I think this game would be improved with a less brutal scoring system and same sized categories. The decreasing 6,5,4,3,2,1 categories seems a little overengineered, if you had 4 groups of 5 words each, participants would have a better chance of hitting at least a few first or second word guesses, which would be an exciting moment that's incredibly rare in the normal game. I'm also not a fan of 4 letter and 6 letter wordle but that may just be me
Yeah I agree with having the same sized categories. I feel like that would make people utilize them more, since you’d have a better idea of what categories are still open
17:48 haha, the genuine shock. Awesome run Mark. There's an element of luck to some of it, but would still be very impressed by anyone with a higher score than that, especially that quick.
22 points, counting a -9 for word #4. Breakdown for 1,2,3,4,5,6,X tries was {0,3,9,6,2,0,1} Highlight was getting #17 in two tries. Stableford scoring system is meant to encourage aggressive play in golf. As it applies to this game, it encourages us to try for 1 or 2 guesses, which was occasionally successful for me.
In answer to Mark's question (don't scroll if you don't want spoilers) . . . . . . A 'focus' is one of two points used to construct an ellipse, like an offset center point. Also, the Rangers are from NY and are a hockey team. The Bruins are also hockey.
It's interesting how 5 letters is kind of easier than both 4 and 6. With 4 you have fewer letters and guesses available, whereas with 6 at least on hard mode it's very easy to get stumped.
Took my time with this and amazed to end up with 27 points. Helped considerably by getting an NHL team in one guess and only dropping 4 points overall. Plenty luck along the way.
Thanks Mark for sharing. 36 points. Managed to get lucky with game #12 with 1 guess. Accumulated points in sequential order as follows via hard mode (0,2,4,1,3,3,3,8,10,15,17,25,27,32,31,31,33,35,37,36,36). I enjoyed learning to spell a couple words the right way 😉
A very fun game! I got 28 but it took me a whole night to think of the best possible guesses. The four-letter words are brutal. Also I am not native so I got misled and thought animals and weapons are one of the categories lol. Please make more of these Mark! Maybe make them in groups of five to enhance playability. Love from Hong Kong.
This was a lot of fun. Thank you for posting this! I would love to see this again, hoping for every other week. Willing to construct them if interested. For next time, I suggest the following: * no bonus/penalty for individual times; only track overall time to complete all 21. Use overall time to award a speed bonus: Multiply overall score by 2 if done under 21 minutes, by 3 if under 17 minutes, by 4 if under 14 minutes, and by 5 if under 12 minutes. * to make the 6 categories more useful, when randomizing the words, randomize the order of each category, and randomize the word order within each category, but keep the words in each category together.
Multiplier isn’t good since the points are not really on an absolute scale (think what would happen if you started taking ratios of temperature). But an additive bonus for time sounds like a decent idea.
Some words didn't load for me, so I couldn't make a score based on them. For those that did work, though...I did awful. Provided I didn't make any scoring mistakes based on the explanation at the start, -33
I got +21. I used the categories more than I thought I would, which allowed me to get two of them in 2. Frequency by number of guesses: 2:23:84:85:26:1
Finished with a net balance of +4 (I had one loss, on the difficult four-letter word, which cost me 9 points) Distribution as follows: 1: 0 2: 3 3: 2 4: 9 5: 6 6: 0 X: 1 (with one green and 3 gray I think)
Can you put #1, #2, etc in front of each link in the description? Easier for us on mobile to find the next puzzle to click, or for anyone not just ctrl-clicking all of them at once.
I scrolled the screen to leave the last link at the top, but it stopped scrolling with ~7 left, at which point I did my only repeated word … 3 more times 🤣, from being bad at pointing.
I finished somewhere around +15. Only one word I failed to get (last guess had all green except 1 gray), and I think I had three different ones in two guesses. For my 6-letter starting word, I decided to use "COSIGN" for all of the puzzles -- that made one of those pretty easy.
Ended up with 6 points. I didn't watch the part where you told about the themes beforehand so I missed a pretty big clue there. Solved all but one word. It was one of the 4 letter words which gave me -9 points. I did notice the themes myself later on and it helped me guess some of the words a bit faster.
for me 6 of them didnt work, so im going to pretend that impacted my score negatively due to lack of categorie knowledge. Ended up with the astounding score of -1
I took (much) longer, but ended up with 17. As for many people, the one word cost me 8 points. The categories helped me a little, but one category itself seemed questionable, and one entry in the 6 category seems like a weak choice. But overall a brilliant idea. I'm eager to conceive my own "related wordles" challenge.
