WordWrench

[snctln]

Hello everyone, I would like to announce my latest application available for download on the Android Market

WordWrench Trial

A game of anagrams

Trial expires Feb 1, 2009. Full version will sell for $1

Use the given letters to find 3, 4, 5 and 6 letter words
Find a 6 letter word to go to the next level

Press the "Wrench" button, space key, or shake the phone to reorder the given letters

Accepts touch screen, trackball, and keyboard controls

This game works in both portrait and landscape mode. You can use the touchscreen, trackball, or keyboard to navigate the entire game. You can also shake the phone to "wrench" the letters around. Supports sounds and vibrations.

When the market allows developers to charge for applications I will put up a non time restricted version for $1, and I will also put up a demo version with a very limited dictionary for free so that newcomers can try before they buy. Charging for an app may not be the most popular thing, but I definitely put in a lot of work on this game and I think it is the type of game with a high replay rate that would be worth a dollar.

Feel free to let me know what you think

 

[Shel]

Great game!

Reminds me of TextTwist for the Palm, which I was just playing a few days ago, and love, but your version is even better!

Also, charging a dollar is very smart! Anyone who complains about having to spend a buck for this game will be slammed, and will look like a jerk! It's a no brainer.

Couple of suggestions, if you don't mind...

Have your game take up the entire screen... lose the message tab at the top of the screen.

Also, it seems to automatically start a new game. Sometimes, I don't want to exit out of the game, but I also don't want it to start right away... but if I simply remain on the screen after a game ends, it starts a new game.

Shaking the G1 to scramble the letters seems extremely difficult. I have to REALLY shake the G1, but perhaps if it scrambles the letters with very little motion, they'll get scrambled at times the player didn't mean to scramble them. Not sure if this can be improved.

Also... several games allow user to upload thier high scores to a website, and complete against other players (top 100 of the week, top 100 scores of the day, top 100 of all time, etc.) This really adds to a games enjoyment.

PLEASE... add accelerometer controls, so that simply turning the G1 horizontal puts the game in landscape mode! Right now, you have to open the keyboard to get the game in landscape. People don't always want (in fact, usually don't want) the keyboard open while playing the game, but still prefer playing it in landscape. Beside, turning your device horizonal, and having the device clever enough to automatically switch orientation is cool!

Anyways, really wanted to thank you for this game! Loads of fun... Congrats on an excellent job!

 

[snctln]

...
Couple of suggestions, if you don't mind...

Have your game take up the entire screen... lose the message tab at the top of the screen.

Also, it seems to automatically start a new game. Sometimes, I don't want to exit out of the game, but I also don't want it to start right away... but if I simply remain on the screen after a game ends, it starts a new game.

Shaking the G1 to scramble the letters seems extremely difficult. I have to REALLY shake the G1, but perhaps if it scrambles the letters with very little motion, they'll get scrambled at times the player didn't mean to scramble them. Not sure if this can be improved.

Last... several games allow user to upload thier high scores to a website, and complete against other players (top 100 of the week, top 100 scores of the day, top 100 of all time, etc.) This really adds to a games enjoyment.

Anyways, really wanted to thank you for this game! Loads of fun... Congrats on an excellent job!

@Shel thank you very much for the feedback and suggestions. I have thought about most of the suggestions already and am still working on a few of them.

Making the game full screen: I think this boils down to personal preference, I like having hte notification bar visible so that I know what time it is and I can see when I have new emails arrive. Maybe I will add a settings entry that will allow the end user to choose between full screen and showing the notification bar.

Automatically start new game: It shouldn't automatically start a new game, but it should start a new game based off of any touch of the touch screen trackball or keyboard. Maybe I could add a "touch here to start" button to the main screen.

