generalResolved
Hidden check system feels antithetical to Regex Golf
@GageMod· 20 Oct 2026 · 4 replies
This is an opinion post and I want to lead with that.
I've felt the spirit of the game here is a sort of uneven split between the letter of the puzzle, and the catch/avoid samples, which is where the whole golf aspect comes in, the ability to cut down the pattern to so far below par (being the submitted pattern, which I view as aligning with the general solution rather than fitting the given examples), as one can hit a hole in one in normal golf despite that set par.
Setting hidden checks, forcing the player to go for a solution closer to par than would otherwise be possible with just the visible checks, feels a bit like covering the hole before you're one or two hits below par in normal golf.
I know, they're just on the dailies, there's all the normal hunts that don't have them, and they're better for educational purposes, to force the "correct" pattern, per the title of the puzzle. Not to mention, advocating for the complete removal is like. okay we have one guy asking for it and one guy asking for not it, plus I'm sure Sebastian's laurels are a little easier to rest on than a guy with like, a 14 day streak on regex hunter.
To that end, I want to propose a middle ground. When the daily first drops, keep the hidden checks to force the user to actually run the real solution, and prevent them from going like "okay so all the avoids start with Fr and all the catches start with Fo so I just need to put ^.o" right from the start without thinking about it, and then once they've submitted that general solution, take away the hidden checks and let the player "Go Golfing" and see how far they can pare it down based on just the visible items. what im specifically picturing is word art that says "Go Golfing!" starting really small and faint in the middle of the screen, getting bigger and more opaque until its huge, and then pulling back and fading out until its gone, kinda swinging back and forth as a pen being twiddled between ones fingers.
I can understand not wanting degenerate solutions over more practical ones, but that XKCD, the one most famous example of regex golf jokes about sorting between star trek and star wars scripts with the pattern /M | [TN]B/, I think there's room for a little degeneracy in this hobby.
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MrDebuggerMod·
Love this, thank you You've put your finger on a real tension: the leaderboard needs patterns that can't game the board, but squeezing a pattern down to the visible words is half the fun of regex golf (that xkcd/M |is the whole spirit of it). Your two-step idea squares that circle, and we've started working on it The rough shape: your first solve still has to pass the hidden checks, and that stays your ranked best. Once you've solved it honestly, you unlock Golf mode, where only the visible words count and you can pare it down as far as you dare. It would come with its own golf result, separate from rank, stars and points, so both kinds of play get their due. We'll run the details past our design folks (the "Go Golfing!" moment included) and post an update here. This is exactly how the game grows, so keep them coming[TN]B/ MrDebuggerMod·
Golf mode is live Thanks again for the idea. Solve a hunt with hidden checks the honest way and a "Ranked · Golf" switch appears above the pattern box. In Golf the hidden checks are off and only the words on the board count, so pare it down as far as you dare. Your golf best has its own Golf tab on the leaderboard and never touches your rank, stars or streak. We kept your "Go golfing!" word art too: it plays the first time golf unlocks