25 points for me! (even with a minus 9 on the 4th word) Guess distribution by tries 1,2,3,4,5,6,X (1,4,4,9,2,0,1) Had two words at the end where I am unsure which one goes in one of the categories and which one is on its own.
16:28 Finally😆 For 20 seconds you seemed to be human. When I’m doing wordles, in my language (danish), my average time is around 4 minutes, (but in danish we also have 3 extra letters, and all of them are vowels).
I didn't use any categorical knowledge, just went straight to the description and played them all, noting how many guesses it took me. Got one of the 4 letters wrong and lost 9 points, so my final net score was a whopping: 0 pts. Got most of them in 3 or 4 (just like my wordle average), but got a few in 5.
I got 9 points, I only missed one word with two grey letters and I even managed to get one of them in two guesses. Time to watch the video to see how I compare to Mark!
I think i am an outlier, scoring system was kind enough to me. but again luck was largely at my side so, thats that. in fact i could have done better in 2 or 3 words. Distribution was as following: 1-0 2-3 3-9(hence the luck) 4-6 5-2 6-0 x-1(dreaded juju with one grey as i tried juku at last) Positive score of 26,happy enough.
@@oscarbarnes708 i would not say it's a spoiler. It's providing mark a little information also the instruction Mark read seemed to indicate that the categories were actually provided. In addition, no actually answer was given just a category
There is indeed a team called the Texas Rangers, although that's not what the answer was referring to. The category was a different sport. Should there not be a point penalty when you forgot to stick to hard mode? 🙂 (I forgot a couple of times too.)
Is a score of negative twenty-one bad? I did get all the words. Didn't miss any. These were not easy words, imo, but then again, I used my usual strategy instead of focusing on trying to figure out the categories and also the way the point system is set up, my normal strategy will almost always net me at best a +2 since I use the first and second word to knock out letters.
English isn´t my first language, but I still enjoy this kind of game even if it might end up very challenging. But a word like "Bruin" showing up really frustrates me in such a case. I know that not everything has to be made for me, but that is just not a word. The only reason I even tried it out at all is because I kept thinking of the river Bruinen from LotR, and I was really out of other ideas.
I really love the idea of this, but he needs to make this game much more 'automatic'. Ie put it on hard mode, time each puzzle, do the scoring automatically. The game otherwise requires a lot of self regulation on the rules which is just too much I feel.
No idea why I blanked on the 6 letter wordles very hard, just couldn't think of enough words and didn't have the time to sit around for it. Was fun to watch Mark blitz through it though! I too found the categories unhelpful, especially because you didn't know whether you'd finished one already or not. Plus the sports teams was just not something on my mind at all, haha!
The teams are professional Hockey teams in the US. Interestingly, you opined that Ranger was Texas... There is in fact a professional baseball team call the Texas Rangers, based in Dallas, TX! But The New York Rangers are the hockey team that play in Madison Square Garden in NYC.
I got 21 because I put all my eggs in the categories basket. I'm definitely not a good Wordle player but I got two first try guesses because of this tactic
I created a JSFIddle that assembles the links into a single page so you can advance through them in order. Or display the whole bunch when you're done to figure your score. Probably pointless, and I can't seem to share the link no matter how indirectly I reference it! If anyone knows how I could share it, let me know.
*Spoilers* . . . . On the subject of team names . . . The Bruins are actually a college team (UCLA being the most well known, but also some smaller colleges and universities). The Texas Rangers are a sports team (major league baseball) as well as a part of both historic and current Texas law enforcement. But, of course, Bruins and Rangers (and Sabres and Sharks) are NHL teams. And, not related to team names, but focus is indeed a mathematics term, related mostly to parabolas but also other curves.
I completely missed that theme, but in hindsight I'm not annoyed as it still is somewhat guessable. Delighted that I got #14 right in one. Other than that, I felt the themes just helped me choose between words when I wouldn't be sure normally
The focus word is connected to any conic section. E.g. look up the sun’s geometric place on the elliptical path of the planets according to Keller’s laws. All of the mathy words are connected to analytic geometry. I guess that Jason Z teaches a high school algebra class that goes through those topics as well as some stats for the trial word, which explains the category. I am trying to remember from his jeopardy run if he ever brought up any discussion of being a hockey fan - I know that James H repped for the new Las Vegas team during his initial run on jeopardy.
