Is there a way to pause the clock?

[odayhappyours]

I have played thousands of games and I think I'm pretty good at it. I often get longest word and best word (comparing the stats) but I never even make average score or number of words despite going flat out. Often the high numbers are 3 times mine. I dont see how this can be done in two minutes. Does anybody have any answers?

[Spike1007]

I assume you're joking about pausing the clock, but for a couple of days a while back, there actually was a way to do that. Anyway, I play for long words & probably couldn't come close to your numbers or scores. I'm sure that you'll get better answers from the better players (although a lot of that boils down to practice).

[crazykate]

Do you swipe or type? When typing, it depends on your typing speed, and it's less about finding the actual connections between the letters and more about looking at a cluster of letters and knowing from experience what words can be found in a certain combination - like the letters a, e, t, s - if they're in a square, you can type eat, eats, ate, ates, tea, teas, tae, taes, eta, etas, seat, sate, sea, eas, east (I may have missed a combination or two) all without a second look.
If you're a slow typer, like me, you may prefer the touchscreen-friendly mobile version and play by swiping. I'm a bit out of practise at the moment and usually get between 70 to 90 words in a good 4x4 grid in the 2 minute time limit, but my absolute best is around 120 words, which I think must be close to the possible maximum while swiping. The number of points you rack up depends mostly on how many rare 3 and 4 letter words you know. If you find a lot of words that are only worth 3 points each, someone who knows rare combinations that are worth 6 or more points per word might still beat your score even if they find fewer words than you did. It's also quite rare to find the longest word AND get the top score, as looking for long words can take longer and rack up fewer points than going for short, high-scoring words. I usually focus on one or the other, either long words or speed and points.
I was very surprised by the high scores in this game when I first got here, but after I switched strategies a few times and learned new combinations, I started to at least match the average after about a year of playing, and sometimes I can even get in a record or two.

[bwt1213]

I once (a long time ago) posted a comment that I thought that someday I might possibly average as high as 450 for a 5x5 game. That was back when my high game was about 300. A few months ago, I averaged almost 560. Part of the speed difference is becoming a faster typist, but that's only a small part of the improvement. The biggest change is finding new words. Oddly enough, many of those new words were originally typos. Now, if time permits and I can't see anything, I just type in anything that looks like maybe it might be a word. Sometimes they are.

[crazykate]

Do you swipe or type? When typing, it depends on your typing speed, and it's less about finding the actual connections between the letters and more about looking at a cluster of letters and knowing from experience what words can be found in a certain combination - like the letters a, e, t, s - if they're in a square, you can type eat, eats, ate, ates, tea, teas, tae, taes, eta, etas, seat, sate, sea, eas, east (I may have missed a combination or two) all without a second look.
If you're a slow typer, like me, you may prefer the touchscreen-friendly mobile version and play by swiping. I'm a bit out of practise at the moment and usually get between 70 to 90 words in a good 4x4 grid in the 2 minute time limit, but my absolute best is around 120 words, which I think must be close to the possible maximum while swiping. The number of points you rack up depends mostly on how many rare 3 and 4 letter words you know. If you find a lot of words that are only worth 3 points each, someone who knows rare combinations that are worth 6 or more points per word might still beat your score even if they find fewer words than you did. It's also quite rare to find the longest word AND get the top score, as looking for long words can take longer and rack up fewer points than going for short, high-scoring words. I usually focus on one or the other, either long words or speed and points.
I was very surprised by the high scores in this game when I first got here, but after I switched strategies a few times and learned new combinations, I started to at least match the average after about a year of playing, and sometimes I can even get in a record or two.

Trying to repost what I wrote earlier.

[bjbrjf]

i wish there were a way to pause the timer as well; sometimes the phone rings, or the doorbell, or the noodles start to boil over...i am not looking for extra time here! When you hit pause, the game should be "covered" so you can't plot out more words, but you can take care of whatever interrupts your game. i have played other timed games, and this is what they do when you hit pause.

[bwt1213]

I don't want to brag, because I suspect I'm far from unusual in this respect, but if I've been playing a game for a minute or so and you covered up the board I would remember every letter and every position. If I wanted, I could just sit there for a while and think about things, maybe write down some of the words I found, and then type at max speed when the game was resumed. Yes, I mean the 5x5 board. I don't even think of it as being particularly hard. It's the same thing as when I used to play Hearts during lunch hour. When the game was over, I could tell everyone every card they had started with. I didn't even have to think about it. It's just a thing I can do, and I really don't think it's all that unusual. So, at least as far as this game is concerned I don't think that covering the letters and letting you pause the game would be fair; people who couldn't remember the board would be at a big disadvantage. And come to think of it, you could always take a screenshot of the board, pause it, review the screenshot, and do what I can do without relying on your memory at all. I actually think that having a version of the game that was untimed would be great -- just make the game end automatically if you don't find a new valid word within ten seconds. Of course, all the scoring records would have to be completely separate from the timed versions. But then people who can't type well or have various disabilities would be on an equal footing with everyone else.

[Spike1007]

i wish there were a way to pause the timer as well; sometimes the phone rings, or the doorbell, or the noodles start to boil over...i am not looking for extra time here! When you hit pause, the game should be "covered" so you can't plot out more words, but you can take care of whatever interrupts your game. i have played other timed games, and this is what they do when you hit pause.

Like I said, a pause like this was once possible. It was in March, just post-migration. You could navigate away from your board (by hitting high scores, for example), and when you hit the browser back button, you'd go back to your board with the timer just where you left off. I'm not sure if you could do it indefinitely. The longest I tried was five minutes or so & that worked. I didn't use that "feature" for playing though. I reported it & it got fixed.

bwt - I envy your memory abilities.

[mcdonna]

I don't want to brag, because I suspect I'm far from unusual in this respect, but if I've been playing a game for a minute or so and you covered up the board I would remember every letter and every position....

That is pretty cool. When I was in high school (50+ years ago) I took some speed reading classes that involved memorizing patterns of letters or columns of numbers, and got pretty good at it, but not to the extent of quickly memorizing a 25-square board. It sounds as though you have an eidetic memory, which is evidently quite rare, especially in adults. You'd be a good witness if you ever see a crime in progress! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory

[JJBeanie]

I'd agree to a pause button, but only if the results aren't recorded (within the game and player's scorecard). It's too easy to take a screen shot of the board, press pause, go off and find highest scoring or longest words and enter them once the timer is resumed.

[Brisul]

I'd agree to a pause button, but only if the results aren't recorded (within the game and player's scorecard). It's too easy to take a screen shot of the board, press pause, go off and find highest scoring or longest words and enter them once the timer is resumed.

I get what you're saying. I think the people or bots who want to cheat at playing this game have already figured out how to do it in a much more efficient way, though.

[JJBeanie]

I get what you're saying. I think the people or bots who want to cheat at playing this game have already figured out how to do it in a much more efficient way, though.

True, but there would be some people who would want to find the words using their own brain power. So, not cheating by having a program do it. I sometimes would like longer on a puzzle because I can feel there is a good word in there but can't see it in time. That's why I'd be happy for a pause button or, maybe better, an untimed game feature.

[bwt1213]

While I never wanted an untimed game feature (just a game that would continue only so long as you kept entering valid words), perhaps it would be possible to have a "play unofficial game" option. I suspect the current software doesn't want two people playing the same game at the same time -- because then how would you correctly inform either one that they had or had not achieved the high score, found the longest word, etc. But if the game didn't count in the statistics, you could have many people play the same board at once, and someone could squat on a game for days if they wanted, with no harm done.