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[Robson]

Original Post

Wall of the Words is a combination of scrabble and castle invaders!

It will involve protecting your precious castle, by hurriedly shoving words down to stop the enemy soldiers. The game will be written in VB6 and I'll post the current build with each progress update, regardless of how incomplete + buggy it is

I've already lost the first week and I've got a ton of rl stuff to do before the deadline, so this is going to be very difficult. Will I rise to the challenge or fail in the most embarrassing and humiliating way?

Edit on June 1st

The game is finished! Download it here

Edit on July 24th

The enhanced version is finished! Download it here (722kb). Here's the manual.

[Robson]

I've been super-busy writing code to handle the word list, store the battlefield and output the graphics.

Here's a very early version, where you can't really do anything:
http://iceyboard.no-ip.org/files/wotw1.zip (268kb)

Here's a screenshot, that's so hacked up I broke an axe while making it:

[Alex May]

This is a great idea. So you type in the words down the bottom and the game works out where to put them? Genius!

[IPv6]

Idea is really cool!!!

[Robson]

Thanks guys!

The game can't automatically work out where to place the words, because there could be more than one location and words don't have to join up with others.

Random letters will be available for the user to make words from. When the player puts a wall down, the rarity of the letters is used to determine the strength, which is averaged out over the whole wall. For example, if you put down "qwexz" (probably not a real word!) you get a nice strong wall all the way across, rather than a strong wall with a useless bit in the middle. The wall also gets a strength bonus if it's connected to another wall.

The enemy soldiers appear from the top and then attack the walls. If they get through, they start attacking the castle. If they damage the castle too much, the level is lost. Each level will require the player to defend the castle for a certain amount of time, until the attackers give up and retreat. If they are successful, they go onto the next level, which is just a bit harder. The player gets a cumulative score all the way through and there will be a high-score list.

Enemy soldiers have to go around trees, but they can walk slowly through water. Placing a word down over a soldier squishes them

I'm trying to work out the simplest+fastest way for the user to tell the computer the word they want, the starting square and the direction. So far my best idea is telepathy, but I'm not sure how to write the code for that.

[PaulMorel]

I'm trying to work out the simplest+fastest way for the user to tell the computer the word they want, the starting square and the direction

Click & drag, Daniel-san.

[Slash - Santiago Zapata]

Ah, good to see another wielder of the shield of the @. Nice project Gentleman Robson

[Robson]

I'm trying to work out the simplest+fastest way for the user to tell the computer the word they want, the starting square and the direction

Click & drag, Daniel-san.

Click & drag is a good idea. It'll be simple to learn and feel like scrabble Ooooo and I wont need any controls on the window. Excellentness.

Ah, good to see another wielder of the shield of the @. Nice project Gentleman Robson

Thank you Slashie! I just wish I had time to work on it Since the last update I've been doing my real job and overtime everyday, including all saturday. Nothing happening today, but I'm completely exhausted. Hopefully I'll be able to do some stuff later.

[Robson]

Some little additions:

- The word list is scanned to find frequency of letters. This is then used to determine how many points each letter is worth and the chance of it being given to the player.
- Added a little status area.
- The player can drag letters onto the battlefield.

Updated screenshot:

[13_11]

This is gonna be turn-based, right? coz otherwise...
And really like the name of the game.

[Pip]

Looking good. Any chance of a more playable demo before the deadline? 

[zradick]

Puzzles!  Huzzah!
Seriously, this looks fantastic!  Just the kind of thing I would dig.  Looking forward to trying out the demo for the competition.

Cheers,
--Zack

[Robson]

Thanks for the comments!

This is gonna be turn-based, right? coz otherwise...

Aye, it'll be turn-based because I want to give the player time to think + plan what they want to do, like scrabble.

Looking forward to trying out the demo for the competition.

Looking good. Any chance of a more playable demo before the deadline? 

I really hope so. My ideal plan is to get a simple, playable and winnable demo created by the end of this week. After that, the last week will be used for improving it.

[Robson]

I've spent the evening programming the game, so lots of things were added:
* Dragging letters onto the battlefield and turning them into walls is done.
* Checking all words on the battlefield against the word list is done.
* The code to create the random starting wall is done. (example below)
* Code to randomly place trees and ponds is done.
* The player is given new letters when they make a word with them.
* Letter giving has been tweaked so that players don't get too many of one letter.
* Some other things that I can't remember

Screenie:


Here's the game up to this point:
http://iceyboard.no-ip.org/files/wotw2.zip (277kb, includes code)

Remaining essential things are:
* Enemies need to appear from the top and try to reach the castle by breaking down the walls.
* Code to generate the wall hit points needs to be written. Currently it just uses the letter points.
* The game needs to be split into levels, that get increasingly harder.

Once those are done, I can start on the non-essential nice-to-have things:
* Scores and a high score list.
* Winning screen and opening screen.
* Anything else I can think of!

[Pip]

Oh man, this is going to be brilliant!

Although the extent of the wordlist is making me feel dumb. Erst? Oes?! Nice to see that affecting multiple entries with one letter has been implemented smoothly (ie, one letter making a new word both vertically and horizontally)

Can't wait to play with some enemies 

[Robson]

I've had another good day of writing stuff in

* Wall scores are done. (example below)
* Created the opening screen.
* Added a little scroll that gives random new letters and finishes the turn.


In the screenshot above, I put down 's', 'l' and 'g' of 'slog' in the bottom-left corner. The letter points are from all affected letters (shown with a white square) with 'l' being counted twice, because it made two words. This was connected to another wall, so I get a 50% bonus to the letter points. Then I get 2 points for every affected tile. The total, 91, is then divided by 8 (11.375) and rounded to an integer (11). All affected tiles are then given this score.

Latest work-in-progress download: http://iceyboard.no-ip.org/files/wotw3.zip (285kb, includes code)

Oh man, this is going to be brilliant!

Thanks for the encouragement Pip!

Although the extent of the wordlist is making me feel dumb. Erst? Oes?!

And me All these weird words have xyst jeu vugg twofer eikon me!

[Robson]

We have enemies!



The latest incomplete + unbalanced + unwinnable + buggy download is here: http://iceyboard.no-ip.org/files/wotw4.zip (290kb, includes code)

The only essential task left is writing in levels After that I'll use the remaining time to write in nice stuff and improve the existing things.

[Rudolf Kremers]

You know? I really like this idea, I haven't played the demo (too busy on our own entry) but I think it is an excellent concept. And actually finishable :-)

[Robson]

Wall of the Words is finished!!!

I've add some stats into the titlebar, made some small improvements, played the game through a couple of times to balance it and fixed a really annoying bug. Screenshot and download link are in the first post.

[zradick]

That's fantastic!!!
Really fine work.  Simple, clean, and totally fun.
Adding some simple sounds would perhaps enhance it just a bit, but it's a great effort.  (I didn't do much with sounds for my entry either...)