Tell me you love me
Once upon a time, I earned a living hustling Scrabble. There are not enough hours in the day for all the word games I enjoy. You name it, I have played it. If it's Quartiles or Spelling Bee, I play it every single day.
So this past New Year's, my husband gave me the best gift imaginable: when we were in Hawaii on vacation, he built me a new video game. Sky Nook is a tower defense game where words are weapons. Since it was built specifically for me, I love it.
Did someone say tropical paradise?
If you don't already know this about me, I cofounded Textio with my husband. This would not work for every family, but the experience remains a top highlight of my professional life. There is no one I'd rather found another company with or work with in any capacity in the future.
Sometimes I think, "I wonder what it is like for families that have shared hobbies like hiking or DIY projects at home! We would probably be much more relaxed!" But as it happens, our main shared hobby is messing around on computers and building stuff. So even when we go on vacation to Hawaii, chances are we're going to return with an app or two.
The Sky Nook journey
Thanks to Claude and his college degree in music, Jensen built v1 of Sky Nook and wrote the soundtrack while we were on vacation. He based the game on an idea I first built in analog form over 20 years ago. By the time we flew back to Seattle, we had the core game up and running. The story arc was not complete and we still had features to add, but I was already in love with it.
Like me in 2024, Jensen is in the middle of a year where he can build whatever he wants. I used my time off to create nerd processor. With his time off this year, he's created dozens of interesting new apps. In this era of agentic coding, some people were born to run, and he is one of them. Many of his apps are cool and will interest people more than Sky Nook, but the word game is naturally my favorite.
For a few months after v1, we had a daily rhythm: Play test (me), brainstorm improvements (both of us), put Claude to work (Jensen, while I was at work). When I'd wake up the next morning, I'd have a bunch of new stuff to try. Then we'd repeat the whole cycle.
When we got the game to a point where we thought other people could play it, we shared it with some friends for feedback. A few people said, "This is not for me." Most said, "This is super fun!" A small subset went back to play Sky Nook every day, like me.
Sky Nook is for word nerds
Look, it is 2026 and most word games are on phones. Sky Nook is more like a game you have to play for speed with a laptop keyboard i.e. it is not for everyone. But if you like both video games and word games, it might be for you.
You can play the basic game here. It gets a lot better if you sign in with Google or Apple, where you can play all the game formats.
- If you just have a few min, play Storm Surge which is the fastest format game (done in 5 min).
- If you are a serious word gamer, try the Challenge game, which has 20 levels and rotates daily. If you want something easier, try the Daily game.
- If you have a lot of time, play Endless and get to some really hard stuff in the upper levels! You officially beat the game at Level 40 but can play beyond that.
Maybe you will love it! Maybe you will say, "This is not for me." But I love it so much that I wanted to share it.
App-building is my love language, and AI makes it a lot faster to show the love. Happy gaming! LMK what you think!
Kieran
Play Sky Nook here. And if you liked this story, why not subscribe to nerd processor and get the back issues?
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