I noticed something uncomfortable while playing Hexpel and while watching others play it.
Almost no one, including me, ever got close to the finish line.
Not because the puzzles were hard, but because finishing took far longer than it felt worth. You could play well and still feel perpetually unfinished.
That felt wrong. I realised I was spending more time finishing puzzles than enjoying them. It was time to rethink the finish line.
Completion vs mastery
What if “finishing” and “mastery” weren’t the same thing?
The old scoring model treated them as identical. To finish, you had to keep going way longer than a typical daily puzzle game. Since reaching the finish line required guessing every dictionary words with the letters - something most players were never going to do.
So the issue wasn’t just difficulty. It was what done meant.
The new scoring model separates these ideas.
Each word length now has a clear goal. Reach those goals and the puzzle is complete — visually and psychologically. The rings go solid when you’ve finished the puzzle.
And if you want to keep going, you can.
Extra words still count. You can try to reach all possible dictionary words but such a near-insurmountable task is not the finish line.
This is an attempt to make Hexpel feel better to finish.