uDG 2004: WordBeGone

[MattDiamond]

For anyone who is curious, here is a playable version of my game, WordBeGone. See the readme for instructions.

http://home.comcast.net/~squarebin/files/WBG_0.5.dmg.gz

It's a 15M download. It basically works, but there isn't much "point" to it because you don't get scored at all. That's next. For now, just try to build 4-letter words or longer, and try to clear the board.

All feedback welcome and appreciated. Bugs, performance, user interface, the music, gameplay, all is fair game. I'll post more later, but right now my son is very anxious for me to go play ball with him. :-)

Enjoy,
Matt

p.s. The game uses Scrabble(tm) rules for determining whether your word is legal or not.
p.p.s. I know the game is 5M too large; I'll have to compress the music better or get rid of one of the tracks.

[skyhawk]

could you give us an "export to clipboard" option which will paste the entire board into the clipboard for easy showing on the web?
could not exit out of "best scores" screen

EDIT: I'm an idiot and need to read your post, but your readme mentioned nothing on word length

[PowerMacX]

If you can post a version without music (or just a bit smaller) I'll be happy to try it out :)
(I'm on dial up :( )

[MattDiamond]

could you give us an "export to clipboard" option which will paste the entire board into the clipboard for easy showing on the web?
Why do you want this?

could not exit out of "best scores" screen

Whoops, I didn't think it was even possible to get into that menu yet! It's not implemented yet. Sorry you got stuck in there! Avoid for now.

your readme mentioned nothing on word length
Good point- thanks. I will add more discussion of the rules. The minimum length is 4, and its Scrabble rules- no abbreviations or proper nouns.

If you can post a version without music (or just a bit smaller) I'll be happy to try it out
Here is a music-less version so that dial-up people can play with it in its early state.
http://home.comcast.net/~squarebin/files/WBG-0.5-sm.dmg.gz
But for those who can, please use the larger download. I want to know if any of the tunes are particularly annoying, and also performance may be different.

[skyhawk]

Why do you want this?

heh, after I read about letter swapping, it didn't really matter... :) but still, I could imagine it being useful for something...

Good point- thanks. I will add more discussion of the rules. The minimum length is 4, and its Scrabble rules- no abbreviations or proper nouns.

scrabble allows me to use 2 letter words :( :cry:

I want to know if any of the tunes are particularly annoying, and also performance may be different.
I don't know how many tunes I listened to, but they were all non-violent songs that gently soothed my soul while slowly hunting for words

[MattDiamond]

scrabble allows me to use 2 letter words :( :cry:

I can easily add three and two-letter words, but it didn't seem to fit the game. Does anyone else think that's a mistake? Maybe I'll allow them but not award any points. This would help you clear the board.

I don't know how many tunes I listened to, but they were all non-violent songs that gently soothed my soul while slowly hunting for words
Um, thanks, I think. (There are 3 tunes, start a new game to hear the next tune.)

As for "slowly hunting for words" I think I may have two gameplay modes, one which lets you maximize score by leisurely hunting for words, and one which forces you to find a word every ten seconds otherwise the game ends.

Thanks for trying the game. Incidentally, if anyone runs it on 10.1 or 10.2 I'd be interested in hearing so. It should run fine but you never know...

[skyhawk]

2 letters is ridiculous with letter moving, but I definitely think you should allow 3 letter words

As for "slowly hunting for words" I think I may have two gameplay modes, one which lets you maximize score by leisurely hunting for words, and one which forces you to find a word every ten seconds otherwise the game ends.

see Jewel Toy (for OS X) or Insane Game (for TI Calculators) for what style the "fast pace" should be done in

[MattDiamond]

2 letters is ridiculous with letter moving, but I definitely think you should allow 3 letter words

I have already added them. They don't score highly, but they should help people clear the board, maybe. (Actually since the vowel-to-consonant ratio is likely to be higher for three-letter words, building them might be a mistake if you are trying to clear the board because you'll use up your vowels early.)

They should definitely help people who are playing against the timer.

