

egglemonsoup 130 days ago | |

I tried [redacted] and [redacted] first as well.*

Perhaps I should make it clearer that correctly identifying the book on the first try is not the expectation. Maybe I will add a clarification that the goal is "as few guesses as possible" or maybe "as few guesses as you can".

It's quite a variable challenge. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not. (Usually it's not.) I appreciate your feedback.

*Despite them both being in the same section. Oops.

gjm11 130 days ago | |

I don't think you should be posting the answer to the current question unobfuscated, especially when there's no way for curious readers to get any other question after having that one spoiled (other than waiting for, at the moment, 7 hours or so).

It's not quite true that "it genuinely could have been from any OT book". First, when you make a guess it doesn't just tell you whether you got the book right, it also tells you whether you got the right section (major prophets, gospels, etc.). So if you guess that something's from Isaiah, after that you will at least know whether it's from Ezekiel or not.

I agree that this one could be from almost-but-not-quite anywhere in the OT, but bear in mind that the target audience (1) may well have read the whole thing multiple times and (2) may well have a good idea of the "tone" of various different books.

(I've been a godless heathen for many years, though I was a Christian for many years before that. In the present case my first guess was the same as yours but I didn't try your second guess, not only because of the can't-be-in-that-section thing but because I have a pretty good idea what sort of thing is in that book and I don't think there's much there that reads like this verse. It did, none the less, take me quite a lot of guesses. If I were still in the habit of reading the Bible a lot I expect I'd have done better. Which is kinda the point.)

publicdebates 130 days ago | | |

Good point, thanks, I apologize.

tshaddox 130 days ago | |

Proverbs and Psalms are both in the same section (wisdom), which is one of the very few mechanics the game has to help you narrow things down.

tshaddox 130 days ago | |

Took me 5 guesses, only after guessing 4 other Old Testament books from 4 different categories (major prophets, wisdom, law, and history). Definitely a pretty challenging one.

higgins 130 days ago | |

the "Old|New Testament" and "Section" clues are enough to make it not impossible (and also more "wordle"-like)

more like "guess who" in taking out entire categories

gampleman 129 days ago |

Are the verses random? If so perhaps add a filter to make sure the name of the book doesn't occur in the verse. For instance today's is trivial (or if it has "Job replied...", or "Jonah went..." it would make it too easy).

(Unless the name is John. Then it's kind of a good clue that the book isn't John).

tshaddox 129 days ago | |

Job is mentioned in Ezekiel in the Old Testament and in James in the New Testament. Jonah is mentioned in 2 Kings in the Old Testament, and several times in the New Testament.

ktg0215 130 days ago |

Nice niche! The daily puzzle format has proven to work well for specific communities. I imagine this could build a pretty dedicated user base among Bible study groups. Simple concept, clear target audience.

egglemonsoup 130 days ago | |

Thank you! I've noticed that a lot of other well-loved "daily" puzzle games are more elegant in terms of game design (Wordle, Bandle, LoLdle are some of my favorites) so I'm a bit worried that the current design is a little flat/boring. I've been trying to brainstorm ways to make it more interesting without making it too challenging or unintuitive.

gwd 130 days ago |

Nice! Might be nice to have a bit more of a visual indication that you'll get the Wordle-style "match"; also, for things like the Minor Prophets where there are quite a few and people aren't super familiar with them, might be nice to have something else (like "starts with M" or something, so that you can get Micah -> Malachi, rather than cycling through them all).

