Check out my new game War of Words

[Allara]

Hey guys, many of you may remember me, I'm that annoying hunter. ;)

So I did end up quitting WoW this summer, and spent my time since then finally doing my childhood dream: developing my own game!

I know many of you in the guild play Words With Friends, so I think you'll enjoy this. It's called War of Words, and it takes the online crossword genre to the next level. Ever wanted to blow up your opponent's words? Or maybe steal a few for yourself? Perhaps you'd like to lay a land mine, play a word backwards, or other dastardly deeds? All of this is possible and more in War of Words.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="853" height="510" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/J7WzFt6vOLI?rel=0&amp;hd=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It's a free download (ad supported).

War of Words is a game for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. It requires a third or fourth generation device (iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3rd Gen, iPod Touch 4th Gen, iPad). It also requires a Game Center account and an Internet connection.

You guys can challenge me in the game directly. My nickname is: Allara.

Support indie developers! This game was developed entirely by myself in my spare time. If it takes off, I do intend to port it to Android and other platforms.

Check out the game's web site (http://www.wolf-studios.com/warofwords.aspx)
Download the game from the App Store (http://bit.ly/fFfuA8)

[Rennys]

Any thoughts about having a short tutorial game that illustrates the use of all the tiles? Having all the tips pop up during the first game and constantly having to hit "thanks" is mildly annoying. I do like the artwork though, it's simple and pretty.

One thing about the achievements, it looks like you're using a trophy image to indicate completion of achievements. It might be preferable to use a system similar to WoW where you have images instead of the trophy and indicate incomplete achievements using a grey'd out image. Just a thought. Beyond that, it looks nice.

[Kikiyo]

I played it on my iPad. Definately fun little thing. Only annoyance thing I have with it is sometimes I get too many specials and not enough letters to do anything.

[Allara]

@Rennys: I didn't have time or resources to create 53 unique pieces of art for the achievements. Maybe in the future; I agree it'd be better. I thought through a lot of scenarios for teaching the game, and I don't have anything better at this time. It's definitely the biggest pain point in the game.

@Kikiyo: The server limits you to no more than 3 action tiles at once. It does get tricky playing with only 5 letters, but that's intentional. It's up to you to balance your rack the way you see fit. I've seen 660 point turns because the player quietly held back tiles for 8 turns in a row, only to unleash just the right combo.

My current focus is adding universal support (native iPad UI), as well as fixing any issues that may crop up. After that gets out the door, I'll turn my attention to other ideas people have. Thanks guys!

[Allara]

BTW - what are your game center nicknames? Oh wait, Rennys kicked my ASS in Words With Friends, I probably shouldn't play against him. ;)

[Beelzebubs]

WTB Android support.

[Allara]

If you guys downloaded the game, consider giving me a nice review on the app store :)

Almost into the top 100 word games today...

[Stosh]

Consider the android community for us with larger vocabularies. :)

[Andaas]

Support indie developers! This game was developed entirely by myself in my spare time. If it takes off, I do intend to port it to Android and other platforms.

See red text...

[Andaas]

Bug Report:

Very minor.. but in account settings, if you tap near the "Accept Random" label, the cursor will position itself within the label. You can't edit/change the label, but it's odd to see a cursor there.

[Stosh]

See red text...

I'm not going to buy an iphone so I can leave him good feedback, so I'm leaving him feedback for the Android here. And I'm insulting iphone users at the same time plus boosting my post count. It's a win-win-win.

[Andaas]

But Stosh, it's already on the iPhone.

(j/k)

[Rennys]

But but... what if I have both platforms?

[Stosh]

But Stosh, it's already on the iPhone.

(j/k)

Does it have lots of the gee bees?

[Allara]

Your Android wishes have been noted, thanks guys. :) I started getting those well before I even released this, thus the plans. Unfortunately it's a decent investment of time and money to do so, so I need to have this succeed at least marginally well before I can do it. :)

[Allara]

Bug Report:

Very minor.. but in account settings, if you tap near the "Accept Random" label, the cursor will position itself within the label. You can't edit/change the label, but it's odd to see a cursor there.

The fuck? Nice catch. That's... odd. Will fix.

[Mystrae]

@Kikiyo: The server limits you to no more than 3 action tiles at once. It does get tricky playing with only 5 letters, but that's intentional. It's up to you to balance your rack the way you see fit. I've seen 660 point turns because the player quietly held back tiles for 8 turns in a row, only to unleash just the right combo.



Heh just been accused of cheating because I just wftpwn'd my opponent with a 764 point word. Had 2 word multiplier tiles come up and I placed it on a 3rd word multiplier already on the board.

