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TIGSource ForumsCommunityJams & EventsCompetitionsSportsSpwords [FINISHED]
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Author Topic: Spwords [FINISHED]  (Read 7230 times)
agj
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« on: November 30, 2012, 04:04:42 PM »

Spwords (was: Wordnnis)



Play here (web)

(Off-compo update, with hotseat mode, here.)

A tense player-versus-computer game of quick typing and vocabulary!

Rules go like this: You take turns with the computer typing out English words. Each round has a specific letter assigned, which every played word must start with. Also, every word must also contain the last played word's last letter. Add to that a time limit and that you may never repeat the same word, and it can get pretty difficult. Win three rounds and you're the victor.

Credits: Got my list of words from Keith Vertanen's site.


(Original post below.)



(Name is temporary. Alternatives: Tenniword, Keypongboard, Tenwordnis.)

Hello, people. It's been a long while since I last visited.

Decided today to make a last-minute entry. Making a game that is sort of like playing tennis by typing words on your keyboard, but not really very much like tennis at all. It is very minimal and is comprised visually of nothing but a single line of text.

I don't think I'll finish it before midnight, but I'll certainly have it finished tomorrow during the day. Anyway, please look forward to this terrible game I am making. Or don't, really.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2012, 09:27:46 AM by agj » Logged

agj
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« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2012, 08:29:38 PM »

Made it overall much more interesting a game from what I posted first. Way better rules, win state possible, more comment variations. I actually find it worth playing now!
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Glassmoon
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« Reply #2 on: December 02, 2012, 04:24:13 AM »

Really enjoyed this. The commentary stuff adds a lot of character to the game. It's very satisfying when you're batting words back and forth, but I felt like the timer decreases a little too quickly and interrupts a good rally. Also the way the lines shift from right to left as each character is added makes it quite tricky to read, if you could find a way to get a smoother motion I think it would be a lot more readable.
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louroboros
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« Reply #3 on: December 02, 2012, 05:26:21 AM »

Oh man, this is great. It took me a while to get an understanding of the rules, but once I did I was hooked. Brilliant!
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agj
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« Reply #4 on: December 02, 2012, 07:45:14 AM »

Appreciated!

@Glassmoon: The jumpy motion bothers me too, but there's no simple way to fix it, as far as I understand, so it'll have to do. The timer being short is part of making this more sports-like, of course. An alternative would be to have a shorter timer that resets for each word, but I like how it is right now, for it allows you to overthink some words, only to have to catch up later in the round.

@louroboros: Yeah, the rules are not immediately transparent; they're really simple, but they're a bit difficult to explain succintly.
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louroboros
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« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2012, 11:23:29 AM »

By the way, I've had a similar issue of wanting to smooth-scroll test in a container as it was being typed. I have a solution for you somewhere, I just have to dig through stack overflow posts...
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agj
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« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2012, 12:07:13 PM »

I'm actually getting ideas on how to fix it right now.

Right before you add a character, you measure the x position of the container. Then you add the character, and then offset the difference between the current x and the previous x, so that the added character appears to have been added to the right, and the rest of the text remains where it was before. Then it's a matter of doing a linear tween at a predetermined step value.

Well, I might add such a system in a future version!
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louroboros
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« Reply #7 on: December 02, 2012, 12:36:59 PM »

Actually yeah, that's more elegant than the solution I would have offered. It involved an iframe.  WTF
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TNERB
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« Reply #8 on: December 02, 2012, 12:37:25 PM »

The text scrolls a bit oddly but it was a really fun game! It's so frustrating but pretty addicting, good job!
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Fifth
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« Reply #9 on: December 02, 2012, 04:51:23 PM »

The first time I played I didn't really get the rules, and the computer threw two nonsense words right off the bat, leaving me with one point to win.
I caught on, though, and ended up enjoying it.

Maybe the computer should be a little smarter, though?  I would have like to have been more pressured for new words by the round's end.
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agj
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« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2012, 06:00:25 PM »

Thanks again, guys.

@Fifth: The 'AI' works like this: It first picks a random word from the list of words that starts with the assigned letter. If it doesn't contain the last letter from the previous play, it tries with another random word, up to ten times. Then it starts spelling it, with a randomized interval between 'key presses', and for each, a 1% chance that it'll grab a random letter rather than the next letter in the picked word. That is, supposing an average of 6 letters per word, it makes a mistake every 17 words on average, plus the (super low) probability that it'll pick the wrong word from the start. I wonder if I should really lower the chance of picking the wrong letter!
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TNERB
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« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2012, 06:30:02 PM »

This game would be perfect for player vs player, if it had online multiplayer I'd spend countless hours playing this thing.
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agj
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« Reply #12 on: December 02, 2012, 09:24:23 PM »

Well, a version in which two players take turns with the keyboard is totally conceivable, but I wouldn't dare open the can of worms that's online play with this simple thing. :)
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louroboros
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« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2012, 09:31:33 PM »

Well, a version in which two players take turns with the keyboard is totally conceivable, but I wouldn't dare open the can of worms that's online play with this simple thing. Smiley

I'd totally be willing to do the backend, if you're interested.
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DISHTY
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« Reply #14 on: December 03, 2012, 05:15:09 AM »

Reading the rules over and over again...still working it out. I presume I shouldn't just be typing out everything the AI does though. Because that's what I've been doing and winning that way. It types Trapezium, I simply type it up afterwards, repeat until it runs out of options.
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agj
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« Reply #15 on: December 03, 2012, 07:12:11 AM »

@louroboros: Wow, if that's a serious suggestion, totally! How would the pairing work, though? Linking to a specific URL, say? (http://www.game.com/?id=355543)

@DISHTY: Woops, I introduced a bug in some fix I did earlier. Words already played you shouldn't be able to repeat. Thanks for the heads up; I'll fix it.

edit: And it works as intended again!
« Last Edit: December 03, 2012, 07:27:33 AM by agj » Logged

Pierrec
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« Reply #16 on: December 03, 2012, 07:13:17 AM »

I love the text display! It makes the game feel pretty epic.
I think it would be funnier player vs player though, even if it was funny to watch the computer panicking and typing gibberish. ^^
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ananasblau
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« Reply #17 on: December 03, 2012, 01:38:46 PM »

I figured out the rules but it's quite hard, and the scrolling gets a little annoying after a while and got nothing at all to do with tennis. But the idea is good nonetheless and I'd like to see a polished version.
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agj
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« Reply #18 on: December 03, 2012, 08:44:29 PM »

Thanks for playing!

@ananasblau: Curious to hear what you'd imagine this being if it were 'better polished'. I personally don't find it lacking much polish; it's small, which is not the same thing as it being unpolished.
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louroboros
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« Reply #19 on: December 04, 2012, 12:33:02 AM »

@louroboros: Wow, if that's a serious suggestion, totally! How would the pairing work, though? Linking to a specific URL, say? (http://www.game.com/?id=355543)

Yeah I'd set it up so you go thegame.com/<id>. It can be done pretty easily with node.js and socket.io.
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