# Ripple

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Ripple and 21 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a daily logic puzzle about second and third order effects, and as a TypeScript UI framework that is simpler than React. Critics mainly object to its once-a-day timer.

## Why people recommend it

- Simpler structure than React or HTML (3 comments): "except with lower learning curve because we dont have special syntax for things like loops, conditionals etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46573060)) "Ripple appears to express a complex structure in simple terms compared to React or HTML or whatever." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46575169)) "Ripple seems like a great React alternative outside the support for LLMs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46652402))
- Teaches game theory and logic (2 comments): "should be mandatory game-theoretic education for politicians" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46496157)) "I find this kind of learning to be addictive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46494460))

## What people warn about

- Only one puzzle per day (7 comments): "The artificial restriction on gameplay does not help you because 99.999% of your users are going to play it and move on" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46494084)) "the fact that it's on a timer and you can only try the next even in 1m is a killer feature (in a not-good way)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46492702)) "I’m not going to return to a site with a cooldown timer after using it once." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46495034))
- Not distinct from other libraries (2 comments): "this does not really set it apart from any other library" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574409)) "Feels like a weird mish mash of React and Svelte." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574079))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Outer Wilds](https://hackerapproved.com/p/outer-wilds.md): 65 recommend
- [enclose.horse](https://hackerapproved.com/p/enclose-horse.md): 64 recommend
- [The Witness](https://hackerapproved.com/p/witness.md): 60 recommend
- [Braid](https://hackerapproved.com/p/braid.md): 36 recommend
- [Blue Prince](https://hackerapproved.com/p/blue-prince.md): 30 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Ripple", https://hackerapproved.com/p/ripple/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).