[Allara]

Haha yeah, I actually found a bug on the server last night where some word multipliers weren't being counted correctly. I fixed that, and the result will be much higher scores than I had previously seen during beta.

From me to you, it's 99.999999% impossible to cheat on this game even if you figured out how to call the web service directly. Server re-checks everything and rejects the turn if anything isn't legal.

[Kikiyo]

Apparently Jedi isn't a word. =P

[Gheltire]

hey cool:) Play words with friends a lot and have been kindof bored with it. Ill send this around to some of my play buddies;)


and yeah even on words with friends ive always wanted to have a "genre" button, so if we decided today we wanted to play dirty words and tomorrow play star wars or "sci-fi" we could get words to play like Jedi or whatnot that wouldnt normally play in a level, whitebread, game.

and in star trek I could just play Q! Because not only is it a word, its a singular and a plural!

[Kikiyo]

Basically I found the best strat in the game is to setup a super point score by saving the best letter and word bonuses and getting a rare letter like Z or Q to make a 400+ point word. Once you get the star, you are even more set.

[Mystrae]

Basically I found the best strat in the game is to setup a super point score by saving the best letter and word bonuses and getting a rare letter like Z or Q to make a 400+ point word. Once you get the star, you are even more set.

Pretty much this^

[Andaas]

Yeah, I'm seeing some trends in the strategies - and it's starting to feel like whoever gets a couple word multipliers is going to win; and there are a lot of rounds where all you end up getting are bombs, reverse, steal, and mine action tiles.

[Allara]

The server balances out the multipliers between the two players to an extent. I think there is more work I could do there, though, to make it a bit more fair. Still, there's definitely an element of luck involved. Part of the design is making you decide if you should hold on to tiles or play them now to get them out of the way. The amount of luck is also intentional, even though it unbalances the skill factor a bit. It's the only way to break with the Scrabble rules and move beyond them. This is war, after all.

Also keep in mind that different board layouts will utilize different tile supplies. So the "labyrinth" board, which sort of looks like a maze, gives you a bunch more bombs, which you should use to blow up the board itself, not each other, or you'll find it very hard to play. The "four corners" board, with Start Over tiles in all four corners, does not give players any Start Over tiles in the supply. Etc.

I do have a list of ideas for new action tiles, and the client/server architecture was built with the ability to "negotiate" game versions between two players -- which will allow me to add new tiles to the mix as time goes on. I have some other ideas around holiday themes, etc. I will also be hotfixing in new board layouts every so often (it's a server side change only).

If you guys have any ideas for new action tiles, feel free to throw them out here to me, and I'll put them on the list. Most ideas I've heard suffer from major balance issues, not to mention it's hard to train users on them, but it's good to have as many ideas as possible.

I'm working on the native iPad UI as I write this, and it's coming along nicely.

[Andaas]

How about making the penalties for action tiles left in your deck if your opponent plays all of their tiles steep... like a 5W tile *divides* your score by 5. ;)

[Mystrae]

The issue with the multiple multiplier titles and one good word is that you can score more with that one turn than both players had points combined even when the tiles are exhausted.

If anything I think you should be limited to one multiplier per word.

[Allara]

I obviously can't do that, the whole game is designed around it. I think what needs to happen is to build the weapons up, not chill them out. Some way to get back at the other player when he plays a word like that. I'll be thinking about it. In reality I don't see words like that played very often, and it's a fun experience for the person who manages to do it.

There are also some tuning things I can and will do with the levels to reduce the power of the Start Over tile. I can also tune the initial supply of multiplier tiles to reduce the overall effect. I'll get to that stuff over the next few days, it's all hotfixes on the server.

[Andaas]

I had thought of a slight variant of how your game works; feel free to use this as an optional game-style if you like (but please don't take away the current play mode - I like it too hehe):

Rather than having an 8 tile rack that gets up to 3 action tiles; give the player a 7 tile rack and a single action tile (as a separate 8th tile). Limit them to one action tile per turn (bombs would still burn a full turn); and (possibly) allow them to see what their next action tile would be. The players would always have access to one action tile (though these could also be fed from a limited tile pool and run out?).

I think this variant would lead to stronger word-play, with the added benefit of encouraging players to dump lesser valued action tiles on the board (like mines and reverse tiles) - making for a wilder playfield near the end of the game.

[Allara]

I actually almost did more or less exactly what you described, but ran into trouble communicating to the player how things work. I think your description seems very straightforward, and would definitely make a nice alternate mode. :)

Down the line I'm hoping to give players some options when they set up new games, including selecting a board layout, and maybe even choosing from a few game modes like you mentioned.