[Rigdern]

Originally, I was drawing lines through the words and the game was crashing. I think it was because the lines were completely straight. I guess you already know that though because you emphasized straight lines in the read me.

[MattDiamond]

Originally, I was drawing lines through the words and the game was crashing. I think it was because the lines were completely straight. I guess you already know that though because you emphasized straight lines in the read me.

Mysterious- noone else has made it crash. Can you summarize your system specs, either here or send me email at squarebin @ comcast.net? Does it happen every time you select a word, or just sometimes? Does swapping letters work?

I've just put up newer version - who knows, I may fixed something... or for all I know made it worse! I would appreciate it if you could try that one out and see if it crashes at all for you.

New Features in Version 0.6:
- 3-letter words allowed
- basic scoring
- more sound effects (still working on these, a couple I don't like)
- better letter selection: blank areas between the letters are ignored, making it much easier to select just the letters you wanted. Same thing at the edge of the board.
- Removed one track of music, bringing size down to slightly more than 10MiB. (Darnit, still just a little too large!)

http://home.comcast.net/~squarebin/files/WBG_0.6.dmg.gz

Next version I'll try to have finished scoring, high score list, and diagonal/backwards word selection. Feel free to wait for that one if you want... Thanks, all!

[PowerMacX]

OK, I tried it (the small, no music version)
It ran perfectly fine on my G4/466/Rage128Pro16MB (you may want to update your min sys. req.).

On thing I noticed is that if I resize the window it messes everything up, other than that it works OK. Never crashed.

[MattDiamond]

OK, I tried it (the small, no music version)
It ran perfectly fine on my G4/466/Rage128Pro16MB (you may want to update your min sys. req.).

On thing I noticed is that if I resize the window it messes everything up, other than that it works OK. Never crashed.

Your experience jibes with that of a friend who ran it on a 400 MHz Rage 128.

I tried to disable resize but it's possible I did it wrong (or did it after version 0.5, which is what I believe you have.) I'll look into it. My previous games allowed resize but I don't think it adds anything to this one.

Thanks!

[PowerMacX]

A G4 400MHz has a 100MHz bus, vs 133 for a 466, a Rage128 is not the same as a 128Pro16MB, but on the other hand, setting your min. sys. requirements a bit higher will make people with slower hardware happy if they found out it runs ok ;)

I'll download the larger version tomorrow (at the university -> broadband) and tell you how well does it run with music enabled.

Also, just for fun I tried your game, along with many other uDG04 entries on 10.1 (I have 10.3 and 10.1, on different disks), and it sort of worked, but the text/letters didn't show up (just white squares).

The contest only requires games to run on Phanter (I think), but surprisingly many entries ran OK even on 10.1 (my entry Okugai didn't, neither did a few other SDL-based games like Celda and Rescue :( )

Do you think that there many people using pre Panther OS X versions? I hope not!

EDIT: After reading the rules again, it turns out they don't mention any specific version of OS X, I think I got confused with CMG rules... Still, if I make my game run on 10.1 I will have to remove features, and I really don't want to :cry: !

[MattDiamond]

The text/letters not showing is exactly what happens when the rectangle_texture extension isn't supported by the OpenGL driver. So although it works on a Rage128 Pro, apparently it requires Jaguar at least.

My typo; I meant to write that my friend had tried it on a Rage128 Pro, just like you did, not a vanilla Rage 128.

I don't think many people run 10.1 anymore except maybe on older hardware. I'd love to support them, but I simply don't have the time. Although I believe it would only take me a couple of days to fix the white letters problem. Slightly tempting, but way down on my priority list.

If you are going to download the version w/music, may as well wait a day or two longer. I have a smaller version now (downsampled the music & removed one track.) It will have much more polish too, so if the download is excruciating then may as well wait for the next version, should be up this weekend sometime.

[PowerMacX]

Couldn't wait... I just got here (the University) and found... A G5!!! (2x1.8GHz, 160GBHD, 1GB of RAM)!!! (Picture of me: :wow: )

Runs perfect, the music is nice, but some times I have to cross a word a few times before it "gets it", maybe you could add a "character highlight" when a line crosses it?

