Hallo!

This is a compo entry, so where did the graphics for the avatars come from? Do you have a character designer software program?

The art is really good all around. The concept looks nice, different from "mash the keys to type words as fast as you can". This one is more of a word search.

However, I think it's some combination of too hard and Mordrax is borderline cheating, because here is a sample of "words" he was picking:

Skrik
Cly
Deva
Skol
Rill

Are the letters chosen at random? It seems to have a lot of odd mixtures that make it really tough to get "regular words".

By the way,

The DonationCoder LudumDare 32 April 2015 thread is here:
http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=40573.0

It happens to be their 10th anniversary! I don't program myself ... so I am unleasing Weapons Grade Enthusiasm!

If you stop by DonationCoder, please put in the code/tag LudumDare-Tao so they will know it's my doings that brought you in! I'm not

part of any of the site structure ... just doing my bit for my favorite site on the net!

Also over there, I post a few of my detailed reviews of some LD games.

This one is just missing the cut! I'd like to see a Post-Compo version!

--TaoPhoenix

Thanks for the detailed feedback. Much appreciated. I'll take a look at the site :)

The character avatars are modified photos, hopefully just about qualifying as derivative work (though I admit, not very good). I had hoped to replace them before the compo ended, but as I didn't quite have enough time, I opted out of graphics judging.

The AI player is using a freely available set of dictionary files, which is why he sometimes chooses seemingly unfair words. I'll see if I can locate a better quality dictionary to replace it with at some point.

Also yes, the letters are entirely random. Didn't quite get time to implement a more intelligent scheme for letter choice.

Cannot download without a dropbox account.

Fantastic implementation of a word search game - I was pretty exhausted after going one round against the evil Mordrak!

I actually had a surprising amount of fun with this one. I usually don't play word games like this so I didn't have much experience but it was a lot of fun. I do feel like the computer was a little to good and after trying and losing around four times I gave up.

One other thing is that i would not have realized how long I spent playing if the audio looped a little better.
ie at the end of the background track it "jumps" back to the beginning. if that loop would have been a little smoother I might have sat playing for hours.

OH one other thing! overall I really like the controls and the way it all worked, but there were a few times where i would try to type a word which appeared twice on the board, and it would only highlight one, usually the one without the fireball that i was going for :(. I dont know if I was doing something wrong, but this was just something I noticed.

Minor bug: Mordrax (or is it Mordrak, the description seems to disagree about that :P) was unable to come up with a word a few times and each time it displayed the word "CLEM" after his turn. Might've been the last word he played?

Reminded me somewhat of Puzzle Quest and I actually found it really amusing to play. I would've liked it if the words were selected by choosing the letters with a mouse though, because the automatic matching sometimes chose normal characters when special characters were available for the word.

Won with my second try using the word "OX", sadly I didn't spot a more insulting word for ending it :(.

Also it seems that your game has become self aware: http://i.imgur.com/KPn5bLE.jpg

Haha, that's brilliant. I did have it swear at me once too!

Agh, good spot on the typo!

Yeah, that's a slight bug I never quite got around to fixing when the AI player doesn't play a word. Relatively simple fix, but I was right down to the last minute working on it.

Also yes, the automatic word highlighting I guess is a bug in a sense. I was kind of aiming towards using that to increase difficulty, so you had to try alternatives if the auto find got the wrong one, as I actually found the game too easy most of the time (guess that happens when you play the game a lot as a developer!). Perhaps I'll implement tab to swap between possible chains. Or mouse, as you say!

Glad you guys have had fun with it :)

I'm honestly with the others but...
Imagine if this was multiplayer though....

This is pretty difficult. I only won because for about eight turns in a row the wizard didn't make any actions. The main reason this is hard is because I'm not used to identifying words in this way, since the board can be navigated non-linearly.

Yeah, the AI I implemented has difficulty finding 5 letter words or higher within the time limit, but was even more difficult if he consistently found 4 letter words. Need to fix that up for sure.

I may try and put in an alternate easier mode where you only search horizontally and vertically and save this mode for the hardcore. Or perhaps a mode with no turn time countdown.

Would love to do multiplayer with this at some point :)

I eventually bested Mordrax with many 3 letter fire words! A good twist on the typical word search, I liked it :D Music got annoying after a bit, but it was a nice piece, fitted very well.

damn that mordrax and his crazy words, he bested me! good work UKCoder.

My words just aren't strong enough. But I unleashed some pretty good "sentences" I guess. :)

Neat idea! I included it in part 5 of my Ludum Dare 32 compilation video series, if you would like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/esXlcAnzqGA

Love this entry, spent a while playing this. Love the music and the interface. The mechanics are pretty simple to pick up and can see this being a fun app I'd like to play on my phone. Awesome entry!

-Neith

I like the idea! Wish it gave more visual feedback when a word doesn't match though...

Nice game, the music and art are good. The game would need more feedbacks so that it feels more satisfying to throw 8 damages at Mordrak than 3 damages, this also applies when we lose or win. Also, I don't know if it is because of the resolution i choose, but the left and right were cropped and thus I couldn't see the damages I was taking or the life I had left. Good job nonetheless!