DEV Community: Nikhil

I Built a Word Ladder Game in the Browser: Here's How the Puzzle Logic Works

Nikhil — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 16:15:44 +0000

Word Ladder is one of those puzzles that looks simple until you try to actually implement it.

The idea is straightforward: change one letter at a time to get from a starting word to a target word. COLD to WARM. CAT to DOG. Every step has to be a real word. Simple to explain, genuinely tricky to build correctly.

When I first started thinking about how to build this, I assumed the hard part would be the algorithm. It was not. The hard part was everything around it.

The core problem is graph traversal

Every valid English word is a node. Two words are connected if they differ by exactly one letter. So CAT connects to BAT, HAT, CUT, CAR, and so on. To find a valid solution path, you need to find the shortest path between two nodes in this graph.

The standard approach is BFS - Breadth First Search. You start at the source word, explore all words one letter change away, then all words two changes away, and so on until you hit the target. BFS guarantees the shortest path, which matters because you want to give players an achievable puzzle, not an impossibly long one.

function bfs(start, end, wordSet) {
  const queue = [[start, [start]]];
  const visited = new Set([start]);

  while (queue.length > 0) {
    const [current, path] = queue.shift();

    for (let i = 0; i < current.length; i++) {
      for (let c = 97; c <= 122; c++) {
        const next = current.slice(0, i) + String.fromCharCode(c) + current.slice(i + 1);
        if (next === end) return [...path, next];
        if (wordSet.has(next) && !visited.has(next)) {
          visited.add(next);
          queue.push([next, [...path, next]]);
        }
      }
    }
  }
  return null;
}

This iterates through every position in the word and tries swapping each letter with every letter of the alphabet. If the resulting string exists in your word dictionary and has not been visited, it gets added to the queue.

The word list matters more than the algorithm

A BFS over a bad word list gives you bad puzzles. Too many obscure words and players get stuck on steps they have never heard of. Too few and you get no valid paths between common words.

The sweet spot is a curated list of common English words - not a full dictionary, not a tiny list. Around 3000 to 5000 words tends to work well for 4-letter puzzles.

I learned this the hard way. My first version used a full dictionary and kept generating paths through words nobody recognises. Players were getting stuck not because the puzzle was hard but because the intermediate words were unfair.

Generating good puzzle pairs

Not every start/end combination makes a good puzzle. Some pairs have no solution. Some have solutions that are 15 steps long, which is frustrating. Some are 2 steps, which is boring.

A good puzzle generator runs BFS on random pairs and keeps only the ones with a solution length between 4 and 8 steps. Anything outside that range gets discarded.

Hints without giving it away

The hint system is where it gets interesting. A good hint tells you the next valid word without just solving the puzzle for you. The way to do this is to run BFS from the player's current word to the target and reveal only the first step of the optimal path.

If you want to try a working Word Ladder implementation, I built one at DailyBrainHub - https://dailybrainhub.com/games/word-ladder - with 5 puzzles daily at different difficulty levels. The hint system works exactly as described above.

What I found interesting

The hardest part is not the algorithm. BFS is well documented. The hard part is curation - picking word pairs that feel satisfying, not frustrating. That is more of a game design problem than a programming problem, and it is what separates a puzzle that feels fair from one that feels impossible.

If you are building something similar, start with a small curated word list and hand-test your puzzle pairs before automating generation. You will catch a lot of bad puzzles that the algorithm thinks are fine.

Building a Daily Puzzle Site: What the Tech Stack Actually Looks Like

Nikhil — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 19:49:58 +0000

There is a category of website that looks simple from the outside and is surprisingly interesting to build: the daily puzzle site.

Wordle is the obvious example. New York Times bought it for a reported seven figures. But the concept - one puzzle per day, resets at midnight, shareable result - is something any developer can build. I built DailyBrainHub - https://dailybrainhub.com - with six games running on this exact model and the technical decisions were more interesting than I expected.

The daily reset problem

The core mechanic of a daily puzzle site is that everyone gets the same puzzle on the same day. This sounds simple. It creates some interesting decisions.

Option 1: Server-generated puzzles. Your backend picks today's puzzle and serves it via API. Clean, controlled, easy to update. Requires a server.

Option 2: Deterministic client-side generation. You use today's date as a seed for a pseudo-random number generator. The same date always produces the same puzzle. No server needed.

function getDailyPuzzle(puzzleList) {
  const today = new Date();
  const seed = today.getFullYear() * 10000 + 
               (today.getMonth() + 1) * 100 + 
               today.getDate();

  const index = seed % puzzleList.length;
  return puzzleList[index];
}

This is elegant but has a limitation: once you have served all puzzles in your list, you cycle back to the beginning. You need a large enough puzzle pool that the cycle is not noticeable for at least a year.