[MattDiamond]

I've improved the word selection in 0.6. Which did you download? (Hint: the version # of both games sez 1.0 :-)

I'll have a new version up in a couple more days anyway...

Must dash, wife is insisting I turn off the computer and go to bed . :-)

[MattDiamond]

This version is very close to final.

http://home.comcast.net/~squarebin/files/WordBeGone.dmg.gz

I have some cosmetic issues I want to address, mostly with the high score list, but this it pretty much it, unless I can somehow find time to add the 2nd gameplay mode this week.

New features:
- directional word selection, including diagonals!
- smaller music files = smaller download (~6MB)
- in-game instructions
- high score list
- updated readme

Comments welcome, as always. Thanks!

[MattDiamond]

Version 1.0 released!

http://home.comcast.net/~squarebin/files/WordBeGone.dmg.gz

Changes:
Fixed a few minor bugs. Version number printed on title screen. Improved page-turn sound. Updated credits. Other polish items.

[MattDiamond]

Version 1.1 is my "gold master" version for the uDG contest.
http://home.comcast.net/~squarebin/files/WordBeGone.dmg.gz
Mirror:
http://home.comcast.net/~mtdiamond/files/WordBeGone.dmg.gz

Changes for Version 1.1 -
* Added "Beat the Clock" mode [details below]
* Music stops playing if game is not the foremost window, or if it is minimized
* Regular game always gets the slow music track, Beat the Clock the fast track, rather than alternating the tracks each time you play.
* Fixed "tearing" when pages move.
* Icon lightened so that it looks more like a piece of paper, less like a waffle. :-)

For anyone found the regular gameplay too slow or cerebral, "Beat the Clock" is much faster-paced. Swaps are free in this mode, but you have only 12 seconds to build your next word or the game ends. Instead of trying to optimize each swap and planning how to use up every last letter on the board, you will scramble just to keep the game going! It's fun.

Voting is due to begin shortly, but feedback during and after the voting period is welcome! Post it here or send me email, whatever you prefer. Thanks!

[MattDiamond]

Ahem. I have just uploaded version 1.1.1 - fixes an intermittent crash on startup that I introduced with my last set of changes. Sigh.

Same URL as before. I doubt anyone downloaded version 1.1 in that short window, but if you did, sorry about that.

[arekkusu]

This is a pretty neat idea for a crossword/wordsearch game.

But:

* crash just drawing lines through words:
Thread 0 Crashed:
0 WordBeGone 0x0001673c WBGLetter::GetChar() + 0
1 <<00000000>> 0x00000001 0 + 0x1
2 WordBeGone 0x00018ae8 WBGBoard::RemoveIfLegalWord(Point, Point, int&) + 0x58
3 WordBeGone 0x000180f8 PageBoard::DragEnd(int, int) + 0x1dc
4 WordBeGone 0x00017ea4 PageBoard::HandleEvent(GameEvent const*) + 0x12c
5 WordBeGone 0x0000ed74 -[kGLView mouseUp:] + 0x88
6 com.apple.AppKit 0x92e02570 -[NSWindow sendEvent:] + 0x1180
7 com.apple.AppKit 0x92df4b98 -[NSApplication sendEvent:] + 0xebc
8 com.apple.AppKit 0x92dfcfb0 -[NSApplication run] + 0x240
9 com.apple.AppKit 0x92eb948c NSApplicationMain + 0x1d0
10 WordBeGone 0x00009c28 _start + 0x188 (crt.c:267)
11 dyld 0x8fe1a558 _dyld_start + 0x64

* 17 megs is too big. For the instruments that you used in your two tracks, you might as well just use the QuickTime MIDI synthesizer.

* did you consider using /usr/share/dict/words instead of your own dictionary?

* No VBL sync, white window minimization, no resizing window, fullscreen isn't centered...

[MattDiamond]

Thanks for the quick feedback.

- It's not 17 megs. That's just the size of the disk image that stupid Disk Utility makes when you say "create a disk image from a folder" (the most convenient way to make a read-only image.) The game is only 9 meg, and compresses to 6.5 meg. I can a smaller disk image next time, but I just assumed people would drag it to their disk.

