@HerbertKornfeld- Totally. That button was one of the things on my list, ended up working how it does due to time constraints. It's on my list! sorry about that @lordgek- those are great suggestions for modes. gonna have to mull em over. Thanks!!
Not that I've gotten that close to it yet but is there a bonus for using ALL of the letters in Tower?
there is, you get an extra 500 points, although I'm not sure anyones gotten it.. man gotta get those achievements in
Notes and feature suggestions, oh my. Thinking about this button thing more, if you’re planning on adding an “are you sure” dialog, it probably shouldn’t appear if you don’t have any possible words left. This way, users who press the button early will be protected, but it won’t be onerous for people who are truly trying to finish their game. Or, assuming that the last possible words are very obscure and might not be recognized, maybe the threshold for “don’t bother the user with an are you sure dialog” should be if there are only two or three words left. Or maybe you can solve this tiny problem the way that Apple has with their “Eject” buttons on their laptops: A quick press is ignored, but a long press actually activates the button. Just a few ideas that I had. You’ve probably already come up with something better. Something even simpler. A better Game Over experience In addition to seeing my score and my best word, I’d like to be able to see all of the words that I’ve used. Sometimes, I’ll happen across a word during gameplay that I’m unfamiliar with. I won’t know what it means, but it’ll look enough like a word that I’m able to select it. It would be nice if I could select the word and get a definition. This way, this fun word game will even turn a little bit educational. Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to send these unknown words off to a flashcard app like Mental Case using URL schemes or something. This feature probably shouldn’t appear during the game, except maybe in the non-timed versions of the game. But after the game, it’ll definitely be nice to see a list of all the words that I’ve come up with. Also, if I’ve found a word that’s particularly impressive, it might be nice to be able to select it after the game is over, and send it to Email, Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook. When you make each match, the board’s letters will be stored in memory for a bit, so when you later select the words, the game board can be recreated as it was. This way, you’ll be able to have an image to attach with the post. The image will show the word selected, and perhaps the score will somehow be included. From here, you should also be able to use this image to send a Game Center invitation. Speaking of… Multiplayer There are a couple of different ways that I could see this working. There could be a version of multiplayer that just shows the same exact stack of letters to each user, and they’ll compete to see who can get the highest score. This could work simultaneously if there are multiple devices, or it could work with one game after another if there’s only one iPad. Perhaps more interesting would be a multiple-device simultaneous experience where you’re working with shared letters. If somebody makes a word, the letters will disappear from both (all?) of the player’s screens. There will be an element of urgency involved. Do you work towards that long word or do you go for the easy smaller words before your opponent can get them? This type of competitive multiplayer also opens up the possibility of Power-ups. Some of these could help you, and some of them could help you screw your opponent. Could be fun. Misc. Some other word games have substituted “Qu” for the letter “Q”. This really makes things easier, and it might be a nice option in this game. The “must be this many letters long” numbers are an interesting new game mechanic, but they’re driving my dad crazy when he’s playing. Perhaps this could be an option. Every word that you’ve ever matched should be stored in a small database with your scores. On the Game Over screen, if you’re going to present all of the words like I’ve suggested above, the New Words should be presented separately, or they should be displayed in perhaps a different color. This will make it easier to quickly find the interesting new words that you’ve just matched. Instead of just showing me my current best word, there should be a local High Score List that shows me all of my top words and their point values. After multiplayer games, the post-game word list should also show you a list of words that only you came up with, or words that only your opponent came up with. Alternate dictionaries. It might be nice to play a word game that allows for proper nouns and naughty words. It’s always disappointing to find a clever word and then to see it not work. With an “expanded dictionary” enabled, perhaps your scores won’t count on the leader boards like they will with the official dictionary, but who cares. Some people play just for fun, and this would be a fun feature. During the Game Over word list, perhaps there could be a section (hidden by default) that you could reveal that shows all of your attempted word selections. This will mostly be errant selections where your fat fingers didn’t do what you wanted them to do. But this will also include all of the words that you attempted that weren’t in the acceptable-words dictionary. You should be able to protest the inclusion of certain words from here. This will automatically send the word and an optional note from the user to you, so that the word can be considered for inclusion in future updates.