Shaking too hard: I tried a few different ways of detecting the shake, I will go back and see if I can make it more sensitive while also doing the best I can to eliminate any false positives

Top Scores Online: Right now I am just using a google site, so I can't introduce that just yet. I am thinking about getting a cheap godaddy plan and seeing what I can do to add this feature. Hopefully I can figure it all out and have this up and running in the next few days

Thank you for your support of charging for the app too, there have been a few people complaining about it in the Market comments, but it doesn't really bother me. I am releasing this free trial, if paid apps are not out by Feb 2 then I will release an update that will expire Feb 15. Once paid apps are supported I will also release a demo verison of this game that only has 6 different puzzles, but it should be good enough for people to decide if they think the game is decent

 

[Shel]

Sounds great! I'm sure you're getting a LOT of positive feedback in the market.

If you need any beta testing, or if I can help you out in any way, let me know.

Any chance to get the accelerometer to change orientation? (I realize every change probably takes a LONG amount of additional programming, but I really think people would love to be able to simply turn the G1 horizontal, and have it switch to landscape mode, turn it back vertical and be back in portrait mode.... hey, the device HAS an accelerometer, why not have it do the work. Plus, you're already using to to scramble the letters)

Thanks again!

 

[snctln]

Sounds great! I'm sure you're getting a LOT of positive feedback in the market.

If you need any beta testing, or if I can help you out in any way, let me know.

Any chance to get the accelerometer to change orientation? (I realize every change probably takes a LONG amount of additional programming, but I really think people would love to be able to simply turn the G1 horizontal, and have it switch to landscape mode, turn it back vertical and be back in portrait mode.... hey, the device HAS an accelerometer, why not have it do the work. Plus, you're already using to to scramble the letters)

Thanks again!

You are correct, the feedback has been mostly positive so far except for people that don't like that I plan to charge for it, and people that don't like some of the words that they see.

Adding the auto rotation is actually an extremely trivial thing to do with android, you just have to add the

androidrientation="sensor"

element to the application manifest, which is a simple as editing a text file. I think I left it out because sometimes when you would shake to scramble letters it would auto-rotate, I will see what I can do about that for the next update.

thanks again for the feedback

 

[ChilledMatt]

This is the best game on my phone so far and I will happily pay the nominal fee you are asking. Does anyone know how payment in the Market is to be managed. I am in the UK and I am interested in payment methods/exchange rates.

Don't take Marketplace comments to heart as it would appear to be populated by a lot of idiots!

Thanks for a great game.

 

[kabbie_mcfeely]

I really like this app and I am willing to pay the $1.00 for the new version.

Only one problem, it doesnt know alot of words. I dont have a list at this time but could maybe make one if needed.

Very fun app even with that minor glitch.

 

[snctln]

This is the best game on my phone so far and I will happily pay the nominal fee you are asking. Does anyone know how payment in the Market is to be managed. I am in the UK and I am interested in payment methods/exchange rates.

Don't take Marketplace comments to heart as it would appear to be populated by a lot of idiots!

Thanks for a great game.

Thanks for the feedback, I wondered how well it would be received in the UK, because I am using mostly a US English word list. I am glad it is workling out for you. As far as UK pricing, I don't think anyone knows at this pioint how all of that is going to work. I bet it will be linked ot google checkout, but no guarantees. The specific prices for the UK... I am not sure, how much does a standard iTunes download cost?

I really like this app and I am willing to pay the $1.00 for the new version.

Only one problem, it doesnt know alot of words. I dont have a list at this time but could maybe make one if needed.

Very fun app even with that minor glitch.

Thanks for the support of the paid app, hopefully they open the marketplace for paid apps soon.

As far as the word list, it uses a modified 2of12inf list from the 12dicts project which is basically the words fouind on this page I removed all of the words that are less than 3 letters or more than 6 letters. For the most part that is one of the most complete word lists around. THe earlier versions used my own heavily modified ENABLE2K list, but I got a lot of complaints about that word list so I swapped it for the more complete one mentioned above.

I also just released a new version (1.3) about an hour ago that adds options to show the game fullscreen and to enable rotate the screen by sensor readings. I personally don't like to enable the auto rotate because it interferes with the "shaking" when you "wrench" the letters.

A whole load of things have been updated check out the full list @ my website