I used so many of the same guesses, including starting with piano. The same last 3 guesses for the 2nd 4 letter word. I took one extra step more often, so my total score was 0, but at least I solved them all.
A bit of fun! Links 6, 9, 10 & 13 didn't work for me. Of those that did work I only failed to guess one word (-5), one in 1 guess (8), four in 3 guesses (8), six in 4 guesses (0), three in 5 guesses (-3) and two in 6 guesses (-6). Net balance of 2.
My score was 9, I got 2 8 pointers, but also a -9 for not getting one at all. I didn't get one of the more American categories, I thought it was animals. And it did take me about an hour and a half, I wasn't going for speed.
I did something like 18 points (not quite sure for my penalty on #4) but I got both #12 and #14 in one shot and #16 in 2. I’m quite happy to beat Mark as a non native English speaker :D (I used a dictionary to make it even)
I think this game would be improved with a less brutal scoring system and same sized categories. The decreasing 6,5,4,3,2,1 categories seems a little overengineered, if you had 4 groups of 5 words each, participants would have a better chance of hitting at least a few first or second word guesses, which would be an exciting moment that's incredibly rare in the normal game. I'm also not a fan of 4 letter and 6 letter wordle but that may just be me
6~10 letters words is commonly used in France for games of that style, and it work totally fine.
@@romlesteak658 maybe in french yeah
Yeah I agree with having the same sized categories. I feel like that would make people utilize them more, since you’d have a better idea of what categories are still open
This is the sort of game that would benefit from having a website built around it. But it looks a lot of fun!
17:48 haha, the genuine shock.
Awesome run Mark. There's an element of luck to some of it, but would still be very impressed by anyone with a higher score than that, especially that quick.
*17:44
I yelled “OH” right then so I only realized he said “oh” too by reviewing your comment!
Fake
Loved this way more than just the standard wordle would love to see more, it’s amazing to see how quickly mark thinks of words
Wordle is highly dependant on luck, use the best letters then go!
"These are dangerous and I'm scared of them" -- me with literally every word puzzle in existence.
Bruins, Sabres, Rangers, and Sharks are all NHL hockey teams. This Canadian was yelling at the screen. LOL.
So impressed by the way you use words to rearrange laters, get missing ones... all at a incredible fast pace. wow!
Well done Mark. For anyone interested, the encrypted text in each link appears to be formed with a Vigenère cipher using the word 'wordle' as the key.
found that already
Yes. :P I thought it was a bit too naughty to use that for big points.
wow that is horrible encryption even for a webapp
Focus is part of an ellipse and other conics. Trial is sometimes used in statistics.
Don't spoil!!
22 points, counting a -9 for word #4.
Breakdown for 1,2,3,4,5,6,X tries was {0,3,9,6,2,0,1}
Highlight was getting #17 in two tries.
Stableford scoring system is meant to encourage aggressive play in golf. As it applies to this game, it encourages us to try for 1 or 2 guesses, which was occasionally successful for me.
In answer to Mark's question (don't scroll if you don't want spoilers)
.
.
.
.
.
.
A 'focus' is one of two points used to construct an ellipse, like an offset center point. Also, the Rangers are from NY and are a hockey team. The Bruins are also hockey.
It's interesting how 5 letters is kind of easier than both 4 and 6. With 4 you have fewer letters and guesses available, whereas with 6 at least on hard mode it's very easy to get stumped.
This scoring system is BRUTAL
But that's too many letters...
@@timdorr Therer were 6 letter wordles in this mix though!
10 points. The most difficult part was keeping track of all the links in all windows and tabs. And some categories were iffy.
Took my time with this and amazed to end up with 27 points. Helped considerably by getting an NHL team in one guess and only dropping 4 points overall. Plenty luck along the way.
You know you're British when you guess pasty instead of pasta.
Thanks Mark for sharing. 36 points. Managed to get lucky with game #12 with 1 guess. Accumulated points in sequential order as follows via hard mode (0,2,4,1,3,3,3,8,10,15,17,25,27,32,31,31,33,35,37,36,36). I enjoyed learning to spell a couple words the right way 😉
The dictionary according to Mark Goodliffe:
"ardour": noun, stupid
"yurt": noun, crazy
A very fun game! I got 28 but it took me a whole night to think of the best possible guesses. The four-letter words are brutal. Also I am not native so I got misled and thought animals and weapons are one of the categories lol. Please make more of these Mark! Maybe make them in groups of five to enhance playability. Love from Hong Kong.
