Draft:Bracket City
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Bracket City is free-to-play April 2025 word puzzle game from The Atlantic as part of their online offerings of games. It was released on 8 April.[1].
| Bracket City | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Ben Gross |
| Publisher(s) | The Atlantic |
| Writer(s) | Ben Gross, Caleb Madison |
| Platform(s) | Web, iOS, Android |
| Release | April 8, 2025 |
| Genre(s) | Word game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Gameplay
[edit]In Bracket City, players are asked to solve nested brackets within an overall paragraph of text which gradually resolve the puzzle to give a historical event which happened on that date; for example, the August 8th puzzle "N[["let the games "]ning of the work day on a [it has [shoulder aka scapula 🔪]s not designed to cut]cy clock [value accepted by the cr[ending of some teenagers' e[the chain variety is associated with k[ vision [you might wear them swi[2000 🏛️]ing or sk[2 🏛️]ng]]s] addresses]lous, maybe]]on re[exe[descriptor for a puppy or a [sitter that makes [if you finish this [this kind of [" of cake" 🎂] 🧩] you will learn something about [yesterday ➡️ ➡️ tomorrow]'s] night possible] often]s 🚸🪧⚠️]" resolves to read "Nixon resigns". Players are then given a link to learn more about the topic of that day's puzzle.
Each puzzle has a minimum number of keystrokes required to solve the puzzle, and any mistyped letters or incorrect guesses decrease from your overall score. The game also allows players to reveal the first letter of any clue they are stuck on, and then reveal the answer to that clue entirely at any stage throughout the game, although that will also decrease the amount of points players receive for resolving the puzzle.
Bracket City offers the player a level based on their score for each particular game based around roles in the fictional Bracket City, with 'Tourist' being the lowest possible rank - for revealing all of the answers instead of playing - and Puppet Master being the highest - for getting all answers correctly in the minimum number of required keystrokes.
Development
[edit]Bracket City began as an on-paper game in the Montague Diner in Brooklyn Heights during game nights co-hosted by Gross (the co-owner of the diner) and Wyna Liu[2]. The game was originally printed on diner placemats, which resolved to give the code of a lock on a pouch in the diner. After being met with a positive reception by diner patrons, Gross began working to develop the initial idea into a full-fledged game.
The game was sent to Caleb Madison - the editor for games at The Atlantic - by one of their editors, Juliet Lapidos, and, after playing it with his bosses, Madison quickly sought to license the game from Gross to use it as the "center of the digital puzzle empire that it's destined to be"[3], which offers a "bespoke, artisinal aesthetic" that helps make Bracket City - and The Atlantic's offering of games by extension - feel "immersive and special"[4]
External Links
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Meet your next word game obsession: The Atlantic's Bracket City". The Atlantic. 2025-04-08. Retrieved 2025-08-31.
- ^ Klimentov, Mikhail. "How Bracket City went from diner placemats to The Atlantic's 'digital puzzle empire'". ReaderGrev. Retrieved 2025-09-04.
- ^ Klimentov, Mikhail. "How Bracket City went from diner placemats to The Atlantic's 'digital puzzle empire'". ReaderGrev. Retrieved 2025-09-05.
- ^ Peters, Jay (2025-06-17). "The Atlantic is making a big push into games". The Verge. Retrieved 2025-09-05.
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