Current Project - Better Letterz

[Matt Vinyl]

Hi All,

I'm working on a game at the moment that I hope will interest a few of you chaps.

I've started development on it, and the 'engine' is coming along nicely.

Brief Description - Letter 'shapes' fall onto the game board a la' Tetris and the player must attempt to make words from the letters to reduce the height of the columns and thus ensure that a column is not filled; game over!

I'm hoping there might be some tactics that would need to be followed for 'beating' this game. Is it worth making the longest possible words to get the highest score? Is it better to get rid of lots of smaller words to ensure that you get to the end of the level?

Anyway, if anyone's interested take a look at this first-draft design doc I've put together. Any suggestions would be most welcome. For example, have I got the points sensible for each letter? Do the bonuses actually sound like they'd help?

I've included cash prizes, as I'm 'imagining' that this would be played on a box in a pub. For now though, of course, it'd just be for fun (unless anyone's listening and can take me further!)

Look forward to any comments...

Cheers guys,
Matt...

[Ernest W. Quality]

It's hard to say... I'd probably need to play it for a while to get some more ideas.

[Matt Vinyl]

Yep, I agree it's a bit difficult to say without anything to try. I hope to have a 'very basic!' version of it knocked up shortly. I'll drop it on here as a .zip for you to try.

Cheers,
M

[COASTERDESIGNERPRO1]

Quite good, as it has extra bonuses in it for the 'likeability factor'. You could try emailing or phoning companies about adding this to their system after a few basic producton stages. Then licencing or selling it to them outright.

Although it does seem similar to other games, Word Up, Scrabble and obviously Tetris.

[Istenem]

looks good to me mate. you did ask for comments so here are mine

1. if i'd designed it i'd call it better letters since letterz is not a word
2. letter scores: overall i'd say you have got it about right but the most problematic letters (others may disagree) are V C J (largely because few short words contain/end in these) hence i'd rank V & C alongside K and J alongside Q & Z. also the X is pretty easy to kill so i might be inclined to relegate that.
3. level increments: it is problematic going on theory with this as EWQ said but it looks a good idea to combine aspects of increasing difficulty. the time thing is standard and in a word game tends to encourage 'stabbing'. more difficult letters are fine within reason but VGYRTEASDVHKWECSD doesn't give the player much of a chance.

obviously you are looking to keep to the 30% (or whatever) so any beta testing by VB/EWQ/Fotherz and to a lesser extent myself would give you indications as to how jackpotable it is but would give only limited indications as to casual playability where your revenue would come from.

one thing i would positively encourage is to have a high score table.

good luck with it.

[fotherz]

Looks good. I'm definitely available for a playtest if necessary.

Hiscore table is a must.

An extensive dictionary helps players - so make of that what you will.

[Matt Vinyl]

Hiya guys,

Many thanks for your points.

- I've written a hi score table into my design spec. (cheers fotherz!)

- Letter values will be tweaked accordingly (cheers UP!)

- I'll probably change the name as suggested to avoid possible 'misinterpretation' (cheers again UP)

- My dictionary is currently 117971 words in size, and does include some lovelies such as 'zyzzyvas', 'yokozonas' and 'zinkifying' to name, well, less than 0.001% of them!

- I'll consider whether the 'level up' idea is viable or not. I'm guessing that it'll be almost nigh on impossible to clear a board as it is (similar to WU et al)