I have issues

This is brilliant Definitely getting a vote from me!

Basically I want a license that says there's no license. Do whatever you want with it, you're free to manipulated it for your own ends.

You could use the WTFPL.

Woooo I'm liking the ambitiousness and looking forward to playing this. Best of luck dmoonfire!

ˑ

[Enhanced Version]

Thanks for the bug report haowan - that's fixed now.

The Enhanced Version is done! :-)

Here's a list of the changes:
* Different game modes are now selectable from a menu.
* Added new game modes: nightmare, forest and wilderness.
* Enclosed monsters are killed. Thank you to Jimbob for this idea.
* Fixed a bug with identifying new words. Thank you to haowan for spotting that.
* Walls have shadows.
* Added sounds.
* Game mode data has been moved to an INI file. Edit away!
* The top score for each mode is saved.
* Tiles can be rearranged in the tray. Thank you to haowan for this suggestion.
* Created a HTML manual, to replace the readme file and show how to play the game.

Download link is in the first post.

Here's my game, written as an Excel macro!

Code:

Public Sub Workbook_Open() ' Countdown Numbers Game by Robson
Randomize: Dim C, B, D(5), N, A, E, F(5), G, H: Do
For A = 0 To 5: If Int(2 * Rnd) = 1 And A > 1 Then D(A) = (Int(4 * Rnd) + 1) _
 * 25 Else: D(A) = Int(10 * Rnd) + 1
Next: Erase F: G = 0: E = 0: Do: A = Int(6 * Rnd)
If F(A) = 0 Then
If E = 0 Then
B = D(A): C = D(A)
Else: Select Case Int(3 * Rnd): Case 0: B = B - D(A): C = C & " -": Case 1:
B = B + D(A): C = C & " +": Case 2: B = B * D(A): C = C & " *": End Select
C = C & " " & D(A) & ")": End If: F(A) = 1: E = E + 1
End If: If B >= 1000 Or B <= 0 Then G = 1: DoEvents
Loop Until E - 1 > Int(6 * Rnd) + 1 Or G: If B < 100 Then G = 1: DoEvents
Loop While G: For N = 0 To 5: Cells(2, N + 1) = D(N): Next: C = String(Len(C) _
- (Len(Replace(C, ")", "")) + 1), "(") & C: Cells(3, 1) = Left(C, Len(C) - 1)
Cells(1, 1) = B: Range("A3:A4").Font.ColorIndex = 2: Range("A1:F1").Merge
Cells(1, 1).Font.Bold = 1: Cells(1, 1).Font.Size = 12: Range("A3:F3").Merge
Range("A1:F3").HorizontalAlignment = -4108: Range("A2:F2").Sort Range("A2")
H = Trim(InputBox("Enter your answer as an Excel formula:", , "=(2*2)+2"))
If Left(H, 1) <> "=" Then H = "=" & H
Cells(4, 1).FormulaR1C1 = H: J = "Correct! Play" & " again?": If Val(Cells(4, _
1).Text) <> B Then J = "Failed" & "! [ " & Cells(3, 1) & " ] Play again?"
If MsgBox(J, 4) = 6 Then Workbook_Open
End Sub

It's like the numbers game on Countdown! The macro generates six random numbers and a target. Then you enter a formula that makes the target using the numbers, combined with parentheses, addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.

For example, if I'm given a target of 450 and the numbers available are {6, 2, 25, 1, 3, 2} I can enter the formula =(6+3)*25*2.

An Excel workbook with the macro is attached. I've tested it on Excel 2003. It's incredibly easy to cheat at the game, but you're only cheating yourself

I'd really like to be able to shuffle the tiles around on the bottom pane as well, like you do when you're playihng Scrabble. So, grab a tile, and lonk it down between two others. Know what I mean?

I do! That was one of the things that didn't get written in due to time. Half the fun of scrabble is being able to make a really long word with the tiles... but never finding anywhere to put it!

[Jimbob]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

Jimbob - Wow, that's an incredibly good score. Congrats! I like the idea of killing surrounded enemies.

Borsato - The enhanced version will have a few completely useless, but nice things to make it look a bit better. Like shadows on the walls

moi - I was thinking of adding an alternative method of placing letters. Something like clicking the letter and then clicking the battlefield to place the letter down. I think that would work quite nicely. What do you think?

Entar - I'm glad you like it. I'm not really sure if something needs to be done though. You can already place down words wherever you want to, they don't have to be connected to other walls. Hmm.

Dacke - Thanks for the vote! That's a good score as well, similar to the ones I get. Good tactic as well!

Tommunism - Thank you!

tim333 - Thanks for your vote... eh, I sound like a politician!

haowan - Wow, thank you! Nice to see someone using real money as well All my games are free and open-source

haowan (again!) - Thanks for spotting the bug. I think I know why that's happening. I'll get it fixed up for the enhanced version. Having a dead zone would be cool, but I want the game to work on 800*600 resolution, so I can't make it too wide.

I voted for:

Apples and Oranges (addictive, nice idea, well implemented)
Dyson (relaxing, atmospheric, nice visual style)
Laser Bunny - Adventures in the Alien Death Mines! (nice graphics, great name, fun)
Minus (nice graphics, cuteness)
Rescue the Beagles (fun to play, cuteness)

I also enjoyed many of the others, including KrebsWelte, ZICZAC, Because it's fun Fay, DropTD and King of Public Transport. Well done to everyone who took part

Great game! Addictive, easy to pick up, lots of modes and getting those starting letter tile is tricky! (in a good way) Great job zradick!

This ran for me but all I got was a static screen that did nothing. No key or mouse input seemed to affect it except for the "escape" key which closed it.

Same thing for me

Wow, this game is addictive!

It’s simple and enjoyable. I like the variety in the random faces (and little animations), the minimal graphical style and having one life. It was very easy to learn how to play. I never felt that I died unfairly. My highest score was 6, from about 10 games. No bugs encountered.

Possible improvements:

Shift was an odd choice of confirm button, because my initial reaction was to type Shift+R for the first letter of my name, so I ended up with a blank name.

It would be nice if the current game was highlighted on the high score table.

Maybe splitting it into levels would help it feel more like a game, because the player gets to feel like they’re progressing and the game could be winnable. Perhaps each level could have a colour, to clearly define it.

[zradick]

zradick - Thank you! Sounds would be a nice addition. I'm planning to release a slightly updated version sometime after the competition, so I'll see what I can do about that. It is mostly clean fun

Melly - I'm glad you like it. A lot of the words are seriously obscure, but it makes it easier to randomly generate the starting wall, so I'm happy about that. Maybe I should incorporate a dictionary into it!

tim333  - Wow, you managed to simultaneously lose and win the game? That's impressive! It's great to hear that someone has played it through to (very nearly) the end. Thanks for letting me know about the bug. I've managed to replicate and fix it. I think it's okay to release minor new versions for bug fixes, so I've updated the file.

[Wall of the Words is finished!!!]

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.

Good luck! I like the maps. Are they created using cellular automata?

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.

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!

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!

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.