-3... Juju was painful. Plus, I think I started to lose stamina towards the second half and got sloppy.
Your ability to take letters and transform them in the different words is phenomenally quick
This was a lot of fun. Thank you for posting this! I would love to see this again, hoping for every other week. Willing to construct them if interested.
For next time, I suggest the following:
* no bonus/penalty for individual times; only track overall time to complete all 21. Use overall time to award a speed bonus: Multiply overall score by 2 if done under 21 minutes, by 3 if under 17 minutes, by 4 if under 14 minutes, and by 5 if under 12 minutes.
* to make the 6 categories more useful, when randomizing the words, randomize the order of each category, and randomize the word order within each category, but keep the words in each category together.
Multiplier isn’t good since the points are not really on an absolute scale (think what would happen if you started taking ratios of temperature). But an additive bonus for time sounds like a decent idea.
@@stephenbeck7222 thank you!
Some words didn't load for me, so I couldn't make a score based on them. For those that did work, though...I did awful.
Provided I didn't make any scoring mistakes based on the explanation at the start, -33
The guy who made this is a fan of the NHL. Love the channel, keep it up
I got +21. I used the categories more than I thought I would, which allowed me to get two of them in 2.
Frequency by number of guesses: 2:2 3:8 4:8 5:2 6:1
Your guesses are amazing and fast!
Love watching your process when working these out.
wordles start at 7:54
Finished with a net balance of +4 (I had one loss, on the difficult four-letter word, which cost me 9 points)
Distribution as follows:
1: 0
2: 3
3: 2
4: 9
5: 6
6: 0
X: 1 (with one green and 3 gray I think)
I got 11 points. Got a brutal -5 on a 4-letter puzzle, but then immediately got a +5 on the next 6-letter puzzle, so I'm not even mad.
Would help if they show the correctly placed letters on the new line pre-filled in, I believe they do that on our (dutch) game show with this game.
Loved this challenge. 😎😎😎 28 points. The scoring system is brutal but also a great part of the challenge
Also, I gave myself a 2-minute timer for each puzzle
Nice job Mark and impressive considering you didn’t know American hockey teams.
I'm a Sharks fan and never put any of those together. Without the plural, it's kind of a suspect category...
@@pigs6486no, because all of the teams are plural, whereas a single player is singular. Such as "He is a Canuck" or "He is an Oiler."
I really liked a series of puzzles like this, though I would prefer if the categories were all the same size.
Rangers Sabres Sharks and Bruins are all Hockey teams. You were also right about Texas Rangers being a baseball team
3 of the links didn't load, as for the rest - I got 9 points. But I'll point out the additional missing hints maybe could have helped a little?
Can you put #1, #2, etc in front of each link in the description? Easier for us on mobile to find the next puzzle to click, or for anyone not just ctrl-clicking all of them at once.
I scrolled the screen to leave the last link at the top, but it stopped scrolling with ~7 left, at which point I did my only repeated word … 3 more times 🤣, from being bad at pointing.
Loved this video!
Thanks so much KamakaZ37 - much appreciated.
We did this with our family of 6! We ignored the time limit, so it took about 2 hours, but we got 48, with 3 right on the first guess!
As a New York Rangers fan, the category and word tickled me pink. LGR!
Very good and enjoyable. ^_^
The Teams were from the NHL, and probably goes down into the minors and school names from there.
Can you edit your comment to add a line break to hide the spoiler please?
FOCUS of a parabola is point that all lines bounce to THINK Dish Network collecting dish
Focus is maths, it deals with conic sections like parabolas and ellipses
focus is a math term, relating to the focus of an ellipse or parabola, for example
I finished somewhere around +15. Only one word I failed to get (last guess had all green except 1 gray), and I think I had three different ones in two guesses. For my 6-letter starting word, I decided to use "COSIGN" for all of the puzzles -- that made one of those pretty easy.
Net score +3. Took me an absolute age and found out very tough. Highlight was a 2 on #15.
Ended up with 6 points. I didn't watch the part where you told about the themes beforehand so I missed a pretty big clue there. Solved all but one word. It was one of the 4 letter words which gave me -9 points. I did notice the themes myself later on and it helped me guess some of the words a bit faster.
did you fail juju? I lost -9 to that one.
