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Blazing Games - Ultimate Retro Project - Volume 4 - Episode 37

Ultimate Retro Project
Episode 37: Classic Word Scramble

Unscramble the words as quick as you can!

Page Last Updated: April 1, 2006

Introduction

Word scramble is a game that most people have played. I first played the game as part of a grade-school assignment. I have also seen this game in newspapers and in game books.

The computer adds the ability to time how long it takes you to solve a word, which can be used to score the game.

Using the Console

Creating text games is interesting, but my goal was also to present the game in a way that would simulate a teletype machine as close as possible. This is why the game uses my console.

My Teletype Emulator is designed to simulate playing the game on an old teletype machine, down to the dot matrix output. Anybody who has used an old printer knows how slow they were. They were also noisy, but out of the goodness of my heart, I decided to leave the noise out.

For getting input from the user, I decided to go with a fancy LCD model, in which what you type will be send to a LCD display for your approval before being transmitted to the machine. Unlike real machines, my terminal is intelligent and will only let you enter something when the program is requesting input. Any other typing is ignored!

Playing the Game

The first thing that you do is select the list of words that you want the scrambled words to be chosen from. The game then starts.

In each of the ten rounds, you are shown a scrambled word. You must then type the unscrambled word as quickly as you can. You gain 20 points for getting the word correct. Bonus points are rewarded for solving the round faster than the par time up to a maximum bonus of 30 points.

System Requirements

This game is requires Java 1.1 or better to run. Browsers that support 1.1 tend to be 4.x or better versions. Windows XP users may have to download a Java plug in to use Java applets.

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PLAY Classic Word Scramble

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This game is open source with the source code being hosted at ultimateretroproject.dev.java.net