Wordly is a simple, but addictive word game, inspired by Wordsmith on my TiVo ® Series 3. This page describes the version for computers running Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. There is also an iPhone version, which is the same concept but has a rather different implementation.
Wordly was formerly called Word Up!, but I changed the name due to the request of the trademark holder: Word Up Game from Skunk Studios. Then it was called Word Nerd, but I changed that name too due to the request of the trademark holder: Word Nerd Language and Educational Services Ltd.
Click letter tiles in the first row of the board to form words. Words must at least three letters long and present in the built-in 178,691-word Tournament Word List.
You can use only the tiles in the first row of the board. Each time you use a tile, the tiles underneath it move up and the new top tile becomes available.
Click Apply to accept the currently formed word and add the word score to your total score. This button is only clickable when the formed word is valid.
Click Undo to remove the last tile added to the current word area and move it back to where it came from.
Click Clear to remove all tiles in current word area and move them each back to where they came from.
Click New Game or Quit when the dialog appears at the end of the game. The game ends automatically when the program detects that there are no words remaining on the board. You may also end the game yourself if you are stumped by clicking New Game or Quit in the Game menu. If you end the game and there are ten or less tiles remaining, a dialog will appear that shows you some of the possible words that were available on the board.
The score for a word is calculated as the total point values of the letters multiplied by the length of the word. The score for a game is simply the sum of the scores for each word formed.
When the game ends, if your score is in the top ten, then you will be prompted to enter your name for the top score list.
Click View | Top Scores to see the top scores. From the top scores window, you can view the game details for any of the top-scoring games. The game details include a list of all words played for that game. There is even a Replay Game button that lets you start a new game using the same board as the game in question.
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| Windows | Mac OS X 10.5 | Linux (Ubuntu 7.10) | Linux (RHEL 5) |
This game was written with Python (specifically, version 2.5). For the earliest versions, I used PyGTK for the GUI. For latter versions, I switched to using wxPython, as it gave a more native look on a wider variety of platforms; especially Mac OS X. The code below should work on any machine that has Python 2.5 and a reasonably recent version of wxPython. The code is licensed under the GPL.
I also wrote a verion of the game for the iPhone and iPod Touch, though the UI is naturally quite different and it's a completely different code base since it's written in Objective-C, rather than Python. The iPhone version is available on the App Store, by clicking below:
If you enjoy this game and would like to send me a donation to encourage me to write more software...
Written by Marc Abramowitz with Python and wxWidgets (i.e.:wxPython). Packaged for Windows with py2exe. Packaged for Mac OS X with py2app. Windows installer created with NSIS.
Inspired by Wordsmith on my TiVo® Series 3, written by Carl Haynes whom I thank for an entertaining game and a thumbs up to the idea of releasing this software. Note that I took only inspiration from Wordsmith; not code, so please direct questions, bug reports, and comments about Wordly to me rather than Carl.
Wordly uses tiles reminiscent of the tiles from SCRABBLE®, but is otherwise different and is in no way affiliated with that game or its trademark holders.
TiVo® is a registered trademark of TiVo Inc.
SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.