Also let me plug the system I'm developing which helps you learn Biblical Greek, by reading selections of scripture where you know all the words but one or two. Each one takes about the effort of a Wordle (or Bibdle) puzzle to decode. https://www.laleolanguage.com

TimTheTinker 130 days ago |

This being flagged (presumably because it's "religious"?) seems incredibly short-sighted. Like flagging a "guess the US president" as being too political.

egglemonsoup 130 days ago | |

Thank you. I was overjoyed at the initial response and surprised and disheartened to see it get flagged. I emailed HN's moderators to get clarification and see if there's anything I could have done better.

viggity 130 days ago |

Nice work! Out of curiosity, how are you deciding what the verse of the day is? i.e. is randomness weighted somehow? There are are ~31k verses in the bible, 23k in old testament, 8k in new testament. Is it 2.5 times more likely to be an old testament verse? Or, perhaps you're picking a testament at random, then a random book, then a random verse. Lots of ways to skin the proverbial cat.

egglemonsoup 130 days ago | |

Great question. It picks a random book first (out of the 66 non-Deuterocanonical books (so far)) and then a random group of 3 back-to-back verses from that book. That way it's not weighted towards books with more of verses, which I wanted to avoid. It doesn't try to equalize between old/new testament.

gampleman 130 days ago |

Since you're from an Orthodox background, perhaps you can consider having the books from an actual Orthodox bible? For instance it is missing Wisdom of Solomon, Sirrah and others.

Edit: I'd also appreciate an RSS feed so that I can get notified when a new puzzle is released.

egglemonsoup 130 days ago | |

Thank you so much for noticing. I didn't even know there was a difference between Orthodox/Catholic and Protestant canons until a week after the site was live.

I spent a decent amount of time trying to add the Deuterocanonical books. Ultimately I put it on hold, because I was worried that adding those books would make a challenging game even harder (at least for my initial audience of 20 family and friends). I also wondered if adding those books would put off any Protestant visitors... but I see their omission has caught your attention, that's Orthodox 1, Protestant 0. I'll find an elegant way to work them in.

And I never thought of adding an RSS feed! I'll add that to the todo!

graemep 130 days ago | | |

The Catholic canon has a lot of those, but not all so including just those common to both would still be something in the majority of Christian's Bibles. Not in the canon does not mean valueless or bad so I think a lot of people will still find books not in their denomination's canon of interest and may have read them.

Maybe offer options on which canon? Does not work well with daily format though. OTOH I would like to play more than once a day!

It is difficult. Maybe weighting towards the new testament (i.e. non-random selection) would make it easier? I think a lot of us are more familiar with it.

thevillagechief 130 days ago | | |

It's fine to add the books, when you do, I hope the elegant way gives one the option to enable/disable them. Otherwise you're probably going to miss out on one audience or the other.

junpfker 130 days ago | | |

> I didn't even know there was a difference between Orthodox/Catholic and Protestant canons until a week after the site was live.

That's because you are a believer.

Knowledge of apocrypha and gnostic gospels is suppressed by the power structures of the church.

Hilarious to worry about "putting off" protestants by including orthodox books rather than the whole believing those people will suffer an eternity of pain and suffering because they believe the same god but the wrong way(TM).

barbazoo 130 days ago |

> Do not trust in a friend; Do not put your confidence in a companion; Guard the doors of your mouth From her who lies in your bosom. For son dishonors father, Daughter rises against her mother, Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; A man’s enemies are the men of his own household. Therefore I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me.

Yikes, got a fun one right away. That seems like rather unhealthy behavior to me. Maybe not really for the younger ones then.

publicdebates 130 days ago | |

It's related to John 2:23-25. He's not saying you should not have friends or trust anyone. He's saying you should not seek or hope anything from humans that only God can actually provide. It's related to codependence and similar character flaws. I think even atheists would agree that it's not healthy to want the objective approval and validation of inconstant people with imperfect judgment.

barbazoo 130 days ago | | |

> He's saying you should not seek or hope anything from humans that only God can actually provide.

What is it that only the god can provide?

gjm11 130 days ago | |

There's rather a lot in the Bible that no one would regard as suitable reading for children if it were from any other book.

graemep 130 days ago | | |

It is a collection of works, many of which are not suitable for children. Few people will disagree with this. This is why there are simplified and sanitised reappropriate revellings for kids. On the other hand many of the works in the collection are suitable for those capable of reading it.

scottndecker 130 days ago |

I can only do a verse every 15 hours? Why the rate limit?

chente 130 days ago | |

Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly

Proverbs 14:29

asenchi 130 days ago | |

Yeah I'd like to continue playing the game. Perhaps 10 verses before the limit kicks in to save on resources?

jacknews 130 days ago | |

You want to speed-run the bible?

