[casual_games] Text Twist type game

[Allen R Partridge]

Rajat,

I don't know how they do it, but I can tell you how I did it.

I pre-parsed words to set them into multiple arrays, based first on 
char length, then on alphabetical order - sort of a way to pre-search. 
So when I search I look only through the n letter words based on 
submit length and then through the index first letter array - that 
knocks down the options considerably so the actual search is quite 
small. I also generally further limit by generating temp lists as the 
person types so by the time they enter the word, it's down to one or 
zero options.

Along those lines, the most successful word games I've surveyed, tend 
to not have to deal with this level of unknown - because they aren't 
generally that open to options - often they are couched in a set of 
pre-chosen options etc. i suspect that this is done in order to ensure 
that the game is easier to play.

My own adventure in word game taught me two important lessons. 1) 
Don't make it too wide open - people find it frustrating not to get 
the reveal (IOW if there are n chars and 300 possible solutions, that 
pisses people off more than it amuses them.) 2) Don't make the 
interface too innovative - very few people find it easy to manipulate 
the chars in their mind - they like tools to line them up neatly in 
rows and even shuffle them around like you would perquacky dice on a 
table.

hth,

If you want to know more, let me know.

--al



On Thu, 16 Nov 2006 12:28:27 -0800
  "Rajat Paharia" <rpaharia+lists at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all - a quick question - how do they generate all the 3, 4, 5, 

>etc.

> letter words in a given sequence of letters in a game like Text 

>Twist? I

> assume there's some algorithm that does it? And does it do it on the 

>fly or

> is everything computed in advance and saved?

> 

> thanks, - rajat

> 

> -- 

> Rajat Paharia

> rajat at bunchball.com

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