@@Danny15 yup
The difference between how long it took me (both time and guesses) and Mark is GIGANTIC
for me 6 of them didnt work, so im going to pretend that impacted my score negatively due to lack of categorie knowledge. Ended up with the astounding score of -1
I took (much) longer, but ended up with 17. As for many people, the one word cost me 8 points. The categories helped me a little, but one category itself seemed questionable, and one entry in the 6 category seems like a weak choice. But overall a brilliant idea. I'm eager to conceive my own "related wordles" challenge.
25 points for me! (even with a minus 9 on the 4th word)
Guess distribution by tries 1,2,3,4,5,6,X (1,4,4,9,2,0,1)
Had two words at the end where I am unsure which one goes in one of the categories and which one is on its own.
just wanted to say that the intro has a mistake and doesn't say the number in front of how many times Mark Goodliffe has been sudoku champion
16:28 Finally😆 For 20 seconds you seemed to be human. When I’m doing wordles, in my language (danish), my average time is around 4 minutes, (but in danish we also have 3 extra letters, and all of them are vowels).
That marathon looks like so much fun!
Would've loved to participate, but alas for some reason yt doesn't allow me to open or even at least copy those links so yeah :/
I didn't use any categorical knowledge, just went straight to the description and played them all, noting how many guesses it took me. Got one of the 4 letters wrong and lost 9 points, so my final net score was a whopping:
0 pts.
Got most of them in 3 or 4 (just like my wordle average), but got a few in 5.
Not all links seem to work..? the 6th and 7th for instance just brings me to an empty wordle-page, while the first few did work
I got 9 points, I only missed one word with two grey letters and I even managed to get one of them in two guesses. Time to watch the video to see how I compare to Mark!
I think i am an outlier, scoring system was kind enough to me.
but again luck was largely at my side so, thats that. in fact i could have done better in 2 or 3 words.
Distribution was as following:
1-0
2-3
3-9(hence the luck)
4-6
5-2
6-0
x-1(dreaded juju with one grey as i tried juku at last)
Positive score of 26,happy enough.
at 28:54 belong the E is in the wrong place since it has been green in the last guess
The teams category answers are referring to NHL Hockey Teams
this is a spoiler, please remove it
@@oscarbarnes708 i would not say it's a spoiler. It's providing mark a little information also the instruction Mark read seemed to indicate that the categories were actually provided. In addition, no actually answer was given just a category
I would like to pick this man’s brain, hes so dam quick, that yurt guess really blew my mind
There is indeed a team called the Texas Rangers, although that's not what the answer was referring to. The category was a different sport.
Should there not be a point penalty when you forgot to stick to hard mode? 🙂 (I forgot a couple of times too.)
Is a score of negative twenty-one bad? I did get all the words. Didn't miss any. These were not easy words, imo, but then again, I used my usual strategy instead of focusing on trying to figure out the categories and also the way the point system is set up, my normal strategy will almost always net me at best a +2 since I use the first and second word to knock out letters.
Didn't know about the hard rule. That would have prevented my normal strategy and might have forced me to use the categories to help...
Awesome video, Mark. Oh, and Let's Go, Rangers!
English isn´t my first language, but I still enjoy this kind of game even if it might end up very challenging. But a word like "Bruin" showing up really frustrates me in such a case. I know that not everything has to be made for me, but that is just not a word. The only reason I even tried it out at all is because I kept thinking of the river Bruinen from LotR, and I was really out of other ideas.
In general, NHL teams are not very well known outside of the USA, not a fan of that category at all.
I really love the idea of this, but he needs to make this game much more 'automatic'.
Ie put it on hard mode, time each puzzle, do the scoring automatically. The game otherwise requires a lot of self regulation on the rules which is just too much I feel.
No idea why I blanked on the 6 letter wordles very hard, just couldn't think of enough words and didn't have the time to sit around for it. Was fun to watch Mark blitz through it though! I too found the categories unhelpful, especially because you didn't know whether you'd finished one already or not. Plus the sports teams was just not something on my mind at all, haha!
I ended with 19 points. I got #8, #10 and #18 in 2 guesses. #4 and #17 in 6 guesses.
The teams are professional Hockey teams in the US. Interestingly, you opined that Ranger was Texas... There is in fact a professional baseball team call the Texas Rangers, based in Dallas, TX! But The New York Rangers are the hockey team that play in Madison Square Garden in NYC.
1 guess = 15 pts.
