[Project] Scribble Scrabble

[John Anderton]

Scrabblet is basically a scrabble game for the pc. There was a time when i had the intense craving to play scrabble but i couldn't find a good game for ages so hear is my attempt to solve that problem

Scrabblet is a game to be developed in C# and initially will be a desktop application. It shall have 2 modes, single player and dual player.
This is what the initially version to have. Mostly, this version is planned to be an alpha. Then this application shall evolve into having peer to peer (p2p) connection abilities (I'm pretty sure p2p is an inappropriate use of the term but it gets my idea across doesn't it? ) Behold the beta/final release.

At this moment, there is another thing planned for it which is, in my opinion, a great addition to this application. I'm not sure that there will be enough time to complete it so i don't want to say anything for now. But if i do add it, you'll be the first ones to know

I just found that there are quite a few things named "Scrabblet"
If anyone has a better name, please let me know. I usually suck at naming stuff

* John Anderton remembers "SuDoku Solutioniser" and laughs -ch:

Note to strider: The "", "", "" and "" emotes are still missing. Please do something. I miss them :cry:

EDIT: Oh yeah, if anyone has any idea where i can get hold of a downloadable text dictionary then let me know. I have an idea but im not sure if the dictionary will be complete so something a bit more official would be better

Update: This is something I decided over 6 months back but I thought it was time I made an official announcement. I have decided to name the project "Scribble Scrabble". The features remain the same. Though major development hasn't started as of yet, the feature list remains the same more or less. There might be a few surprises depending on the time constraints. The first release is planned to have direct ip to ip connect at least and will be extended to connectivity over a hub later.
The base classes were made a few months back and development shall continue soon
Update made on 08^th of June, 2007 at 12:23 PM

[SaM]

A game in the package...that'd be different. 
The idea souds good. If the alpha product could be extended in its next phase to 2 player support over online connectivity, that'd be awesome.
Also, I'm sure you'll be trying to make it look impressive since it is a game. The final product could be a stunner.

All the very best JA.

SaM

[John Anderton]

Well the alpha wont be released so its just going to have 2 player support. Multiplayer support over LAN or the internet will be part of the release (beta and hopefully not final) but for this you will need a direct ip connection.
If i get around to actually making a server based game for online multiplayer games, that would be great

[strider]

hmm, scrablet... sounds interesting... i really dont have a craze for scrabble... but still, best of luck for ur app, am sure wit ur ideas and skill for details, u wud make it one stunning game. hav fun developin it, cuz, frankly i feel, big or small, hard or easy, the most imp thing is to enjoy making the app!!!

as for the dictionary, i was thinkin of a few things, cuz well, even we [me n nick] r searchin for a dictionary... y?? well, actually since it was nicks idea, i will wait for him to reply here. i think he must hav forgotten it, but am sure the dictionary mite remind him...

as i was saying, ms word has its built in dictionary, even firefox as spellchecker... so from whr do all these come?? secondly, i feel, we basically need the spelling of the word and its type, like verb, noun, pronoun watevr for scrabble. thr are lots of site out there tat offer free stuff like meaning of words, thr types and stuff... so basically, can we simply make smthng tat wud read all this info from a site??? like, i am not very sure whether this sort of info comes under rss or smthng... i really dont have an idea... or if the site stores all this data in some kinda db, with separate columns for the word, its spelling, pronunciation, types, etc.. get my point, then we cud request them to provide us with only the data tat we require... it wudnt be eeasy. but we cud try convincing them... i mean, sam, wasnt this the kinda idea tat the guy at the developer seminar gave?? i am just offering ideas... cuz, eventually, evn i need a dictionary!!

regarding the smilies, am looking. say wat, send me some nice cool smilies, will ya, i will add them. as for the ones u were asking for, am really sorry, but cud u tell me wat they look like?? a few i understood, like wink and simple smile, wat are the rest??? my idea of smilies is simple click and deploy!!

edit1: i was thinking, if we use an offline dictionary, and considering we manage to get a copy of one and i doubt we cud manage one with all the latest acceptable words, wudnt an offline dictionary get outdated?? like, a year or two down the line there mite be new words tat are perfectly acceptable then, but as our dictionary is outdated, they arent valid?? i know the chances mite be less, but was just wondering... in tat case wudnt it be better if we cud simply get updated copies of our dictionary wenevr the user chooses to update?? like are there any sites tat allow this??

[John Anderton]

I was thinking of an offline dictionary for the initial stages and they would be different than the ones in word and firefox cause  it shouldnt have slang. The acceptable words in scrabble are different as compared to normal dictionaries (or something like that. forgot the exact rules)
Anyway, stridy, as for the whole outdated dictionary thing, ive already thought of it I'm adding an auto update feature. It was one of the first things i thought of when i thought of an app

As for the smiley's, ill send you a few soon when ever i get time

[strider]

hmm, if u have a source of updating ur dictionary, i suppose u must also b havin a source for gettin the dictionary in the 1st place, rite?? or u r assuming tat u wud be able to update watevr dictionary u get? anyways, lemme kno wen u hav got a solution...

