New ideas

[dannyb]

I believe that crazykate is just asking for an active list of words be available after the first time a board is played so that she can click on the word in the active list to be directed to Lexic for a definition. It has nothing to do with HOW the game is played by different players. Since reading crazykates message I haven't gotten an unplayed board to check if the user words played list for that first board is "active" with regards to redirecting to the Lexic resource.

I JUst got an unplyed board, and the answer is no the words played is not a live list to Lexic.

[Naboka]

An easy fix to the "timed" version for those of us who go for long words is to have the 10-second (or whatever) rule only kick in after 3 minutes (for 5x5). Pretty much the same game for the long-word people then, but it would really be a boon to some. (I'd love to see how high Megaword & others could go.)

On 5x5 it probably should kick in at 2:58 and go for 2 seconds; so if you're still finding words within 2 seconds the game continues. If you watch Megaword's videos, he's putting ungodly numbers of words up in ten seconds. Even 2 seconds might be a stretch. On 4x4 the timer could adjust at 1:58 and extend every 2 seconds.

In track and field we have various distances to suit the talents of different runners. Sprinters, middle distant and long distant runners. And the ultra long distances.

Someone with a huge vocabulary and poor typing skills is definitely at a competitive disadvantage on Wordtwist.

What's fair?

Big question.

If you're a sprinter, you'd never win a marathon, just as a marathoner would never win world class sprints.

What's fair for one player can be patently unfair to another.

Sometimes my mental queue has 20, 30, 40 plus words left waiting. But I'm sure not going to increase my typing speed for risk of inflammation.

Then again, I like the game just fine how it is, competitive disadvantage or not. Usually my wrists and fingers are pleading for the time to run out as it is.

ps: agree with crazykate about the new boards and links to the dictionary. Sometimes we enter things on purpose or by accident that knowing the meaning seems helpful.

[Naboka]

Another thought has to do with who actually has the best averages.

Someone might be a full game player but if you averaged their 50 or so best words, their average score might be very competitive with the solely long word players. But, because they are averaging in dozens of lower scoring words to get a higher total score, their accomplishment is hidden.

Same applies to average scores per game. If you play a bunch of low scoring boards, your average is going to suffer. But your highest 50 or so games may be higher than the averages getting trophies. I imagine boysmom and Megaword experience this most months. For example Megaword might have 50 games averaging 1200 pts, but because he's playing games where the best available score is 500. his average takes a huge hit.

Same might apply to long words.

Just an idea.

ps: undergainliness is apparently not a word. Considering that one gains gainliness, one would expect an improvement scale measuring various levels of undergainliness, where one has not reached the coveted stature of gainliness. As I age, I notice less and less gainliness, and find myself experiencing more and more undergainliness.

[the cryptogram keeper]

I think an untimed and non-competitive mode would be cool. It would work for both regular and long-word players. You could take your time with a board and see what you can "mine" out of it, learn some new words, and just play for enjoyment.

[crazykate]

Due to an apparent glitch in the game of another player, where a game showed up as having been played 1 time with a total of 0 words, I managed to get a screenshot of what I wish the word list on the score screen would look like for the first time a game is played, Vs what it looks like now.
(I play on my phone, so it might look a little different to those of you who use a computer and type rather than swiping.)
See that lovely list of green clickable words? Yum.
admin any chance it could always look like this?

[boysmom]

Due to an apparent glitch in the game of another player, where a game showed up as having been played 1 time with a total of 0 words, I managed to get a screenshot of what I wish the word list on the score screen would look like for the first time a game is played, Vs what it looks like now.
(I play on my phone, so it might look a little different to those of you who use a computer and type rather than swiping.)
See that lovely list of green clickable words? Yum.
admin any chance it could always look like this?

There’s a chance that a player who only looks for lomg words and played the board without finding anything and the board submitted.

to go along with you though, it would be nice to always show the green words after a board is played. It also used to be nice when I would take a screenshot of a particular record I was proud of it would like photo 1 which is more preferable to photo 2.