I'd like a 'true or false' game based on those quotes, but then it might be unbalanced.

egglemonsoup 130 days ago | |

It's a global verse that everyone gets, which resets at midnight. That way people can compare their guesses to the same verse every day.

vunderba 130 days ago |

“Guess the Book” is also a game concept (itself related to matching a quote to its author) that can be easily adapted to secular works as well. You could do this with something like “Guess the Passage by Shakespeare Play.”

Now get thee to a nunnery.

olalonde 130 days ago |

Stupid question but is it common for Christians to be able to identify which book a Bible verse belongs to? I assume you'd have to have read the Bible multiple times to be able to play this, right?

YY4398427 130 days ago |

Tangentially related, but is there a good open source ePub of the versions of the Bible? Standard eBooks doesn't have the Bible in their library, bizarrely.

graemep 130 days ago | |

KJV is beautiful and out of copyright so free to download (except technically in the UK where the original monopoly is in force) but not a great translation in terms of accuracy compared to more modern ones.

It also, of course, only contains the protestant canon.

There are more free translations. Not knowledgeable enough to recommend one. Mostly there is no significant difference, but of course there are passages and translations which are contested.

There are Bible apps which will let you install multiple translations and read them side by side. That plus a paper Bible (a good translation such as NRSV) goes a long way.

cogman10 130 days ago | | |

I grew up on the KJV, but it really is a bad translation. It injects a lot into the text and has bad sources vs modern translations.

The new king james translation is better. As is NIV.

If you are really up for studying the bible, then you can't do much better than getting the Oxford annotated bible (which is based on the NRSV). That has all the footnotes pointing out translation choices and giving historic context to passages based on the current best biblical research.

cogman10 130 days ago | |

I'd look for the NRSV from Anna's archive. You should find a pretty good english translation epub there.

gwd 130 days ago | |

ebible.org has a number of Bible translations available in various formats.

NET and WEB are probably the best modern translations.

gampleman 130 days ago |

Cool project! I'd be interested in checking out your other projects, but the links seem not to be included in your post.

higgins 130 days ago |

protestant bible? catholic? orthodox?

Balgair 130 days ago | |

No really.

What translation is this? What part of the religion (Maccabees, Mormons)? Is there Ge'ez portions (46 book in OT!)? How about the dead sea scrolls?

I think, if it takes off with some of the probing from here, then adding in a harder mode with larger apocrypha or duterocanonical texts would be great. Maybe make a section where you can select the translation and sect you want to learn about.

booleandilemma 130 days ago |

Really cool :)

afrazullal 130 days ago |

well

trumbitta2 130 days ago |

So, having religion on the front page means politics are now allowed on HN, too. Right?

tshaddox 130 days ago | |

I don’t think that a game involving uncontroversial facts about the history of politics (e.g. “guess the U.S. President") would be banned under HN’s rules either.

graemep 130 days ago | |

The guidelines say:

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. "

No mention of religion there, and it says "most politics" not all politics.

"Anything that good hackers would find interesting" and it seems reasonable for that to include philosophy, religion etc. and definitely an interesting web app is of interest.

herpdyderp 130 days ago | |

This is less about religion directly and more about sharing a cool app imo.

Also, tbf, there are regular posts on the HN front page that I would consider "political". (Though I'm not bothered by them.)

moi2388 130 days ago | |

I see this as the only possible logical conclusion

Do not trust in a friend; Do not put your confidence in a companion; Guard the doors of your mouth From her who lies in your bosom. For son dishonors father, Daughter rises against her mother, Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; A man’s enemies are the men of his own household. Therefore I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me.