Storing progress without accounts

Account systems are friction. Wordle had no accounts. DailyBrainHub has no accounts. But you still need to remember whether a player has completed today's puzzle.

localStorage is the answer for most cases:

function saveTodayProgress(gameId, result) {
  const today = new Date().toISOString().split('T')[0];
  const key = `${gameId}_${today}`;
  localStorage.setItem(key, JSON.stringify(result));
}

function getTodayProgress(gameId) {
  const today = new Date().toISOString().split('T')[0];
  const key = `${gameId}_${today}`;
  return JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem(key));
}

Using the date in the key means yesterday's data is automatically ignored without any cleanup logic. The player's progress resets naturally when the date changes.

The midnight reset

Players who are mid-puzzle at midnight need handling. The safest approach is to check the date when the page loads and when the player submits an answer. If the date has changed since the puzzle was loaded, show a message and refresh.

Shareable results without a backend

Wordle's viral mechanic was the emoji grid you could paste anywhere. No image, no link to a specific result, just text that conveyed the result visually.

function generateShareText(gameId, day, results) {
  const emoji = results.map(r => r.correct ? 'checkmark' : 'cross').join('');
  return `DailyBrainHub ${gameId} #${day}\n${emoji}\nhttps://dailybrainhub.com`;
}

This generates text that works in WhatsApp, Twitter, anywhere. The result does not need to link to anything specific - it just needs to be intriguing enough that someone asks "what is this?"

What I would do differently

If I were starting over, I would build the share mechanic first, before any other feature. Everything else - the puzzle logic, the design, the blog - is secondary to the sharing loop. That loop is how daily puzzle sites grow. I built the games first and the share button last, which was the wrong order.

Discount Calculator — Instantly Calculate Discounts & Final Prices

Nikhil — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:44:01 +0000

Discount Calculator – Calculate Discounts Accurately (Free Tool)

Whether you’re shopping online, running a sale, managing invoices, or calculating offers for customers, this free Discount Calculator helps you find the exact discounted price in seconds — no manual math needed.

👉 https://stackdevtools.com/discount-calculator/

What It Does

This tool calculates:

Original price

Discount amount (%)

Final price after discount

Total savings

All results are displayed instantly and clearly.

Features

✔ Instant discount calculation
✔ Supports percentage-based discounts
✔ Clean & user-friendly UI
✔ Accurate results in real time
✔ Free and secure (no data stored)

Useful For

Online shoppers

E-commerce sellers

Retail & sales teams

Students and quick calculations

Anyone comparing prices or offers

Fast, accurate, and simple — exactly what a discount calculator should be.

👉 Try the Discount Calculator now:
https://stackdevtools.com/discount-calculator/

Age Difference Calculator — Calculate Age Gaps Accurately in Seconds

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 21:12:27 +0000

Age Difference Calculator – Calculate Age Gaps Accurately (Free Tool)

Whether you're calculating age differences for personal reasons, forms, astrology, HR data, or fun comparisons, this free Age Difference Calculator gives you accurate results instantly.

👉 https://stackdevtools.com/age-difference-calculator/

What It Does

This tool calculates the exact age difference between two dates in:

Years

Months

Days

It provides a clear summary that’s easy to understand and accurate.

Features

✔ Instant age gap calculation

✔ Easy date selection

✔ Detailed result breakdown

✔ Clean UI

✔ Free and secure (no data saved)

Useful For

HR & employee records

Relationship age gaps

Astrology and compatibility checks

Parent-child age difference

Fun comparisons

Fast, accurate, and simple — exactly what a date calculator should be.

👉 Try the Age Difference Calculator now:
https://stackdevtools.com/age-difference-calculator/

Text Diff Checker — Compare Text & Highlight Differences Instantly

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 21:11:03 +0000

Text Diff Checker – Compare Two Texts & Highlight Differences Instantly

Comparing two versions of text manually is time-consuming and error-prone. This free Text Diff Checker helps you quickly find differences between two blocks of text.

👉 https://stackdevtools.com/text-diff-checker/

What This Tool Does

Paste your original text and modified text, and the tool instantly highlights:

Added words

Removed words

Changed lines

Modified content

Features

✔ Side-by-side comparison

✔ Clear highlighting

✔ Fast difference detection

✔ No data stored

✔ Perfect for developers, editors, and students

Best For

Code comparison

Content editing

Checking plagiarism changes

Comparing versions of articles or assignments

If you frequently compare text versions, this tool saves a lot of time and helps prevent mistakes.

