PLAYING
Maxdown
apterous lets you know the available max in the round when the letters have been chosen so you know the longest word that can be made.
Adds a new tactical element to guessing at declarations.
Contributed by Damian Eadie
Startdown
apterous lets you know the first letter of one of, or all of, the max words in a round, to give you a hint as to what you should be looking for.
Adds the same new tactical element to guessing at declarations as Maxdown, above.
Contributed by Charlie Reams
Aimdown
A version of Omelette/Spoilage where you have to find a word using all letters that is as close as possible to a random length, rather than the longest length possible (Spoilage) or the shortest length possible (Omelette).
Stepdown scoring would be used so that if you get it bang on you get 10 points, 1 letter too long or too short = 9 points, 2 away for 8 points and so on.
Difficult part of the scoring would be that if no words of the correct length that use all letters are available, would you be looking for missing out on one letter but still going for the right length, or would you be still having to use all letters but with a word as accurate in length as you can?
Contributed by Shaun Hegarty
Cameradown
Players take turn picking letters so that in each 9-letter round one player picks 5 and the other 4.
Picking would be extremely tactical in that it could be used to help or hinder the chances of longer words.
There is some debate over whether there should be complete free reign over the pickable letters, or if they should still come from the same shared pool regular distribution (so that once all instances of a letter have been used in a game, the button to pick it is greyed out and no longer available).
Additionally, there is the suggestion that to get rounds going and for more variation, the first, say, 5 letters of each round would be apterous-picked, leaving 2 letters for each player to pick themselves.
Stepdown scoring is used so that even when hindering the chances of a longer word by picking Q or X, the max available would still always be 10.
Conundrums to be revealed one letter at a time, in 1/18th of the round time, so that all 9 letters are out at the 15 second mark in a 30 second round game.
The suggestion was that there is no limit to the number of vowels/consonants but I think it should still be restricted like the current game.
No mention of numbers, so this is my own suggestion but I reckon in numbers rounds you'd have to be given a target FIRST, and then the take-turns-picking would still work fine.
Contributed by Matt Bayfield and added to by Simon Myers and Jack Hurst
Continuedown
Your word, in R2 and beyond, has to start with the letter that your opponent's word ENDED with in the previous round.
So each round would automatically start with the two (or one if you both used the same final letter) letters that the two declarations ended with in the previous round.
Could lead to some tactical declarations (like a -BOX word) and enlivening some flat rounds.
If a declaration is invalid, the opponent has no restrictions to the starting letter of their word in the next round.
Contributed by Bob De Caux
Nudgedown
You
can (Ryan) or
must (Matt B) use a letter immediately before or after the letter in the selection's position in the alphabet.
So, if a T appears in the selection you can use it as a S, T, or U (Ryan) or as an S or a U (Matt B) to create your word. A and Z obviously loop back round to each other.
For numbers rounds the idea is similar - a 4 can nudge to 3 or 5. Depending on whether small/large sets remain separate, a 10 can nudge to 9 or 25, or to 9 or 1, and a 100 can nudge to 75 or 1, or 75 or 25.
Contributed by Ryan Taylor initially and then in proper length by Matt Bayfield
Joindown
Each tile has two letters on it, which must be used together in that order. A tile "ED" has to be used as "ED", not as "DE" or as a separate E and D.
Presumably something like 7 tiles (14 letters) would be about right. Distributions or pairings might also have to be pre-determined so that you don't have a round full of "UU" or "QY" tiles.
Contributed by Charlie Reams
Fusiondown
Of an 11 letter selection, two pairs of letters are fused together and must be used in that order (see Joindown above). So you still have 9 tiles, 7 singles and 2 doubles.
In numbers rounds, you get 7 numbers and the last two small numbers fuse together to create a new one (e.g. a selection of 100 7 9 5 6 4 2 becomes 100 7 9 5 6 42).
Contributed by Ben Wilson
Duckdown
The longest word possible has to be declared that strictly uses NONE of the letters in the selection.
I think something like 10 letters, with a constant ratio of 3 vowels/7 consonants would work well for this.
For conundrums, the vowels are removed leaving only the consonants to construct the answer from.
Contributed by Matt Bayfield
Carrydown
From a 12-letter selection, you can make a word of maximum length 9, and any remaining unused letters continue on to the next round.
This would most likely only work as a one-player (training or high score attack) game because of the issues with the two players declaring different words (i.e. leaving different letters).