2 guesses = 10 pts.
3 guesses = 6 pts.
4 guesses = 3 pts.
5 guesses = 2 pts.
6 guesses = 1 pts
or even 24, 12, 6, 3, 2, 1
subtracting one for yellow and 2 for grey
focus of an ellipse - for the math category
NHL teams, Boston Bruins, San Jose Sharks, Buffalo Sabres
got it in 3 unfortunately. didn't get juju so -9 then got sabre in 2 since I started with stare.
Even though I know enough NHL to know the teams and and who plays for them, I somehow did not pick up on the names at all...
Is the category Boston sports teams?
I got a total of.... 3!
One of them refuses to load for me.
For me 3 links (#10, #15 and #19) didn't load...+9 so far. Some of Mark's correct guesses were really out of left field!
I got 21 because I put all my eggs in the categories basket. I'm definitely not a good Wordle player but I got two first try guesses because of this tactic
I created a JSFIddle that assembles the links into a single page so you can advance through them in order. Or display the whole bunch when you're done to figure your score. Probably pointless, and I can't seem to share the link no matter how indirectly I reference it! If anyone knows how I could share it, let me know.
I ended +18, was very happy with some of my guesses. Got a few in 2 tries once I had categories down. :)
*Spoilers*
.
.
.
.
On the subject of team names . . .
The Bruins are actually a college team (UCLA being the most well known, but also some smaller colleges and universities).
The Texas Rangers are a sports team (major league baseball) as well as a part of both historic and current Texas law enforcement.
But, of course, Bruins and Rangers (and Sabres and Sharks) are NHL teams.
And, not related to team names, but focus is indeed a mathematics term, related mostly to parabolas but also other curves.
I completely missed that theme, but in hindsight I'm not annoyed as it still is somewhat guessable. Delighted that I got #14 right in one. Other than that, I felt the themes just helped me choose between words when I wouldn't be sure normally
It was very helpful that I'm a fan of the Columbus Blue Jackets of the NHL. I got the last one in that category in 2.
The focus word is connected to any conic section. E.g. look up the sun’s geometric place on the elliptical path of the planets according to Keller’s laws. All of the mathy words are connected to analytic geometry. I guess that Jason Z teaches a high school algebra class that goes through those topics as well as some stats for the trial word, which explains the category.
I am trying to remember from his jeopardy run if he ever brought up any discussion of being a hockey fan - I know that James H repped for the new Las Vegas team during his initial run on jeopardy.
As an American and a sports fan, this was fun to watch.
NHL Ice Hockey Teams was Sabres, Sharks, Bruins
That single, solitary moment where I felt like a real big brain for recognizing the category of NHL teams 🧠🧠🧠
20 pts. I had no idea what the words in 2 and 17 meant but I got #2 in 3 by brute force (and 17 in 5)
The Boston Bruins, San Jose Sharks, New York Rangers, and Buffalo Sabres are NHL teams
The four letter are brutal. Especially 1 category. I think 4letters they should only belong to 6 and 5 categories.
29 points, didn't pay attention to the categories as they confused more than helped.
I used so many of the same guesses, including starting with piano. The same last 3 guesses for the 2nd 4 letter word. I took one extra step more often, so my total score was 0, but at least I solved them all.
I scored 15, but four of the links didn't load. And one of those words I've never heard before; it was a nasty one to include.
I've just done GAS and it looks like puzzle Sunday
-3
Started off badly and got worse !!
A bit of fun! Links 6, 9, 10 & 13 didn't work for me. Of those that did work I only failed to guess one word (-5), one in 1 guess (8), four in 3 guesses (8), six in 4 guesses (0), three in 5 guesses (-3) and two in 6 guesses (-6). Net balance of 2.
28...-3 on one of the 4 letters, -9 on one of the others. The 4 letter ones are brutal.
Juju is a type of berry so that would slot into the food category
Is it called juju or jujube?
14, I had a hunch for the last 4-letter word
My score was 9, I got 2 8 pointers, but also a -9 for not getting one at all. I didn't get one of the more American categories, I thought it was animals. And it did take me about an hour and a half, I wasn't going for speed.
I did something like 18 points (not quite sure for my penalty on #4) but I got both #12 and #14 in one shot and #16 in 2.
I’m quite happy to beat Mark as a non native English speaker :D (I used a dictionary to make it even)
It sounds like the teams are NHL teams (32 team)
The part about the New York Rangers was funny :)