👉 Try it here: https://stackdevtools.com/text-diff-checker/

Text Repeater — Repeat Any Text Multiple Times Instantly (Free Tool)

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 21:10:05 +0000

Text Repeater – Repeat Any Text Multiple Times Instantly (Free Tool)

If you need to repeat text multiple times for testing, formatting, content generation, or fun, this free Text Repeater tool makes the process instant.

👉 https://stackdevtools.com/text-repeater/

Why Use a Text Repeater?

Repeating text manually is slow and frustrating. This tool lets you enter any text and repeat it as many times as you want with one click.

Features

✔ Repeat text any number of times

✔ Add spaces or line breaks

✔ Clean output

✔ No ads, no login

✔ Works instantly in browser

Use Cases

Developers testing outputs

Content formatting

Creating placeholder text

Repeating patterns

Fun messages or social media posts

The tool is lightweight, fast, and extremely easy to use.

👉 Try the Text Repeater: https://stackdevtools.com/text-repeater/

Case Converter — Convert Text to Uppercase, Lowercase, Title Case & More

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 21:08:57 +0000

Case Converter – Convert Text to Uppercase, Lowercase, Sentence Case & More

Writing content, coding, and editing text often require converting text into different cases. Instead of manually retyping, you can instantly change case using this free Case Converter tool.

👉 https://stackdevtools.com/case-converter/

Supported Case Formats

UPPERCASE

lowercase

Sentence case

Title Case

Capitalized Case

Toggle case

Features

✔ Instant case conversion

✔ Simple and distraction-free

✔ Works on any device

✔ No data stored or sent

✔ Free forever

Who Uses This Tool?

Writers

Students

Developers

Social media managers

Editors

Bloggers

If you need a fast and clean text case converter that keeps things simple, this tool is perfect.

👉 Try it here: https://stackdevtools.com/case-converter/

Slug Generator — Create SEO-Friendly URL Slugs Instantly (Free Online Tool)

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 21:07:26 +0000

Slug Generator – Create Clean, SEO-Friendly URLs Instantly

Creating clean and SEO-friendly URLs is essential for good search rankings. Whether you’re writing a blog post, building a CMS, or setting up product pages, you need a simple way to generate URL slugs.

This free Slug Generator instantly converts any text into a properly formatted slug.

👉 Try it: https://stackdevtools.com/slug-generator/

What This Tool Does

A slug is the part of the URL that identifies a page in a human-friendly way. This tool converts your input text into a lowercase, hyphen-separated URL-safe format.

Example:
“Free Online Tools for Developers” → free-online-tools-for-developers

Features

✔ Converts any text into a URL slug

✔ Removes special characters

✔ Replaces spaces with hyphens

✔ Outputs SEO-friendly format

✔ Free and lightning fast

✔ Zero data stored

Perfect For

Bloggers

Developers building apps

SEO professionals

Digital marketers

Content creators

If you want your URLs to look professional and rank better, this tool is a must-use.

👉 Try the slug generator: https://stackdevtools.com/slug-generator/

JSON to YAML Converter — Fast, Simple & Accurate Online Conversion Tool

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 21:05:44 +0000

Free JSON to YAML Converter – Convert JSON to Clean YAML Instantly

YAML is one of the most popular formats for configuration files — used in Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and more. If you ever need to convert JSON to YAML quickly, this free JSON to YAML converter is the fastest way to do it.

👉 https://stackdevtools.com/json-to-yaml-converter/

Why Convert JSON to YAML?

JSON is structured and strict, while YAML is more human-friendly. YAML makes config files easier to read and maintain — but manually rewriting JSON into YAML is slow and unnecessary.

This tool converts JSON to YAML instantly while keeping the structure accurate.

Features

✔ One-click JSON to YAML conversion

✔ Handles large JSON objects

✔ Proper indentation + clean formatting

✔ Detects invalid JSON

✔ No login, no ads, no data saving

✔ Completely free

Useful For

DevOps engineers

Cloud configuration (Kubernetes, Docker Compose)

CI/CD YAML pipelines

Developers handling API data

Students learning data formats

If you want a fast and simple JSON to YAML converter without any complexity, this tool is perfect.

👉 Use it here: https://stackdevtools.com/json-to-yaml-converter/

JSON to XML Converter — Convert JSON to Clean XML in One Click (Free Tool)

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 20:58:34 +0000

Convert JSON to XML Instantly – Free Online JSON to XML Converter

If you work with APIs or data exchange formats, converting JSON to XML is a task you’ll face often. Instead of writing scripts or using heavy software, you can instantly convert JSON into clean, structured XML using this free online JSON to XML Converter.

