I have to admit that from the very beginning of using wordleunlimited.dev, I did not pay attention to a certain checkbox called "Allow hints". In my opinion, this small checkbox was not necessary when using the Challenge a Friend feature for 2 weeks. But one night I asked my brother to guess a 7-letter difficult word and he did not come up with anything for about 15 minutes and messaged me: "Bro this is impossible, give me something". Then I understood that the game would be more interesting if I used the hint checkbox from the very beginning.
What Does This Checkbox Mean?
The meaning of this single-line checkbox is enabling/disabling the small assistance in the form of 2 revealed letters for your friend. If you decide to keep it enabled, your friend gets some assistance from the system in the form of 2 revealed letters in random positions. If you decide not to enable this checkbox, you challenge your friend without any help. If you choose to enable it, you assist your friend not to lose his interest in this game too quickly. There are two options, and I choose them depending on whom I challenge. If I challenge my cousin who plays word games every day, I disable this checkbox since he does not need any help. But if I challenge my mom who has been playing this game for several weeks, I leave this checkbox on because otherwise, she just quits in 3 minutes and I do not have my gaming partner for the evening. This checkbox is not some game-changing feature that is being advertised on the homepage of the website, but it is exactly this kind of small feature that makes the Challenge system thoughtful.
Why This One Checkbox Is So Important
The thing is that a good word challenge is not about winning or losing but it is about choosing the right difficulty level for both people to enjoy this round. And this small checkbox allows you to do all this calibration work silently. Without this checkbox, you have to either choose easy words for beginners and boring words for pros or vice versa. But with this small checkbox, you can choose the same 6 or 7-letter word and change its difficulty level by turning this checkbox on/off. It is also worth noting that this checkbox is completely optional and there is nothing wrong if you skip it and create your challenge in one click. The default value of the checkbox is chosen so that it would not confuse new users who do not know about this feature yet. But once you understand what this feature does, skipping it means wasting your own opportunities.
Steps to Use It Correctly
To use this feature on wordleunlimited.dev, you have to open the Unlimited mode in the top menu, scroll down to the Challenge a friend section, type the word that you want your friend to guess in the input field, write your name if you want (this is optional), choose the time limit if you want to put some pressure on your friend and then you will see the checkbox. Choose the option that suits you and to whom you send the challenge and then click the "Create challenge link" button. This link creates the game in which the word that you chose is already loaded. Your friend has to just click this link, accept the challenge and start the game. If you have turned on the hints checkbox, your friend will see 2 letters revealed in random positions while guessing the word. If you have not, your friend will see the usual empty square.
My Rule for Enabling the Hint Checkbox
Now that I use this feature almost every day for 2 weeks, I have developed a very simple rule for myself. If the person I challenge is used to playing word games on a regular basis, I disable the hints checkbox no matter what word I choose. If the person I challenge is a casual gamer who can get bored easily, I turn the hints option on even for shorter words. And finally, if I challenge a child, I turn on the hints checkbox and also reduce the length of the word to 4 or 5 letters to encourage him/her to guess the word. And one of the unexpected use cases for me is sending challenges to my friends in group chat on weekends. In this case, I always turn off the hints checkbox because the other half of the fun is comparing who guesses it faster and how many tries were needed to guess the word. Such competitions become much more interesting if everyone plays the same level of difficulty and this hint checkbox makes it possible.
Final Words
Actually, the "Allow hints" checkbox in the Challenge a Friend feature on wordleunlimited.dev is one of those small design choices that seem unimportant at first but make the difference between the challenge that your friend finishes and the challenge that he/she leaves in the middle. Whether you enable it or block it entirely, the presence of this checkbox right next to the word input field makes the whole system much more thoughtful and player-friendly.
