Hi everyone!
I’ve recently been playing the Letter Boxed word puzzle (from The New York Times Games) and got inspired to try building a Letter Boxed-style puzzle app using Firebase as the backend. I wanted to share the idea and get feedback, best practices, and suggestions from this community!
What I’m envisioning:
A simple puzzle app where:
• Users see a set of letters each day (like Letter Boxed’s grid)
• They submit a chain of words that connects all letters under the game’s rules
• Submissions are stored in Firebase
• Users can see leaderboards (fewest words, fastest times, daily streaks)
• Potentially real-time updates so users can watch others’ submissions
I’m thinking of using:
Firestore to store puzzles, user solutions, and stats
Firebase Auth to let users sign in with email/Google
Firebase Hosting + Functions for serving the app and any server logic
Realtime updates for dynamic leaderboards
Some specific questions for the community:
What structure would you recommend for storing daily puzzle data and user solutions in Firestore?
Have you built real-time leaderboards before? Any performance tips?
Should I use Cloud Functions to validate submissions, or handle logic client-side?
Any example projects or reference patterns that are especially good for puzzle apps?
I’d also love to hear from anyone who’s tackled similar game logic with Firebase what worked well, what you’d do differently, or pitfalls to avoid.
Thanks in advance for your feedback! 