- dict/words was a good thought but it is completely inadequate. Believe me, that was my first attempt! It's got no plurals, and it's based on a Webster dictionary from the 1930's. The dictionary I have is Scrabble-quality.

- The crash is very worrisome because I can't get reproduce it, but the stack trace you gave me may let me put some sanity-checking code in. I'll try to get something out today. Did it crash the first time/every time you selected a word?

- VBL sync appeared to work fine for me here. I'll play with it some more because maybe I'm mistaken, but my first guess is you are just seeing a little frame rate jumpiness when all the pages are moving.

- There's no point to resizing the window, so I disabled that deliberately. But centering the full-screen was on my list of "nice to have's"; I was wondering if/when someone would ask for that... Since you just did, I'll bump up the priority.

- Good point about the screen going white while minimizing, I'm wondering now while Finder isn't handling that for me. I'll put it on my list of things to investigate.

Much obliged for the feedback!

[arekkusu]

- dmg can be compressed in addition to read only. I tend to keep dmgs around.

- it doesn't crash first/every time. But it crashed twice so far, crossing through words. Try quickly drawing lines all over at random.

- VBL sync looks OK in 1.1.1 (was testing 1.0 earlier-- crash still occurs in 1.1.1)

- there's also this fullscreen white flash when launching the game?

[skyhawk]

make a check to see if the line is severely not straight, in that case, just ignore it instead of trying to interpret it

[MattDiamond]

You guys were on the right track... if you drag a line that is straight but crosses an empty cell BUT ends on a legal cell, that may trigger a crash on some machines. At least, examination of the code tells me so- I still can't get it to crash on my machine. But the safety check I am putting will likely fix all crashing problems.

I'm glad voting is apparently delayed- bad enough to subject my fellow developers to a crashing version, let alone the public. Expect a new version in the next 4 hours.

Launch whitescreen- interesting. Wondering if it's related to the whitescreen during minimization? It just means that nothing is drawn. The drawing loop is triggered by timers, not sure if they stop going off or what. I don't expect to have it all solved tonight, but the crash absolutely must be patched tonight even if nothing else is fixed.

Thanks all! I appreciate the help.

[MattDiamond]

Version 1.1.2 posted.

- Crash fix for certain word selections.
- Disabled full-screen toggle. If you had it as your default, you should edit or delete your WordBeGone preferences (I can help) OR run a previous version, toggle it off, then upgrade to the latest version/

(So why did I disable full-screen? Because while fixing the centering of the game I discovered bugs with it that noone had reported yet. One is fatal, and quite mysterious. I don't have time to solve it this week.)

Not as much progress as I'd hoped for the time spent, but the crash fix is by far the most important thing and I'm optimistic that the game will be solid now.

[MattDiamond]

Just uploaded some fixes for issues reported recently in this very thread. Don't say I never did anything for you. :-)

Version 1.1.3 changes:
- FULL SCREEN TOGGLE IS BACK! (Via menu, or Command-T) The playing area is centered appropriately. Game remembers whether you were full-screen or windowed the next time you run the game.
- Screen flash on startup (in windowed mode) eliminated.
- A condition that theoretically could have caused a crash on startup was eliminated. (I only saw it while debugging the full-screen mode though.)

Even for casual games I much prefer playing full-screen to playing in a window, so it really bothered me that I had to remove the fullscreen option in the last release. Glad to put it back, even if most people won't play it that way.

[Malarkey]

For anyone found the regular gameplay too slow or cerebral, "Beat the Clock" is much faster-paced. Swaps are free in this mode, but you have only 12 seconds to build your next word or the game ends. Instead of trying to optimize each swap and planning how to use up every last letter on the board, you will scramble just to keep the game going! It's fun.

Yeah, I definitely like "Beat the Clock" better than the regular version. The only gripe I have is that I don't know when my twelve seconds are going to be up. Did you leave out some sort of time gauge on purpose to make the game more intense or just didn't have the time?

[MattDiamond]

You are the second person today who has said that they can't see the timer! That is really bad. I'm sure my scores are going through the floor as a result.