You know, I can hotfix the server to only allow 2 action tiles at a time (this is in fact how it works for your initial rack). I wonder if that would help?

[Andaas]

I'm cool with it as-is, it is sometimes tough to work with 5 tiles but it's a game and stuff so it's all good.

[Andaas]

I was reading your App Store reviews, and there was a negative review about someone stating that some common words were "not in the dictionary". This person likely got caught by a reverse action tile sitting under a letter on an existing board and didn't realize it.

Perhaps your spelling error message should indicate when a reverse tile is involved with a word error to help make this more obvious to the user (it caught me off guard the first time actually).

[Allara]

I'm way ahead of you. :) I've already "fixed" his issue in 4 separate ways. An update to the game should hit the store on Tuesday or so.

New set of error messages when misspelled word is over a Reverse Tile
Extra text in the help section about it
New bullet in the app description under troubleshooting
Players who have never completed a single full game will not be given the "reverse" level, which is an advanced level and should not be attempted by new players

It is becoming clear that you and I think things through very similarly, Fir. We should go into business together... ;)

[Andaas]

I haven't seen this reverse level yet, hmm.

[Allara]

It's everyone's least favorite (including mine). But I have an achievement that requires it, and Apple doesn't let me delete achievements. Plus I enjoy the concept, it's one of those levels that was supposed to sort of blow your mind, but after the first time you play it you get tired of it quickly.

I will be doing a level selector sometime soon (it's hard to do) which will mitigate the issue and let me put in all kinds of weird levels that most people wouldn't like. They'll be rated easy/medium/hard, etc.

[Kikiyo]

That was my first level. It was fun yet hard at the same time. Reverse tiles everywhere.

[Andaas]

New Action Tile Idea:

Re-use Tile: This tile would be played when extending/adding to other words on the board - and would re-enable all covered multiplier tiles for formed words of that turn. This would be a great counter-attack tile when a player puts down a 1000+ point play.

(The name needs work, but I wanted to get the idea out there).

[Allara]

Interesting. I'll give that some thought, thanks.

Side note: in response to your epic move of over 2000 points, I tweaked the design of half the levels to make it slightly harder to do what you did. You would have first needed to use a Bomb to clear the area before you could have played that turn. It's only a slight impediment. I don't want to completely eliminate those types of turns yet; they're exceedingly rare.

[Allara]

v1.2 is now in the store. It includes various bug fixes primarily. v1.3 is already in the approval queue -- this is the release with full iPad support. I am starting v1.4 now. It's funny being 2 full versions ahead of the public.

[Andaas]

Hook me up with beta version access! (I'm playing 99% on my iPad anyway).

[Allara]

Give me your email address and I'll hook that up.

[Allara]

v1.4 has just hit the App Store. This brings full native iPad support as well as a variety of fixes. Consider posting your review again if you have time, as the store resets reviews with every version. Don't forget to tell your friends!

[Allara]

Any thoughts about having a short tutorial game that illustrates the use of all the tiles? Having all the tips pop up during the first game and constantly having to hit "thanks" is mildly annoying. I do like the artwork though, it's simple and pretty.

I'm happy to announce that the 1.9 update will feature fully interactive tutorials instead of the pop-up hints. It took a hell of a lot of code (and weeks of work) to pull that off -- 35% of my engine code is now devoted to it! ~

[Andaas]

Nice!

I may be able to get some WWF friends playing who were confused by all the action tile stuff now, hehe.

[Lonskils]

Nice!

I may be able to get some WWF friends playing who were confused by all the action tile stuff now, hehe.


World Wrestling Federation guys do get confused a lot.

[Kikiyo]

I thought it was now called WWE.

[Syana]

World Wrestling Entertainment. Because it's not real.

[Lonskils]

It was WWF, I think they had to change the name of it to WWE a while back, I just thought it was funny.

[Widespreadd Panic]

World Wildlife Fund sued them a good while back and they had to change it.

[Lonskils]

World Wildlife Fund sued them a good while back and they had to change it.


Hilarious. You would think the Wrestlers would have just suplexed all those long haired hippys!

[Allara]

I just released the new trailer for War of Words. It's a bit of an upgrade from the first trailer (as seen in the first post on this thread). ;) Thought you all should see it since some of you were my first real users!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q6ckKDUmy0

[Zeyla]

Nice trailer Allara!

Also, I'm looking for non-random War of Words opponents, my Game Center name is Zeydox. Or I can send you an email invite if you PM me.