Monday, January 14, 2008

Happy New Year!

Finally! Wordsplay's interface is completely rewritten. It has many new features, including:
  • Drag and drop to rearrange the parts of the playing area.
  • Collapsible sidebar, with the option to have it auto-collapse when you start playing.
  • You can tell it to start one of the games as soon as you log in.
  • Ban (hide) other players who you think are cheating or using obscene names. If many people are banning the same player, I'll investigate.
  • Mark other players, to keep track of them if they change names.
  • Resizable game board, with auto-sized font.
  • Choose whether you are allowed to type words that are not on the board.
  • Choose between the normal count-down timer, one that only updates on the half-minute until the closing seconds of the round, or no timer.
  • Teams are revamped. When you change your name, you have the option to pick a team name. Members of a team see the scores of their teammates, while non-members only see the team score. You can choose not to see any teams in the score list.
  • When typing guesses, press Tab to rotate the board, space or Enter to submit your guess, or Delete to erase your guess.
I hope to wrap up the Beta by next weekend, so if you don't already have a login, get one! I expect to keep the current WEBoggle interface as "Classic" mode, but it will become part of WordSplay, and therefore will require the same login.

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been a loyal Wordsplay player for about a year now and I was pleasantly surprised this evening when I opened the page to find everything revamped. I love all the options! Great job!

juliecache said...

Love the new wordsplay layout. the moveable windows are great.

Robin Hobbs said...

It looks great, but the game board cuts off the bottom row. I can pretty much guess what the letters are most of the time. How can I adjust the size of the board to make it fit?

Anonymous said...

The new interface is beautiful. Thank you, Evan!

Anonymous said...

Loved the Beta version, sorry the revamp no longer works in my browser.

Anonymous said...

Will miss the beta... new version doesn't work in my browser (Safari)

Anonymous said...

The new version just caused IE6 to crash. :(

Evan Simpson said...

harvester: drag the thin horizontal bar (just below the letters) up or down.

beachcatz52 and brenda (and anyone else with problems): PLEASE EMAIL ME with details! I want it to work for everyone, but I need detailed bug reports: which browser (and version), which operating system, what *exactly* "doesn't work"

Thanks eveyone!

Robin Hobbs said...

I tried that several times but it doesn't work.

Anonymous said...

I would like to have the option to keep playing the old one. I prefer its interface, and if the new one is slower, I probably won't be playing at all . . . :-(

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for creating such a nice game. I am a
TANGLEWORD refugee and I appreciate a place to play. I recognize some other names here too. I miss talking with the other players, but you can't have everything, especially for free.

kathie99 (kathi99 at TANGLEWORD)

waldo said...

How do I get past words used to appear and my score compared to others that have played?

Anonymous said...

I recently started playing Weboggle and just found this version. I love it. However, on my laptop at work the players list with scores and the word list at the end of each game don't load. All I see is the board and the list of words I guess during the game. It works fine on my home PC. Both are using Windows Vista and IE7. Is there a setting I'm missing on my laptop?

Anonymous said...

IE has crashed twice when I tried to start the 4x4 Board after logging in. Please don't switch us to the new version until it's bug free. I need my weboggle fix!

Anonymous said...

another Safari user... I get to play the game same as always, but I never see anyone else's scores/the total list of words, etc... takes a lot of the fun out of it when there's no one to compete with :(

Anonymous said...

Thanks for a great game, I spend hours playing.

Just one little niggle with the new version, the cursor doesn't stay in the "try" box, and I have to click in the box at the start of each game to get it back there.

Anonymous said...

I have loved playing Wordsplay, but unfortunately since the most recent changes were made, it doesn't work for me (when I click on the 5x5 link it won't do anything. I noticed that Brenda says the new version doesn't work with her browser (Safari). I use Safari as well. Is there any chance this will be rectified in the future?

Evan Simpson said...

Beta will not end until there are no show-stopping bugs. Safari users, fear not - I will get my hands on a Mac tomorrow and figure out the problem.

Anonymous said...

one thing that i noticed was that scores over 100 were shown as 1.. and then were cut off. can the scoreboard be widened somehow?

jfa said...

love it love it love it! thank you so much -- Jennie (washwords)

jfa said...

btw, i'm a a mac user - just download firefox all - it'll work great! promise!

Anonymous said...

I've found the new version to be painfully sluggish, and very temperamental about accepting commands, in every Mac browser I've tried (Firefox, Safari, Camino, iCab, Opera, all via broadband on a G5 Power Mac). But given the new interface, I doubt that I'd play this game even if the hurdles were removed.

The game board is huge, the arrangement of its components (even after customizing the layout...when customization works) is user-hostile, and the sheer amount of screen clutter is thoroughly invasive. Very disappointing.

I'll be glad to contribute funds (and continue playing) if the existing (weboggle.shackworks.com) game board design remains available, assuming it looks and functions exactly as it always has. Otherwise, no.