👉 Try it here: https://stackdevtools.com/json-to-xml-converter/

Why Use a JSON to XML Converter?

JSON is widely used in JavaScript and REST APIs, while XML is still essential for older systems, enterprise applications, and integrations. Manually converting between the two formats is time-consuming and error-prone.

This tool solves that by giving you instant, accurate XML output with proper indentation and structure.

Key Features

✔ Converts any valid JSON into well-formed XML

✔ Supports nested objects and arrays

✔ Error detection for invalid JSON

✔ Clean and easy-to-read XML output

✔ Free, fast, and browser-based

✔ Zero data storage — your input stays private

Who Needs This?

Developers integrating old XML systems

API testers migrating JSON-based apps

Students learning data formats

Backend engineers maintaining legacy systems

Anyone dealing with API transformations

This converter makes data conversion painless. Just paste your JSON, click convert, and instantly get clean XML.

👉 Try it now: https://stackdevtools.com/json-to-xml-converter/

JSON Formatter — Format & Beautify JSON Instantly (Free Online Tool)

Nikhil — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 20:56:57 +0000

JSON Formatter – Format, Validate & Beautify JSON Instantly (Free Online Tool)

Working with JSON is a daily task for developers, but poorly formatted or minified JSON can slow you down and create errors. That’s why having a fast and reliable JSON formatter is essential. If you need a clean and simple tool to format, beautify, or validate JSON instantly, this free online JSON Formatter is the perfect solution.

This tool helps developers, API testers, and data analysts quickly convert messy JSON into readable, structured format — without installing anything or running scripts locally.

👉 Try it here: https://stackdevtools.com/json-formatter/

Why Use This JSON Formatter?

JSON often comes compressed or unstructured, especially when taken from APIs, logs, or webhooks. Manually formatting it wastes time and is error-prone. This tool solves that instantly by:

Formatting JSON with proper indentation

Validating JSON and showing errors if something is broken

Beautifying compact or minified JSON

Copying formatted JSON in one click

Providing a clean, distraction-free interface

Key Features

✔ Instant formatting (no page reloads)

✔ Error detection for invalid JSON

✔ Lightweight & fast — works in your browser

✔ Supports large JSON objects

✔ Secure — no data stored or sent to servers

✔ Free forever

Where This Tool Helps

Debugging API responses

Cleaning JSON before sharing

Preparing structured JSON for documentation

Working with complex nested objects

Saving time during development

Many developers use this tool because it is simple, distraction-free, and loads instantly. No ads, no login, no complexity — just a clean JSON formatter that works.

If you frequently work with JSON, bookmarking this tool will save you time every day.

👉 Use the JSON Formatter now:
https://stackdevtools.com/json-formatter/

Free Online Developer Tools You Can Use Every Day

Nikhil — Sun, 09 Nov 2025 19:27:40 +0000

A Collection of Free Online Tools for Developers (No Ads, No Signup)

If you work with text, JSON files, or tiny repetitive tasks every day, you know the drill.

You open ten tabs, jump between formatters, converters, and quick utilities… then forget which site was actually useful.

So I built a small collection of simple, fast tools that run directly in the browser.

No logins.

Just quick utilities.

Below are all the tools, in case you find them helpful.

✅ Main Website

StackDevTools

A growing collection of lightweight online utilities for developers and creators.

👉 https://stackdevtools.com/

✅ JSON Tools

1. JSON Formatter

Format, beautify, and validate JSON instantly.

https://stackdevtools.com/json-formatter/

2. JSON to XML Converter

Convert JSON into clean, structured XML with one click.

https://stackdevtools.com/json-to-xml-converter/

3. JSON to YAML Converter

Turn JSON into readable YAML in one step.

https://stackdevtools.com/json-to-yaml-converter/

✅ Text & Writing Tools

4. Slug Generator

Create lowercase, hyphen-based, SEO-friendly slugs for URLs.

https://stackdevtools.com/slug-generator/

5. Case Converter

Convert text into uppercase, lowercase, sentence case, title case, and more.

https://stackdevtools.com/case-converter/

6. Text Repeater

Repeat any text, emoji, or phrase instantly.

https://stackdevtools.com/text-repeater/

7. Text Diff Checker

Compare two text blocks or code snippets to highlight differences.

https://stackdevtools.com/text-diff-checker/

✅ Utility Tool

8. Age Difference Calculator

Calculate the exact difference between two dates with precision.

https://stackdevtools.com/age-difference-calculator/

I’ll keep adding more tools over time.

If you have suggestions or ideas, feel free to share!