Boggle

[pmb]

So, a while ago Tracy was bemoaning the fact that Yahoo Boggle doesn't work for her, so she couldn't play qousqous and have them find out who is the boggle master. I, in a fit of nerdiness, got a bug up my ass about the whole thing and created Boggle using only html.

It's only usable for people who play fair and have a sideband to chat on (i.e. AIM, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, IRC...) but right now goteam and qousqous are playing and having fun. I feel like I made something useful that made the lives of my friends better, and that makes me happy.

If you would like to play, simply click on the link above, which will take you to http://soy.dyndns.org/boggle. If you want to play with someone else, AIM them up and coordinate a game. Have fun!

The code is written in Python and shouldn't be too hard to understand for anyone who wants to muck with it. Making fun toys that people like is really gratifying!

Comments

[qousqous.livejournal.com]

Yay! Thank you! *hugs*

[goteam.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the fun game, Peter! I am still the Boggle champion, but I like your idea of playing lots of people via chatroom a lot. So, to anybody who reads this: my AIM screen name is Annetrijn, and I wanna play. Also, Peter's just implemented a sexy timer function on the online game, so we don't even have to rely on each other's honor to keep track of time anymore. Whee!

[pants-of-doom.livejournal.com]

I'll probably hit you up for some ass kicking.

[goteam.livejournal.com]

Let's rock!

[flamingweasel.livejournal.com]

That is very very hip. Now what it needs is something that runs while the people are playing and figures out how many possible words there are in the boggle board generated. If I only knew Python. Perhaps this is a good reason to learn.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

The python tutorial takes 2 hours to get through and is really good if you already know how to program. So check it out if you want to learn.

The real problem is that the number of possible words in a bogle board is very person-dependent. A lot of "that's not a word" versus "is too" goes on, so what dictionary should it be checked against? /usr/share/dict/words? Webster 1913? the OED (which I don't have an e-copy of)?

So my solution is to abdicate judgement and just deliver a warning if thee is a word that is not in /usr/share/dict/words and have players fight it out themselves. If they both agree that it is a word, as goteam and qousqous did for "ors", then it's fine if it counts. That's why I said the game requires fundamentally honest participants. That and the fact that scores and word lists are self-reported.

[pooplord.livejournal.com]

It's great, absolutely. I even enjoy playing by myself, which shows how retarded I am.

However, whatever dictionary you're using at the moment doesn't know that "cud" is a word. Well, then, WTF does a cow chew on all day?!?!? (Hint: The answer is not "your mom.")

[pmb.livejournal.com]

An excellent example of why restricting ones self to a particular set of words (dictionary, file, whatever) is stpuid. You still got points for cud, it just said "hey, maybe you want to double check that this is actually a word"

lookit them letters

[keturn.livejournal.com]

so you do use "cubes" to generate the board. How authentic! But the board is smaller than the "Master Boggle" here at Fun House, and it doesn't make that horrible racket every time you randomize it. None of the letters end up rotated or upside down either. Hmm.

Re: lookit them letters

[keturn.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that came off as far more critical than it was intended. I just got in to BOGGLEZ CODE MORE FEATURES!!!11!1 mode for a bit there. PYTHOOOON!, etc. But at the moment, I'm trying very hard to stick to my other plans for taking over the world instead of devouring minds and souls with the magic of new boggle implementations.

Re: lookit them letters

[pmb.livejournal.com]

I consider the lack of both horrible noises and upside down letters to be a "feature" rather than a "bug".

Also, it is a standard boggle board. You Fun House freaks have a bigass 5x5 master monkey edition. That would have to be an entirely different script. However, you, as one of the python masta's I know, would probably be in a good position to create one if you were so inclined