Word Slider

[Maupin]

Anybody game to try a Facebook app I've just put online? It's a daily word search puzzle that allows you to slide around the letters. I think the idea is fairly original, but then again I don't play a lot of word games.

The longer the words you create, the more points you get. The game ends when you use up all the letters (whether in actual words or not).

Word Slider



It includes an embedded dictionary, with definitions which I pared down (by script) from Wiktionary. Since that's a "wiki" dictionary, anybody can add any crazy/provincial/antiquated/wrong definition they want. I've been editing the odd ones as I see them.

The actual game wasn't hard to program at all. The Facebook integration (you have the option of posting high scores to your newsfeed) was the tough part. Only Facebook players have their high scores recorded, but I've also uploaded a non-Facebook version to mochi's distribution system. Not sure if word games get distributed very far, though.

As you can see, it contains an Amazon affiliate link. That's the monetization plan.

So far the biggest issue players report is that sometimes letters are hard to slide. And in some situations it can be difficult to select a word diagonally if the letter you're grabbing can also slide in one of the two cardinal directions encompassing the diagonal selection direction. I'm still looking into fixing this.

[MFS]

Pretty cool! Clever idea, although I found it pretty hard. Since the letters don't snap to a grid location on drop it really messed with my spatial recognition. Also, once two letters were heavily overlapped (50%) but unfortunately I didn't take a screenshot

[Maupin]

Thanks. Yes, it is possible to overlap the letters by dragging them around corners in certain ways. However they are still occupying a single cell each and will slide back toward the exact center of their cell if you make them part of a selection.