can't ... stop ... playing ... wobble words ...

[gage006]

Hell, I'll probably be buying it when I get paid just due to you being a dev that actually seems to care about his product. Gotta love and support that. We need more solid games on the platform.

[Spunks3]

dbalmer... welcome to the forum and thanks for the great game.. i know you didn't use the homebrew capabilities of this forum, but you will see that if you stay in contact with the members here you will get tons of feedback.

[dbalmer]

Originally Posted by gage006

Hell, I'll probably be buying it when I get paid just due to you being a dev that actually seems to care about his product. Gotta love and support that. We need more solid games on the platform.

Awesome, thanks! And I do, definitely. I love games -- making them and playing them. I already have some really great feature requests, and look forward to more.

Originally Posted by Spunks3

dbalmer... welcome to the forum and thanks for the great game.. i know you didn't use the homebrew capabilities of this forum, but you will see that if you stay in contact with the members here you will get tons of feedback.

Happy you like the game! I've been lurking on the board since August, but have up until now been posting more in Palm's developer forums (obvious reasons). This is a great community, and I'm happy to be a part of it!

[imhyatt]

I just bought Wobble Words yesterday and I'm already addicted! What a fantastic game!! I love the details you put into it (pausing the game and going back to the title screen when in card view). I also appreciate that you have the letters rotate when you turn the Pre. That really helps me find new words when I'm stuck. Again, excellent work - well worth the price!

[dbalmer]

Originally Posted by imhyatt

I just bought Wobble Words yesterday and I'm already addicted! What a fantastic game!! I love the details you put into it (pausing the game and going back to the title screen when in card view). I also appreciate that you have the letters rotate when you turn the Pre. That really helps me find new words when I'm stuck. Again, excellent work - well worth the price!

Awesome! Glad you like it.

[allergic]

Great game!

I'm a bit confused on how scoring works exactly. I turned on the letter points... are words worth more with higher point letters? Is that still the case when the letter points are not displayed?

[dbalmer]

Originally Posted by allergic

Great game!

I'm a bit confused on how scoring works exactly. I turned on the letter points... are words worth more with higher point letters? Is that still the case when the letter points are not displayed?

Thanks! The letter scores are based on "Scrabble" tile scores, but with a 5x bonus for 5 letter words and a 10x bonus for 6 letter words.

If you use a blank, the game will match every dictionary word that can be formed with a letter in place of the blank. So, B_T will get you BAT, BET, BIT, BOT, BUT. So your score on that play will be all those words combined. you can use up to two blanks per word, so make them count! (hint: the right combinations can get you thousands of points)

[Eckless]

Originally Posted by dbalmer

If you use a blank, the game will match every dictionary word that can be formed with a letter in place of the blank. So, B_T will get you BAT, BET, BIT, BOT, BUT. So your score on that play will be all those words combined. you can use up to two blanks per word, so make them count! (hint: the right combinations can get you thousands of points)

The blanks are definitely key...my high score on default rules is 41,267...one "word" in that game was worth 32,760! I have a feeling there are some even higher scoring "words" out there...

A question about the scoring...if you have a "word" like [blank]ED, you get credit for words like BED, ZED, etc...does the blank count as 1 point for each word, or does BED get the scoring for a natural "B", ZED gets scoring for a natural "Z", etc...

Really having fun with this game!

- Eckless

[dbalmer]

Blanks definitely are key! When Wobble Words matches all the words possible using blanks, your score for that play goes up based on the word score for each word found, not the score for the blank itself.

[SmokeSerpent]

Originally Posted by dbalmer

During testing, just over 75K on untimed, 32K on timed (blanks for the win!). My favorite setting these days is 3min, shakes off, drops on, blanks off. Very challenging, my top score with those rules is 1292. Happy to see you're addicted (muhaha!)

1298! heh

[dbalmer]

For that setting, my new top scores are 1,503 and... 2,009. Methinks a leader board should be in Wobble Words' future.

[imhyatt]

Hey Dave - I recently had to replace my Pre which meant my WW high scores were all reset. My girlfriend LOVES the game and being pregnant and emotionally on the edge, I think she might try to kill me if I tell her her scores are all gone. Would there be any way of copying the high scores to my new Pre? (I still have my old Pre so I can access any files on it)

Thanks!

