Word Play News & Patch Notes

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Word Play News & Patch Notes | SteamScope

Game Maker's Toolkitsteam_community_announcementspatchnotes

378d ago

Thanks for all the bug reports. I'm continuing to fix and improve the game - with a focus on show-stopping problems. Here's what I fixed in 1.03. New Added option on Steam Deck to show Mouse Cursor, if you prefer to play with a virtual mouse rather than touch (please use the system settings to change the joystick or trackpad to mouse emulation). Keyboard shortcuts only appear when you start using the keyboard. They won't show if you're a mouse only player Fixed Fixed issue with resuming a save with "This Modifier shows the next four tiles to come out of the Letter Bag" Fixed extremely rare crash related to giving random Upgrades Fixed issue with resuming a save game and Modifiers/Special Rounds that highlight which tiles are vowels Improved clarity on rules for Special Round "Can Submit Up to 4 Tiles" Fixed issue with Modifier "+2 Bonus Points if the word is the same length as the previous word" not working with compound tiles Fixed bug with "Tiles Refresh After Submission. Refreshes Cost Plays" Special Round and being able to get negative plays Added explanation on certain Modifiers to state exactly which tiles count as Special Tiles Fixed trigger issue with Modifier "If the word has exactly five tiles, the first and last tiles score 3x" Fixed save and load issue with Modifier "You can Refresh for free. Works once per round" Fixed issue with the game not using correct scores if you resume a save game while playing with a custom (non-English) Letter Bag Fixed issue with "Swap a tile with a Vowel from the Letter Bag" Fixed rare issue with tutorials and controls when playing with a controller Changed rarities on "Return First Tile to Grid", "Return Last Tile to Grid" and "If another Modifier is Sold or Destroyed, make a copy" Perks Changed description of a wildcard, to better explain how it operates and reduce ambiguity Removed a slur from the dictionary Fixed an issue with the Modifier "If the word contains a number from ONE to TWENTY, increase this Modifier by that many points"

How to play Word Play in another language

Game Maker's Toolkitsteam_community_announcementshide_library_overview

379d ago

Word Play is designed and developed to be played in English. Not only is all the text in English, and the dictionary only has English words, but much of the game is specifically and carefully balanced around the unique properties of English words, spelling, letter use, and so on. However - the game does have a secret way to play with other languages. This is an advanced, experimental, and largely unsupported way to play the game. Please do not attempt this if you're not familiar with modding games! Also, please note that this does not work with the pre-release demo version of the game. With all those caveats out of the way, here's how to play with non-English words.

Finding Your Save Location

First, you'll need to find the folder with your save game in it. Here's where to get it: Mac Users/YourUserName/Library/Application Support/com.GMTK.WordPlay PC YourUserName/AppData/LocalLow/Game Maker's Toolkit/Word Play You may need to show hidden files or folders to get here!

Making a Custom Dictionary

Inside this folder, create a text file called customdictionary.txt The text file should contain every word that you want the game to accept, in CAPITAL LETTERS, and in alphabetical order. You can include non-Latin characters. For instance, if you wanted to create a German dictionary you might make a file starting with... AACHEN AACHENER AACHENERIN AACHENERINNEN AACHENERN AACHENERS AACHENS AALÄHNLICH AALÄHNLICHE AALÄHNLICHEM AALÄHNLICHEN AALÄHNLICHER AALÄHNLICHES AALANGELFISCHEREI You should be able to find word lists online - try a search like "German word list Github" or "plain text German word list". When you next play Word Play, it will look for this file at the start of the game. You'll know you did it right if you see the tag "Custom Dictionary" in the bottom left corner (see above). Otherwise it will use the standard English dictionary.

Making a Custom Letter Bag

Having a dictionary full of non-English words is one thing - but the game will feel very strange with the English letter bag! For instance - a Z tile is worth 10 points because it's rarely used in English... but it's very common in Czech! And try playing in Hungarian without an Ö Tile! So, you can also make a custom letter bag, with unique tiles, letter values, and letter distributions. Here's how. In the same location as before, make a text file called customletterbag.txt On each line, write a 5 character code.

The first character is for the actual letter. For example: A.
The next two characters must be two digits, that represent the tile's value. For instance, if you want A to score 6 points, write 06.
The final two characters must be two digits, that say how many of this tile should be in the bag. So if you want 4 A tiles, write 04.

As an example, the bag for a Czech mod might look like this: {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45595259/81386acc322bcd32b388b4bbe4dbe3599dcb5480.png Where to get these values? You might get inspiration from an existing word board game that I will not name for legal reasons! See what values and distributions they use in your language and borrow those!