Can you please tell me about your machine, which version of OS X, what video card, and what screen resolution you are running at? Also, are you running in full-screen or windowed?

Some other questions:
- when you click on a letter, is the letter circled?
- when you cross out a word, do you see the line scribble?

Very frustrating to be stuck at work and unable to look into this! But thank you for posting- I can't fix problems I don't know about. I'll fix it as soon as I figure out what's going on.

[MattDiamond]

Version 1.1.4 now available.

Can't reproduce the invisible timer problem on my machine; makes it hard to fix. I added a little more error detection, and fiddled with things just in case I accidentally fix it that way.

But to reduce the impact, I added a numeric display of the time remaining. Lucky users get to see the circle timer as well, but everyone should at least see the "0:00" timer.

Some other minor fixes too, nothing worth detailing.

[Malarkey]

Version 1.1.4 now available.

Can't reproduce the invisible timer problem on my machine; makes it hard to fix. I added a little more error detection, and fiddled with things just in case I accidentally fix it that way.

But to reduce the impact, I added a numeric display of the time remaining. Lucky users get to see the circle timer as well, but everyone should at least see the "0:00" timer.

Some other minor fixes too, nothing worth detailing.

Shoot. I knew I forgot to do something when I got home from work last night. Anyway, here's the relevant bits from System Profiler for the G3 Powerbook I use at work:
Hardware:

Hardware Overview:

Machine Model: PowerBook
CPU Type: PowerPC 750 (42.2)
Number Of CPUs: 1
CPU Speed: 400 MHz
L2 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB
Memory: 512 MB

Software:

System Software Overview:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.3.6 (7R28)

PCI/AGP Cards:

ATY,RageM3:

Type: display
Bus: AGP
Slot: ATI
VRAM (Total): 8 MB
Vendor: ATI (0x1002)
Device ID: 0x4c46
Revision ID: 0x0002
ROM Revision: 113-XXXXX-119

Display:

Type: display
Display Type: LCD
VRAM (In Use): 8 MB
Resolution: 1024 x 768
Depth: 16-bit Color
Main Display: Yes
Mirror: Off
Built-In: Yes
Online: Yes

I think my G5 at home has the same problem too; the video card on that one is the standard one that came with the 1.8Ghz model. I'll double check that when I get home, though.

Anyway, I'll try out the new version and see how things work from there. Are you using SDL for WordBeGone?

Edit: Uh, nevermind... I can see the circle timer now. :blink:

[MattDiamond]

Edit: Uh, nevermind... I can see the circle timer now.


Did the circle suddenly appear in the version you were already running, or did you download the latest version?

Thanks for the system profile; I really appreciate you taking the time to follow up.

[Malarkey]

Did the circle suddenly appear in the version you were already running, or did you download the latest version?

Thanks for the system profile; I really appreciate you taking the time to follow up.

I downloaded the new version and that had the circle timer appearing.

[MattDiamond]

Thanks! (Whew!)

[MattDiamond]

Version 1.1.5 posted. I had accidentally disconnected the music that's supposed to play during Regular mode. *smacks head with palm*

Not looking forward to seeing the scores from people who couldn't see a timer or couldn't hear any music. But it was entirely my fault, was in too much of a hurry with that last release.

[MattDiamond]

Version 1.1.6 posted November 17, 2004. There are four significant changes:
Words above 9 letters now recognized.
New "straight line" option for players who didn't like crossing out words with free-form scribbling. (To enable it, go to the Options page and change the first setting from Freeform to Straight Line.)
Increased maximum board-clearing bonus from 1000 to 2000 points.
Freeform word crossing out has been improved. Rapid mouse movement on slow CPUs doesn't confuse it now. Also, if you backtrack over some letters that's okay; what matters is that you stay on a straight line and start and end on the right letters.

A 400 MHz G3 should now be sufficient to play the game, assuming you have a good enough video card (on G3 iMacs you need a Rage 128 Pro, which I believe were introduced with the fruity colors.)

Assuming no serious bugs are found this will be the last update to the game during the contest. Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on all versions!