[dbalmer]

Originally Posted by imhyatt

Hey Dave - I recently had to replace my Pre which meant my WW high scores were all reset. My girlfriend LOVES the game and being pregnant and emotionally on the edge, I think she might try to kill me if I tell her her scores are all gone. Would there be any way of copying the high scores to my new Pre? (I still have my old Pre so I can access any files on it)

Thanks!

Ouch! All your scores and preferences are kept in a SQLite file on the device. Here's what I figured out so far, and this might work for you if you're at all handy with novaterm:

WW's database files are located in /var/palm/data/file_.var.usr.palm.applications.com.grrok.wobblewords_0

(your mileage may vary, I suggest cd'ing to each directory one at a time, that _0 looks suspiciously like "might be a different number")

1. Enable developer mode on both phones
2. On the new phone, launch the app and play a game (to save at least one high score and therefore create a high scores sqlite file), then close the app
3. Using novaterm (com?), grab the score database file from your old device
4. Check the files on the both devices in that database directory. One should have a higher number than the other, that should be your high scores (you can verify this by doing sqlite3 /var/palm/data/file_.var.usr.palm.applications.com.grrok.wobblewords_0/000000002323.db and so select * from scores, where 2323 is the actual filename)
5. If all goes well, after you copy it to your computer, rename the old phone's score db file (again verify with sqlite3 if you're not sure) to the new device's filename, then copy it over to the new phone.
6. Relaunch the app on your new phone and cross your fingers!

Obviously, do this at your own risk, yadda yadda. I'm tempted to explore putting the scores and preferences in the media area in an upcoming release. In theory, would make it much easier to copy files from an old device to a new (or to backup your scores in case your device gets messed up) because they would be visible if you put your phone in USB drive mode.

webOS Internals is an awesome resource for figuring this stuff out:
Portal:Accessing Linux - WebOS Internals

Really hope this helps, and if not, at least I can sympathize. I've got two kids (and have been through two pregnancies as the nervous father), and once lost the cartridge (and high scores) to "Tetris" for the original GameBoy... which was my wife's favorite pastime. She let me live, but not without a significant amount of guilt.

[the.teejster]

The APP CATALOG SUCKS IN CANADA !
Still no paid apps available here.
When ANY app moves to the App catalog and it's not free (even when demo / trial versions are available), it's NOT AVAILABLE for any Canucks to download

Is it possible to have this in BOTH the homebrew catalog AND App catalog ?


Thanks !

[rwgreenberg]

OK, here I am at 210,000 untimed. I can't stop! Does the game just keep going forever? It seems so. Will someone help me get a life please?

[dbalmer]

Originally Posted by rwgreenberg

OK, here I am at 210,000 untimed. I can't stop! Does the game just keep going forever? It seems so. Will someone help me get a life please?

Untimed never ends. And for that reason, I'm adding auto-save to a future version. As it is now, you can definitely minimize Wobble Words and move on to other things, and it'll still be there when you switch back to it. Take a break!

[Disgustoid]

One suggestion: Is there any reason why high scores are not automatically saved (with the player having to press "Save High Score" after a game)? I lost my high score of 3,200 or so points due to a brain fart on my part. Granted, my 3,200 pales in comparison to some other people's scores...

[dbalmer]

Originally Posted by Disgustoid

One suggestion: Is there any reason why high scores are not automatically saved (with the player having to press "Save High Score" after a game)? I lost my high score of 3,200 or so points due to a brain fart on my part. Granted, my 3,200 pales in comparison to some other people's scores...

Good question. Some early tester feedback was "um, I managed to get -30 points, I really don't want to save that score..." so I put in a regular "Done" button as well so people could skip it. Probably now that you mention it, really isn't any harm in having just the one button which does a save every time. I'll add to the wish list.

[Disgustoid]

Originally Posted by dbalmer

Some early tester feedback was "um, I managed to get -30 points, I really don't want to save that score..." so I put in a regular "Done" button as well so people could skip it.

You can score negative points?!

I'm not sure I understand that tester feedback. If you play enough, low-ish scores won't matter anyway since only the highest scores will appear on the board. I would imagine a -30 would get dropped from the board pretty quickly if you play with any regularity at all.

Thanks for listening to our feedback!

[dbalmer]

Originally Posted by Disgustoid

You can score negative points?!

I'm not sure I understand that tester feedback. If you play enough, low-ish scores won't matter anyway since only the highest scores will appear on the board. I would imagine a -30 would get dropped from the board pretty quickly if you play with any regularity at all.

Thanks for listening to our feedback!

Yes, you can. Try it sometime, it'll make you smile.