I Tried to Figure Out an Idiom Game With Claude

› Alex

i want to create a game based on idioms where i think you guess what an idiom means. i’m not sure exactly adn I wanna run a /grill-me to figure it out… the things i like are the idea of something sort of uniform like wordle, but also this game where you guess a word and based on whatever word you guess, it tells you how close or far you are conceptually from the “right word” and you keep guessing.

help me figure this out

⏺ Claude

It’s Saturday, June 13, 2026.

Love this. Before I grill you, let me name the two things you’re pointing at so we’re working from the same map:

• Wordle = the uniform/daily/shareable part. One puzzle a day, everyone gets the same one, simple grid, brag-able result.
• Semantle / Contexto = the “how close are you” semantic-distance part. You guess a word, it tells you how conceptually near/far you are from the secret word, and you keep narrowing in.

So the seed is: an idioms game that blends those. Let me rename this session and pull up the grill, then I’m going to come at you with questions.

⏺ Claude

Grill mode on. One question at a time, full menu each time, and I won’t pick for you. We resolve the root before touching anything downstream (daily cadence, scoring, sharing, UI all hang off this).

Q1 — The core loop: what’s the secret, and what do you type?

This is the most expensive thing to get wrong, so it’s first. “Idiom game” can be five genuinely different games. Pick the one that matches the feeling you want:

A. Guess the idiom from its meaning (reverse dictionary)

Screen shows: “to reveal a secret carelessly.” You type idiom guesses. It tells you how close your guess’s meaning is to the target.

You’re hunting for: spill the beans

B. Semantic-distance hunt for a hidden idiom (Contexto, but every guess is itself an idiom)

There’s a secret idiom of the day. You guess any idiom you want. It ranks how conceptually close your idiom is to the secret one (#1, #340, #2,051…). You triangulate by meaning.

Guess break the ice → rank 1,200. Guess spill the beans → rank 14. Warmer.

C. Guess the meaning of a shown idiom (learning-first)

Screen shows: “spill the beans.” You type what you think it means. It scores how close your definition is to the real one.

D. Word-by-word reconstruction (literal Wordle)

Secret idiom is a fixed phrase. You guess the actual words, get hot/cold or positional feedback on the letters/words themselves, not the meaning. You’re reconstructing spill the beans token by token.

E. Triangulate with single words/concepts (Semantle, secret is an idiom)

There’s a secret idiom. You type single words (not idioms). It tells you how close each word is to the idiom’s meaning. You close in, then name the idiom to win.

Type secret → warm. Type reveal → warmer. Then you guess the phrase.

Which of these is the game you actually want to play — or is it a blend I haven’t named?

› Alex

C

⏺ Claude

Locked: C — idiom is shown, you type what you think it means, it scores how close you are. Now we resolve what hangs off that.

Q2 — What does “how close” actually look like? (This is the other half of your core unknown — the thing that makes it feel like Semantle/Contexto instead of a flashcard quiz.)

You type a meaning. The game has to show you closeness somehow. The options have very different feels:

1. Single closeness meter — one signal for your whole answer.

You type “to talk too much” → 64°, warm. You type “to accidentally reveal a secret” → 96°, hot. A temperature or a 0–100 bar, nothing else.

2. Contexto-style rank — your answer gets a rank against a list of possible meanings.

“to gossip” → ranked #312. “to reveal a secret” → #3. Lower = closer. (Note on shape: ranking a free-typed sentence means the game compares it to a pre-built pool of definitions, so the rank is “out of N candidate meanings,” not infinite like Contexto’s word list.)

3. Word-level heat — Wordle’s colored tiles, but by meaning, not letters.

You type “reveal a secret loudly” → reveal 🟩 secret 🟩 loudly ⬜. Each word of your guess lights up by how on-target that concept is.

4. Hidden-component checklist — the true meaning is secretly broken into parts, and your answer reveals which parts you hit.

Target meaning = {reveal · a secret · unintentionally}. Your guess “to tell a secret” → ✅ reveal, ✅ secret, ❌ the unintentional part. It shows you which conceptual pieces are still missing.

5. Qualitative hint — a sentence of human-style feedback each time.

You type “to talk a lot” → “You’ve got that it’s about speaking, but it’s more specific — think about WHAT gets said and whether you meant to.”

Which feedback model is the game — or a blend (e.g., a meter plus word-heat)?

› Alex

i think for now lets just table and save this - not sure i really want to do anything with it as of now

⏺ Claude

Tabled and saved. Where we landed:

It captures the one thing we locked (core loop C — show the idiom, you type the meaning, it scores closeness), the five feedback models we were about to pick between, and the full list of still-open branches (input format, win condition, daily structure, scoring/sharing, how closeness gets computed). When you want to come back, just point me at that doc and we resume the grill at Q2 — no re-explaining needed.