[John Anderton]

What i was thinking is having a copy of the dictionary online and letting the app check the version number it has with the one online. If its outdated, it downloads the new dictionary. And yes, i do mean to update the dictionaries for quite some time

The source for the dictionaries could vary. The best one i thought of was a text version i saw with a software about 4 years back. Im sure i can get my hands on it but the problem is, thats not a scrabble dictionary (ie only having words that are bound by the rules of scrabble). There are a few more ideas i have that ill check up on once i get more time. If anyone has any ideas/sources, do let me know

[strider]

most dic have the type of word in a fixed format after the word. say "swimming (gerund)" or watevr ... [damn, i cant recollect wat a noun is??!!!] so as long as all the dic contains words in the same format, u cud, go thru it once, xtract words tat r suitable to scrabble and create a new dictionary...

and y do i get the feelin tat u manually plan to create and update ur dic??? its just my opinion, try and get it automated, it makes more sense tat way... i personally wud prefer to waste 4 days in tryin to get a uptodate online dic, rather than manually update the dic wenevr new words are allowed.

i know u mentioned smthng snwhr bout slangs, but i am not really sure wat type of word does it come under... [thr has to be word to describe things like noun, verb, adverb etc as a whole...] hope u manage to get wat u r tryin for...

[John Anderton]

By manually i meant update my copy online by using a webscript to tell me what an online dictionary has changed
Then i can find the suitable changes that i have to make. Ill copy paste and voila! Next time your app checks for an update, it will download the new dictionary

so as long as all the dic contains words in the same format, u cud, go thru it once, xtract words tat r suitable to scrabble and create a new dictionary...

Thats exactly what i was planning to do

[strider]

oh... cool... so... wats the prob??

like, i just did a google for free dictionaries, i found lots of them, i guess, atleast one of them must be downloadable, or fitting ur criteria, rite??

[John Anderton]

This is just an official announcement that the project has been renamed to Scribble Scrabble. Most of you might already know of this since I've used this name quite a few times over the past 6-7 months. An update note has been added to the opening post of the thread.

Edit: I was reading this thread and I thought I should say yes, I do have a good scrabble dictionary

[nickus_rules]

honestly lukng forward to a project frm u JA...wud luv to debug tht givn the fact u wud hve already dne tht!!!! so it wud be interesting to actually find any bugs at all in scribble scrabble!!!!

[strider]

hmm, i actually never thought of it that way...

considering ja is such a thorough tester, i doubt any bugs would be left in his apps, unless he chooses to deal with them in later releases!! well, the release thread of scribble scrabble might just be the shortest considering there wont be any bugs to report... only congo messages and appreciation cool yaar...

looking forward to scribble scrabble.

[John Anderton]

And answering strider's question from his edit to the first post by him in this thread, I had thought of all of that before announcing the project. When its released, you will see how I tackle outdated dictionaries and other problems of the sort.
Any other ideas?

[strider]

ja, u know u seem to be spending too much time with anna...

anyway,

for the benefit of the readers [as ja chose to direct all of us to my question rather than quoting it], my question was:

edit1: i was thinking, if we use an offline dictionary, and considering we manage to get a copy of one and i doubt we cud manage one with all the latest acceptable words, wudnt an offline dictionary get outdated?? like, a year or two down the line there mite be new words tat are perfectly acceptable then, but as our dictionary is outdated, they arent valid?? i know the chances mite be less, but was just wondering... in tat case wudnt it be better if we cud simply get updated copies of our dictionary wenevr the user chooses to update?? like are there any sites tat allow this??

to which i think we got an answer,

What i was thinking is having a copy of the dictionary online and letting the app check the version number it has with the one online. If its outdated, it downloads the new dictionary. And yes, i do mean to update the dictionaries for quite some time

The source for the dictionaries could vary. The best one i thought of was a text version i saw with a software about 4 years back. Im sure i can get my hands on it but the problem is, thats not a scrabble dictionary (ie only having words that are bound by the rules of scrabble). There are a few more ideas i have that ill check up on once i get more time. If anyone has any ideas/sources, do let me know

And answering strider's question from his edit to the first post by him in this thread, I had thought of all of that before announcing the project. When its released, you will see how I tackle outdated dictionaries and other problems of the sort.
Any other ideas?

dude, as the developer of the project, you were EXPECTED to do have thought of it   but still, we are happy nonetheless that you chose to think all of it before announcing the app

and finally any ideas...

if u do manage to have players over a network play together, then can we have statistics? like, for each player, there exists a list of all players he played against, the winners, scores. mebbe u could even store the words used in the game... just so that if the player wants, he can review his game afterwards. u could even integrate a chat interface so that the 2 players can talk to each other.

u may or may not have thot of all this, if u have good for u and for us if u implement them. if not, then give them a thot to see if they are required or not...

best of luck.