Joggle

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Sweater Fish
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Joggle

Post by Sweater Fish »

Hey, Warmtoe, I really love your game Joggle. It's one of the most promising DC homebrews there is, in my opinion. I have a few questions, though.

First, why is there only four levels. Unless I'm wrong the game creates random boards and uses a dictionary to identify words, so you ought to be able to have infinite levels similar to the ones you already have, right? Are you planning a commercial release and/or entry in the Dream On contest or something?

Also, have you considered including a level or mode where there's no time limit and you just have to work away as many tiles as you can and then when there's no more possible words a certain number of points is deducted for each remaining tile. It'd be a more slow-paced and strategic way of playing. Well actually, there's lots of interesting ideas based on the basic game that you could implement in the future.

Is Joggle based on a game concept from PC or Java or something or did you come up with it yourself? I know it uses ideas from Boggle and Letter Linker and to Sega Swirl/Same Game and some other things, but I mean is it an exact clone of some existing game?

Anyway, I hope you're still working or planning to work on this game. It's a great foundation and absolutely deserving of continued attention.


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Post by Christuserloeser »

Yeah, it's definitly a wonderful and pretty addictive game! Even for people that aren't native speakers!
Thank you, Warmtoe :)
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Re: Joggle

Post by Warmtoe »

Sweater Fish wrote:Hey, Warmtoe, I really love your game Joggle. It's one of the most promising DC homebrews there is, in my opinion. I have a few questions, though.
Thanks - I'm pretty pleased with it too.
Sweater Fish wrote:First, why is there only four levels. Unless I'm wrong the game creates random boards and uses a dictionary to identify words, so you ought to be able to have infinite levels similar to the ones you already have, right?
Yes - you're right - It does generate random boards the 'game' part of it is what the goal is (so many words > so many letters etc). The available version currently has only the four rounds:

>=500 points in 60 seconds
>=5 3 letter words in 30 seconds
>=5 4 letter words in 60 seconds and
>=5 words beginning with F in 60 seconds

I also have a mode called 'jogword' which is like a crossword / wordsearch thing but not yet released - but you are right, I could add a bunch more levels keeping the same basic concepts... I'll work on adding some more levels and also try and make it progressively harder - that 2nd level is a bit tough!!
Sweater Fish wrote:Are you planning a commercial release and/or entry in the Dream On contest or something?
I won't rule either thing out, I'm not waiting for anything to put out a new version though - just time is against me! - Keep watching for a new release :-)
Sweater Fish wrote:Also, have you considered including a level or mode where there's no time limit and you just have to work away as many tiles as you can and then when there's no more possible words a certain number of points is deducted for each remaining tile.
Yes and no! Yes - it is possible to have a mode with no time limit (jogword has no time limit) but I hadn't considered a mode where the game lets you go til you've had enough and then punishes you for letters left over! I like the idea - you hit 'Y' when you've had enough and and when all players have 'had enough' the remaining tiles are totalled and divided between the players, and taken from their score - excellent, I'm already planning it - it'll be called a "Sweater" round.
Sweater Fish wrote:there's lots of interesting ideas based on the basic game that you could implement in the future
If you have any ideas PM me - I'll credit you for them..
Sweater Fish wrote:Is Joggle based on a game concept from PC or Java or something or did you come up with it yourself? I know it uses ideas from Boggle and Letter Linker and to Sega Swirl/Same Game and some other things, but I mean is it an exact clone of some existing game?
It draws on a lot of different concepts TETRIS (the blocks falling down), BOGGLE (the word linkage), SCRABBLE (multiplier tiles), crosswords / wordsearches (jogword mode) - but it is not a direct clone of anything in particular, I was orignially inspired by a 'pub quiz machine' actually - but it is nothing like that either!
Sweater Fish wrote:Anyway, I hope you're still working or planning to work on this game. It's a great foundation and absolutely deserving of continued attention.
It is going to get some, I have been working on it and the engine behind it constantly - and I will release something when I like what I have - which I do now, just hold on a while longer!

One thing that the GenCast debacle has made me realise is just how much people want to see progress with things - and I can understand it - you enjoy something and then it doesn't get updated in a year... I'm working to fix this for my games.
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Post by Warmtoe »

Christuserloeser wrote:Yeah, it's definitly a wonderful and pretty addictive game! Even for people that aren't native speakers!
Thank you, Warmtoe :)
Thanks - I should say, that it is coded in such a way to allow for non-english versions of the games, the dictionary in the current version is called ENGLISH.dct, is driven by ENGLISH.gam, has objects defined in a file called ENGLISH.odf and has rounds named RDENGxxx.rnd.

In short, producing a non-english version of the game ought to be pretty straightforward - care to try your hand at translating some of this stuff into your chosen language?! I can send you the strings - PM me!
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Post by SeGaFrEaK NL »

I could do a Dutch dictionary as well. Don't know how many words can be in it?
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Post by semicolo »

And I could do a french one, oh yeah PM...
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Post by Warmtoe »

I've written 'Sweater Fish' mode - re-arranged the levels some more - and added some other functions that were there but not used (eg bad words count negative) - I also modified Jogword mode a little - so it is there as an experiment.

Leaves me with 10 levels at the moment!
SeGaFrEaK NL wrote:Don't know how many words can be in it
I don't think there is a limit - the code to build a dictionary in the right format is my own - so I'd have to send you that.

By the way - any progress on the toons - the three I have are brilliant, and, now there are 'infinite rounds' the long ones are coming into their own - still need more for the 1 minute rounds though!
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Post by SeGaFrEaK NL »

Yeah I know, I want to write at least 2 other 1 minute tracks. Sadly one minute
tracks are the hardest to do. I've done tons of tracks in the past, I'll check if there's anything that could fit, but I'll also do some new ones this week.

)()(
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Post by Sweater Fish »

I've written 'Sweater Fish' mode
Ehheheh. Thanks a lot for that, now I'll be famous! I'm curious to see how that mode will play. I hadn't considered that the playerswill have to decided for themselves when to end the game, I assumed that the Dreamcast could automatically detect whent here would be no more possible words, but of course now that I think about it, that would actually be very complicated and time consuming for the CPU to have to calculate for every tile after every move.

I'm also quite curious to see what this Jogword mode will be like, I can't picture it from your description.

The next release should be phenomenal with new modes and levels and background music and maybe foreign language support. Now I'm looking forward to it more than ever. No hurry, though; your last release wasn't that long ago, so you might as well hold back to get as much polish as possible on the next.


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Post by SeGaFrEaK NL »

BTW Send over the dictionary files sometime with instructions on how to fill them correctly. Also, I doing some new tracks right now :D (just got a new sample cd in)
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Post by Warmtoe »

yay!
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