Saturday 22 November 2014

Other word games

I thought I'd take a moment to mention some computer games that might scratch that word-finding itch.  The first two are only available for Windows (the following links are to their Steam pages): Bookworm Adventures Deluxe, and its sequel Bookworm Adventures Volume 2.  Both have demos available, so you can check it out and see if it's the kind of thing that appeals.

The second game is Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey.  It is clearly derivative of Bookworm Adventures; not quite as polished, but it adds enough new features to be more than just a knock-off.  It is available for most platforms, and includes a convenient web demo.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

NG 507

New game 507 is now available.  I'll slowly work my way through the backlog of games and get the details up.


Thursday 23 October 2014

NG 498

New game 498 is now available.

I'm having surgery tomorrow, so I won't be updating things here for a bit.  I have queued up enough games to hopefully last until I'm back in action, but the writeups will have to wait until much later.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Delays

Something came up unexpectedly, so the rest of the week's games will be delayed.  I'll aim to have them up on Thursday, Friday, Saturday instead.  Apologies.

Monday 8 September 2014

NG 466

New game 466 is now available.  Also, as mentioned in a comment a little while back, I have now disabled anonymous commenting.  Apologies for the inconvenience.


Wednesday 27 August 2014

NG 458

New game 458 is now available.  Apologies for the lateness and the lack of results for previous games; I've been a bit preoccupied with other matters recently.


Sunday 8 June 2014

Revised acceptable word policy

It's hardly news that the official rules do not interact with the Macquarie's vagaries as well as one would hope, leading to many words being rejected that "should" be accepted.  In the past I've noted such instances as invalid (and generally complained about it).  The time has come, I feel, to adopt a slightly different set of rules for acceptable words.  This breaks compatibility with the show, of course, but by now that's hardly a drawback.

The revisions are as follows:
  • Derived forms of variant spellings are allowed when the corresponding derived forms are listed for the main spellings.  Thus the listing of MOULDIER and MOLD as a variant of MOULD means that MOLDIER is valid under this modification.  Similarly for AMBRIES and AUMBRY making AUMBRIES valid.
  • Nouns ending in -y do not require the plural form to be explicitly listed if this form is made by replacing the -y by -ies.  So LORRIES is valid even though no plural form of LORRY is listed.  (I am avoiding being explicit about which words are assumed to have a plural of that form, but loosely speaking it will be nouns where a consonant preceeds that final Y).
  • Two-syllable adjectives ending in -y or -ey do not require comparative or superlative forms to be explicitly listed if those forms are made by replacing the -y or -ey by -ier or -iest as appropriate.  So (to cite a recent example) the forms BLOCKIEST and BLOKIEST are now valid, even though not listed, since BLOCKY and BLOKEY are listed.  Again, I am avoiding explicit mention of the requirements, going for a "I'll know it when I see it" approach.
  • Words, and derived forms of them, that only appear in phrases will be considered valid unless they are otherwise invalid.  This makes EARSHOT (only listed as part of phrases) valid, and also the verb senses of MINOR and MAJOR (and thus MINORED and MAJORING are valid, for instance).  Words that are part of compound nouns (the BOK of BOK CHOY, for instance) remain invalid (unless they have a standalone meaning, of course).
I think that covers the majority of the particularly bad cases that we've experienced.  I'll probably still end up noting cases where such answers would not be valid on the show for a while by marking them with a *.  In the meantime, it should make things a bit better.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

NG 382

New game 382 is now available.  The MUMS Puzzle Hunt has finished now, so hopefully I'll be somewhat more prompt in the writeups.


Monday 21 April 2014

NG 366

New game 366 is now available.  I've switched to a new method for generating the letters rounds -- hopefully it will produce generally more helpful mixes.  Also, the MUMS Puzzle Hunt starts on May 3rd -- do check it out if you enjoy puzzles.


Wednesday 5 March 2014

NG 333

New game 333 is now available.  As an aside, after a fairly quiet spam period this blog has received a ton of it over the last couple of weeks.  If it shows up in the comments, just ignore it -- I'll get to it soon.


Monday 27 January 2014

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Delays

Apologies for the delay on NG 292, and NG 293 will also be delayed, possibly until Thursday morning.