Thanks for the effort, Evan, but really, more is less.

Unknown said...

the beta version only shows a blank screen in safari 2.0.4 running in os 10.4.9

judijudijudi said...

Mac user here. I can't get info to load in the "last round" or "word list" boxes. Game board and "guesses" work. Tried on Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer (couldn't get anything to load on IE). Emptied the cache, restarted. It's up to you. You can delay that law career a bit while you tend to our game needs. : )

Anonymous said...

Now it doesn't work at all on IE6 - I click the "Play 5x5 Board" link and the only thing that happens is that I get the little "error on page" icon in my status bar.

I think perhaps it would be good to restore the old beta version while you work out the bugs in the rewrite. (And take down the big red "beta is ending" messages from weboggle, because I think it's inducing unnecessary panic.)

Anonymous said...

old bugs have been fixed and replaced by new bugs:
- word list for last round not sorted by length. some mixture of length and alphabetical.
- It doesn't show my guess until I've finished typing it. Nothing appears after "Guess:"
- That little window that says, "foo: 1 point!" is appearing in some nuisance place, where it covers up text I want to see.
- I tried dragging part of the game to another place on the screen, but it didn't stay there.

Anonymous said...

It got so it was crashing IE6. So I deleted all temp files. Now it works, and it shows my guess as I type it. My other bugs are still there.

Anonymous said...

First - my wife and I play either webboggle or wordsplay every day! The moveable windows are great. But, on Safari 3 on the Mac (OS X 10.5.1), using the default text size, the last-game scores window cuts off in the middle of the scores. Firefox seemed OK.

Jackie said...

I miss beta. I particularly miss the short player list. In a way we got familiar with some of the regulars and now they're mostly gone. Bring back beta!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for all that you do to provide mind-numbing addictive and arguably worthwhile gaming!

One change needed for me at least: after you go to the grid to rearrange the letters, it should automatically put your cursor back into the word screen instead of requiring that extra step.

Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

I LOVE what you did!
Thank you!
Thank you!

When I get a PayPal I'll surely donate!

Unknown said...

I was using the new beta version, but the 5x5 will not come up for me. I use Firefox (1.0.3) running on Windows XP pro. 4x4 worked, but I really like the 5x5 version. When I accessed teh 5x5, it just sat there, no screen, no countdown timer.

I have gotten hooked on your "classic" version. Thanks.

Lynne said...

OK .............. I really like it. Hated the old style and went back to playing WEBoggle but had so many problems. This I like. Thank you so much. Problem is .............. when will I have time to iron children's clothes and cook husband's meal? Oh well. Thank you Evan

Anonymous said...

So this morning, the "Word list from the last game" suddenly appeared at the bottom of the left column, off my screen, rather than in the right column, where it has been before. I want it to fit on my screen, so I tried to drag it back to the right column, but it won't stick; as soon as I lift my finger it snaps back to where it was. On the other hand, when I drag it to the middle colum, it sticks, but that doesn't help, because there's already too much stuff in the middle column; the list ends up off the page again.

Anonymous said...

I have been a WEBOGGLE fanatic for several years now and also play Wordsplay occasionally. I have just now come from Wordsplay and I was not happy with the HUGE letters on the board! Is there any way to minimize them so that they're not so overwhelming? It was so distracting for me that I'm not sure I'll use that site again (unless of course, WEBOGGLE is down and I haven't yet had my fix). I LOVE this game!

Anonymous said...

For the past day or so when I've tried to get onto Wordsplay its been SUPER SUPER SLOW and today it wouldn't even let me log in. I need my fix, can you let us know what the problem is. P.S. This has happened to me from 2 different networks, both at work and at home,

Anonymous said...

Thanks for Weboggle! I have loved it for years. I just tried the beta and am impressed. I think the letters are way too big, though, and the frames overlap each other during play (even though I've never tried to move them myself). Good work!
Susanne Kendrick Archer, Euless TX

Terri said...

Thank you for this great game! Using Firefox 2.0 on WinXP the 4x4 board shows up as 4x3. Resizing does not make the last row appear. Also, you can use Safari on a PC if you don't have a Mac; should be a close enough testing environment (with just a final test pass on the Mac).

Bree said...

Just found the new version. Using Firefox 3 beta 2. The game board (as others have complained) does not show up entirely on the bottom row. Dragging the bottom border doesn't help. And currently, I can't access either the 4x4 or 5x5 board. I'll keep trying. Thanks for all your hard work!

Anonymous said...

I've made some changes on my end and it worked for two days now it is worse than before. I can't read the bottom line at all. I am running Fedora Core 8 and Firefox 2.0.0.10. On 1/16 and 1/17 the game worked great with Fedora and Firefox, but since then I can't play the 4x4, only the 5x5. It looks great, and when it worked, it was wonderful. I hope you can iron out the bugs.