"You Sunk My Scrabble-Ship" by NTurnerGames

made by NTurnerGames for LD 41 (COMPO)

Inspired by a throw-away line from The Simpsons, "You Sunk My Scrabble-Ship" is a challenging word game for one player combining the Naval Strategy of Battleship with the Word Matching of Scrabble.

Attempt to find the hidden words in each level by launching Scrabble tiles into the ocean. In order to sink each word, you must correctly guess each letter in it. Find all the words to advance to the next level. Complete all 9 exciting levels if you can.

This game was made in 48 hours for Ludum Dare 41, without crunching or late nights.

Source code is included for study. Produced using Puzzlescript.

(The game is hard (possibly unfairly so), however if you want to cheat, the level definitions are toward the end of the source file, and the hidden words are easy to spot in them).

HTML5 (web)	http://nturnergames.com/YouSunkMyScrabble-Ship.html
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/you-sunk-my-scrabble-ship

Ratings

Overall	524^th	3.1⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Fun	559^th	2.85⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	241^th	3.575⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Theme	190^th	3.9⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	489^th	2.9⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Audio	381^th	2.7⭐	17🧑‍⚖️
Humor	263^th	2.882⭐	19🧑‍⚖️
Mood	399^th	2.941⭐	19🧑‍⚖️
Given		15🗳️	6🗨️

Feedback

Jupiter_Hadley

24. Apr 2018 · 13:39 UTC

Cool idea! I included it in my Ludum Dare 41 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBigr-DBUjI

JheysonLima

24. Apr 2018 · 15:00 UTC

nice game, we've made a battle ship game too, please see it https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/battle-z-defense

Yetman

24. Apr 2018 · 15:27 UTC

Nice Idea but I wonder: Can't I keep trying till I win? Is there a losing condition? I may be asking ignorantly since I only finished level 1. It was really fun to guess phrase and the simplistic visuals are totally to my liking.

cristiano.m.garcia

25. Apr 2018 · 02:31 UTC

Good job! Cool game!

I rate your game, if I can give a game in my game, Witch's Escape.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape

McCordinator

25. Apr 2018 · 14:08 UTC

Pretty interesting mashup!! I like the chance to find the boat, and then the chance again to try to solve the word.

If you have time, check out my entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/golden-beak-golf :)

🎤 NTurnerGames

25. Apr 2018 · 15:54 UTC

@Yetman yup, that's right. I considered having a limited pool of tiles to draw from, but given how puzzlescript works, that would be a massive pain in the bum, and almost impossible to communicate to the player properly. So you can constantly keep drawing from the magic bag o' tiles. Actually it's even more magic-bag like since it only ever gives you tiles that you haven't uncovered yet, so it doesn't get too hard. I still think it's too hard though, but there's not a lot of wiggle room for adjusting that now.

Darby Costello

26. Apr 2018 · 11:00 UTC

This is highly theme-worthy, what a way to combine two definitively 'incompatible' genres. Good game!

tomdeal

26. Apr 2018 · 11:19 UTC

Nice idea! Once you understand how the game works, it is actually quite fun. The only think I would change is the font, at least for me it is almost unreadble. Otherwise, nice entry!

🎤 NTurnerGames

26. Apr 2018 · 16:09 UTC

Thanks @tomdeal, I would love to have a better font, but sadly puzzlescript only allows for 5x5 pixel sprites. Originally I did have the letters filling the entire 5x5 space, but that actually made it less legible than just having 3x3. I'm really thinking I should write a patch to allow bigger sprites though, it's my biggest gripe with the engine.

SimianLogic

09. May 2018 · 17:55 UTC

once you get the hang of the controls it's quite nice. i would've liked it if the cursor on the board stayed in the same spot from move to move so you didn't have to always navigate back to a letter tile once you've mapped out the shapes and start wordcracking.

for being a word game, though, this font is terrible. i did rate this highly but would've rated it even higher if i could read the letters

kernel-panic

09. May 2018 · 21:20 UTC

I have to criticise the font. It needs to be clearer what each letter is, which you can do very well with 3x3 bitmaps. I also feel that this is a test of patience, and there isn't particularly any challenge due to the fact that there is no way to lose.

I think an AI player attacking you too would have added the necessary pressure to make this game more exhilarating.

09. May 2018 · 21:35 UTC

Agree with some of the other posters that the font is not clear. I found that once I got half the letters I spent time idly wasting letters until I got what I wanted. Between blindly searching for ships and recycling letters it felt more like a time dump