Errors, Limitations, and Reverting to English

As I say, this is a totally experimental and unsupported feature. It's totally possible to break the game if you do not follow the instructions carefully! I did not have time to code in complete error prevention - that's on you! The game also does not feature every non-Latin character - they will show as a square if not supported. Finally, if you wish to revert the dictionary or letter bag back to English, simply delete one or both txt files and next time you open Word Play it will be back to normal! Lemme know how you get on! Mark

Accessibility in Word Play

Game Maker's Toolkitsteam_community_announcements

406d ago

Hey! With Word Play less than one month away, I wanted to check in and talk about an important part of the game: accessibility. Accessibility refers to options, features, and design decisions that open a game up to people who have specific needs or requirements. And I've tried to pack the game with this stuff so that as many people as possible can enjoy the game. Let's look at some of the main ones...

Visual Accessibility

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45595259/757141d2a2722815e2ceddb306992f53e753b004.png The options menu features a bunch of ways to make the tiles more readable. That includes...

Lowercase Letters
High Contrast Colours
Multiple Dyslexia-friendly fonts
Colourful tags on vowels

Mix and match them to find a set-up that works for you. There's also a feature to turn off the spotty animated backgrounds if those prove too distracting.

Motor Accessibility

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45595259/525c745971198f87bfad5af6b384c7f1832b1c14.png Word Play should be effortless to interact with. So with that in mind, I've tried to make the game work across a number of input types. You can play Word Play entirely with...

A mouse
A keyboard
A controller
A touchscreen

The game can be played with a single hand. And while you can drag and drop tiles, you never need to do it. For instance - instead of dragging and dropping a tile onto the upgrade card, you can just click the card and then click a tile.

Other Accessibility

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45595259/9f8c5f3f0b5d8e8a1eb3040e3971b5882a30a514.png There are no punishments for taking too long to find a word, pick a perk, or choose your strategy. And there are no modifiers that provide a bonus for playing faster. So take as much time as you need to play. There is also no punishment for spelling a word incorrectly - and the game will even try to suggest a close match word in a little "Did you mean...?" bubble. Handy!

Difficulty Modes

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45595259/6e935864c81b4f6598a27fd96ac154f36a5c7a37.png Word Play can get pretty tricky - just try the Legendary or Marathon modes! But there's also an Easy Mode that's lots of fun too. Plus - there's the more casual Quick Play mode. This one doesn't require as much strategic thinking, and there's no fixed score requirement to hit - instead, it's just about how many points you can score. The only thing you need to beat is your own high score! I hope these features will make Word Play more accessible to more people. If you have a certain request or requirement that I might be able to implement please get in touch and I'll see what I can do.

What's in the full version?

Game Maker's Toolkitsteam_community_announcements

418d ago

Hey! Thanks so much for checking out the Word Play demo. As you can imagine, the demo only gives you a small sample of what the full game will contain. So here's a rundown of what to expect in the full release when it launches next month.

More Special Tiles

You've gotten to play with Golden Tiles in the demo, but the full game features a bunch of other upgraded tiles too. Like Dot Tiles, which double the word's score if used as the final tile. And Diamond Tiles, which power up every time you don't use them. There are others to discover!

More Perks

The demo features just 27 perks (that means the modifiers, upgrades, and gifts you can grab when finishing a round). But the full game has over 100 of them! Want to hold on to some tiles when refreshing? That's a perk. Want a tile that can mirror the letter to its left? That's a perk. Want to permanently destroy tiles? That's a perk! These perks will change the way you play, open up new strategies and synergies, and create almost infinite replayability.

More Special Rounds

The demo has a few special rounds which force you to play in a specific way - like "Words Shorter Than Six Tiles Score 0 Points" and "Tiles Refresh After Submission". The full game will have even more devious special rounds to test your spelling skills, and scupper your high score plans!

More Modes

The demo gives you access to Word Play's easiest and most basic mode. The full game has a slew of more difficult modes to play (just try and beat Legendary mode!), plus a daily challenge, and more.

More Music

The amazing composer Zach Jones (who did the music for Mind Over Magnet) has composed a brilliant soundtrack for this game. You can hear a couple tracks in the demo but the full score will be heard in the final game.

More More!

The full game will also have Steam achievements, Steam Cloud support, and more quality of life and accessibility features. There will also be more words in the dictionary. If you spell a word that's not in the Word Play dictionary, you can hit a button in game to petition for me to add it. I've already implemented some of the words you've suggested, including ZOOMER, OUIJA, VAPE, EMOJI, and WIFI. More will be added before the final release!

But When?!

Word Play will be released in July. If you add the game to your wishlist you'll get an email when the game goes live - and you can also take advantage of the launch week discount. But you should also subscribe to Game Maker's Toolkit on YouTube - I'll release a video when the game is released.

Future Plans

Don't worry - I've heard your requests for translated / localised versions of Word Play. I'd love to support this but as a solo developer I have to focus exclusively on the English version for launch. After that - I'll see what I can do. Even if it's just helping people mod additional dictionaries into the game. And I've also heard your requests for a mobile version! And I totally agree - that's why Word Play will be released on iOS later this year, and Android sometime after that. As for consoles (it sure would be nice on that Switch 2 screen...), we'll have to wait and see.

Word Play news & patch notes