"Some other word games have substituted “Qu” for the letter “Q”. This really makes things easier, and it might be a nice option in this game." Yes, Please!
Ahh, but what about all of these words? (copied from http://boardgames.about.com/od/scrabble/a/q_without_u.htm) QI QAT QIS QADI QAID QATS QOPH FAQIR QADIS QAIDS QANAT QOPHS TRANQ UMIAQ FAQIRS QABALA QANATS QINDAR QINTAR QIVIUT QWERTY SHEQEL TRANQS UMIAQS QABALAH QABALAS QINDARS QINTARS QIVIUTS QWERTYS QABALAHS MBAQANGA QINDARKA SHEQALIM MBAQANGAS
Why can't this be for iPhone also? I played halycon on friend iPad and I loved it. I would really love to see this on iPhone.... I doubt it though.
HerbertKornfeld- most epic comment ever thanks for the suggestions! I'm working on a lot of things for updates, and I'll be sure to keep a lot of that in mind. Especially the word lists stuff, a lot of people are asking for that one! ItouchBrett, h9lz444- I want to make an iPhone version so badly! the problem is the letters get very small. interaction is good, but not great. The big issue is making it so that the 'required letters' number can be large enough to read on a small screen. I just ran out of time for the original release. I'm working on it though, its a big priority
Enjoying this game very much. Busted into the top 5% on wordtower. Anyone got any suggestions to optimize your score? Do you usually look for the longest word first, or start at the bottom? Also in tower mode, does using the blue letters get you more points or should those be avoided?
here is how points work: (letter tile value's added up) * word length. so in tower mode, getting a blue tile on a 3 letter word isn't worth it because you're only getting *3 all those letter values that its removing. or it would be worth it if theres no other way to remove those letters since you're getting the lowest multiplier. whereas getting a 9 letter word with a blue tile would be really worth it, because you're getting *9 all those letters, and its unlikely you'd get that otherwise also another tip. if you double tap tiles, you can mark them with a little yellow triangle. This is helpful if you're trying to set up a big word, you can mark all the letters you want to use in advance so you don't accidentally use them when you're manipulating the board
My wife and I both really like spelltower. I would find it helpful if the 'add row' button and all the buttons that show when the game is paused acted on touch up instead of touch down so that they work more like game type select buttons and give me one last chance to change my mind after putting my finger down (on the wrong option).
This game looks great, but my English isn't good enough for English word games. I read in an interview that the dev considers adding support for other languages, so may I suggest Dutch? I know, it's probably not your first choice, but there are no great iPad word games in Dutch that I know of so you would stand out in the Dutch Appstore!
@sleifer: sure thing, I'll work that in ! @lena: actually, Dutch is my first planned language translation Hopefully that should be out in a few weeks
Oh wow! That's great! Ha, I really didn't expect that. Is it just going to be an update for the existing game, or should I wait for SpellTower - Dutch edition? I hope your word list is good. Don't know how standard these things are, but I never hear English people complaining about lots of unrecognized words in word games, and it is the number 1 complaint I read from Dutch people about word games that do support Dutch.
@lena : I was given a wordlist by another dutch person, if you drop me an email i can send it to you if you want to check it out. That would probably be helpful as I really have no idea . my email is [email protected]
@lena also i'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to split the languages, but most likely it'll be spell tower dutch edition, since i need to have separately visible game center leader boards, and I'm not sure theres a way to do that within a single game
I'm more impetuous -- bought. (That IS some pedigree) P.S.: This Thanksgiving, I give thanks for Toucharcade, and its users. Where would we iPad owners be without them.
Well, that makes it even more amazing that you'd actually do a Dutch version Totally psyched about that, so cool! And see, I knew I wasn't the only Dutch person waiting for this game Will send you an e-mail!
CPU usage? I adore Spell Tower - it's ridiculously addictive! However, I have noticed that it seems to run down the iPad battery faster than anything else I've ever used, and the iPad gets very hot playing it. Is this a bug? I have an iPad 1 on 5.0.1 at the moment. Anyway, it's worth it. (If I was going to quibble slightly, though, it would be that the antialiasing on the letter font looks not quite right to me. It bugs me a little on such an otherwise perfectly designed game!) S
