Ability to change the word length

[bru65pag]

I was thinking it could be cool to have the option of choosing the world length before playing.

As far as implementation is concerned, I'm willing to give it a try. But my background is more with C/Python/Rust, and I might struggle at using React and TailwindCSS. Let me investigate a bit.

@octokatherine, thanks for the game. I'm looking into implementing a version on a 16K RAM ZX81 for fun.

[octokatherine]

I think this could be a fun addition! If you don't want to implement, maybe someone else will pick it up

[defyentropy]

@octokatherine I was thinking about this feature too. I would like to try implementing it if @bru65pag doesn't mind. However, I have a few questions:

• Would the number of guesses allowed have to change (because if you had a 3 letter word, you wouldn't be able to rule out or confirm as many letters with just 6 guesses)?
• There would have to be limits to the word length, since really long words would be hard to guess. I was thinking 3 to 7 letters?

[bru65pag]

@defyentropy, please go ahead. I'll try on my side as well, but since I'm starting from scratch with WEB dev, it might take a while.

@octokatherine, where did you pick the list of words? Would be good to reuse the same source for different lengths.

[octokatherine]

@defyentropy

Would the number of guesses allowed have to change (because if you had a 3 letter word, you wouldn't be able to rule out or confirm as many letters with just 6 guesses)?

I think this will be okay if we make 4 letter words the minimum. Let's stick with 6 guesses for simplicity.

I was thinking 3 to 7 letters?
Let's start with 4-6 and iterate based on feedback

[octokatherine]

@bru65pag

@octokatherine, where did you pick the list of words? Would be good to reuse the same source for different lengths.

I downloaded the word list from here

I used the full list of valid 5 letter words in words.js to check submitted answers against.
Then I manually filtered those to just well known words inside answers.js which are words that can be the target answer word.

If we add more word lengths, we should use the same technique

[bru65pag]

@octokatherine
I now have a words7.js for 7-letter words. 25133 words! It's in bru65pag/zxmasterword/data/words7.js. I will work on an answers7.js, but going through 25K words might take me a while...

[defyentropy]

@defyentropy

Would the number of guesses allowed have to change (because if you had a 3 letter word, you wouldn't be able to rule out or confirm as many letters with just 6 guesses)?

I think this will be okay if we make 4 letter words the minimum. Let's stick with 6 guesses for simplicity.

I was thinking 3 to 7 letters?
Let's start with 4-6 and iterate based on feedback

Sounds good. Thanks for clearing it up!

[defyentropy]

@octokatherine I'm really sorry to say this, but I don't think I'll be able to work on this issue anymore, because I'm extremely busy right now with exams and whatnot. I did manage to get a rough draft of a system to allow the user to change the word length working, but I'm not sure I have enough time to filter through thousands of words and choose more commonly known ones. I hope you understand.
For what it's worth, I love Word Master and think it's a great project, and hope it becomes even more popular in the future.

[octokatherine]

no worries @defyentropy!

[kcamsanc]

@octokatherine Hi! I've played your game a ton and think it's a fun project. I might be interested in working on this issue, but I wanted to ask, based on your experience with your project, how long would you guess it would take to implement this in full?

[bru65pag]

Good morning @kcamsanc ,

I am currently working on it (started two days ago).
It took me a while to setup React locally (I'm an absolute beginner in React). I have modified the settings screen already, created arrays with 7-letter words, and am currently reworking the main screen. I hope to be done with something that works by next week.

I would be more than happy to share my work if you want to contribute; but I"m really not sure how to do that in git/github. If you know, I'll be more than happy to give you access.

Final note: I spent about two hours so far on the topic, and expect that a few more hours should be enough (I am an absolute beginner in React, that is why it takes me more time than it would to a seasoned React programmer).

Happy coding. Bruno.

[bru65pag]

Good morning,

As mentioned last week, I'm still working on this. I hit a new road block :-) tailwindCSS. I had never used it before. It took me a bit of time to have it installed on my computer and get familiar (more or less) with it. I might be a bit behind on schedule, but hope to be able to have a working version end of this week beginning of next week.