My twist, however, is that it would be really interesting if at the start of the game apterous generates a 'list' of 102 letters (enough to cover 11 rounds where a 9 is declared each time), and this same set of letters is used for both players, so that, regardless of which letters they use and how long their words are, the two players end up playing the same game, so the scores ARE comparable and meaningful. The trouble with this is that the in-game results windows and results table would have to not show any words that people declared until the end, otherwise the player who is 'behind' in the list of letters would be able to work out which letters are coming next. It's quite different in this respect in that it's a 1-on-1 individually-played 2-player game, but reviewing the game at the end would be particularly cool.
Contributed by Marc Meakin
Implantdown
apterous-chosen selections make sure that there is always a 9 available in the round. A player can still declare less than 9 if they can't find it.
A good training tool for learning 9-letter words. Flat scoring obviously.
Would probably work better if the only guarantee is that there is always an 9 OR an 8. This would introduce more variation in selections and tactical play.
Contributed by Gavin Chipper
Hydradown
The 11 letters selections in a 15-rounder are one letter longer than the last round, so you start with a 5 letter selection in R1 and finish with 15 letters in R13.
Contributed by Ben Wilson
Hardupdown
A Dogfight-style conundrum game where you start on a level 1 conundrum and each time you get it right the next conundrum will be a more difficult one, up to a maximum (of course) of level 10.
Considering you get 3 lives in a dogfight, getting a conundrum wrong could result in either a) an attempt at the same difficulty conundrum, b) drop down to the previous difficulty level, c) drop down to level 1 and start the rise up again
Contributed by Michael Wallace
Tickdown
You have a limited amount of total time for all rounds. Default could be 4 minutes perhaps (for a 20 round LA that's 12 seconds average per round), with any length settable.
You conserve your time by ending round early. If you run out of time on your total clock, you're locked out of the game and can't answer any more rounds.
Would only really work for LA or CA games, as in numbers rounds you can still work after ending the round by using the method window.
The other way would be a Dogfight-style game, where there isn't a set number of rounds, you can just keep going for as long as you have time left in your total clock.
Contributed by tons of people, but first in the thread by Marc Meakin
Targetdown
Games end when one player reaches a specified number of points.
Works well as it applies to all types of rounds, and short games (50 points) and long games (500 points) can be aimed for, but even with the same target score games wouldn't be the same length of rounds.
Contributed by Ben Wilson
Mentaldown
A new breed of numbers round where instead of finding the solution for a target, you find the target for a solution.
For example, you get presented with (((45x7)+13)/2)-41, and you have to enter the answer (123) in a box and submit it.
Considering you do everything in order, it would be perfectly ok (and probably more simple) to present it as 45 x7 +13 /2 -41.
It has a good range of potential - normal rounds would only use 1- or 2-digit numbers, the Hyper equivalent could introduce 3-digit numbers.
Additionally, there are scoring options too. Either have it timing-based so if you solve it in, for example, the first third of a round you get 10 points, the second third of a round for 7 points, or up to the end of the round for just 5 points. Or have it like a conundrum - whoever gives the correct answer first (only one guess each presumably) gets the points.
Contributed by Dmitry Goretsky
Blankdown
Additional Scrabble-influenced tiles in the box.
These are 'blank' tiles [ * ] which can be substituted for any letter, and 'blank vowels' [ *v ] and 'blank consonants' [ *c ] which can obviously only be substituted for any vowel or any consonant respectively.
You could have perhaps two 'blank vowels' and one 'blank' in the vowels pile, and two 'blank consonants' and one 'blank' in the consonants pile.
Contributed by Dmitry Goretsky
Catchdown
Selections are 2-4 letters and the shortest word needs to be found using the letters in order, like Aegilops. But the first and last letter of the selection must be the first and last letter of the word.
So for CED, CRED would be good, but ICED and CEDE would not be valid. If a word can't be made in this way, only the first letter remains locked in and the last letter restriction is dropped.
Contributed by Ben Wilson
Groupdown
Rather than pick from vowels and consonants you pick from A-M and N-Z piles instead.
Rather than pick from small and large numbers you pick from 1-49 and 50-100 piles instead.
One issue would be how the game would ensure at least 3 vowels still appear in the letters rounds.
Contributed by Ian Volante
Phonedown
Rounds based on the 44 phonetic symbols rather than the 26 letters of the alphabet.
Absolutely mental.
Contributed by Simon Le Fort
Shakedown
Boggle-based gameplay, declare as many words as you can from the selection in the allotted time, with more points for longer words.
Boggle's system is 1 point for 3-4 letters, 2 points for 5 letters, 3 points for 6 letters, 5 points for 7 letters, 11 points for 8+ letters, and I think would probably work well.
30 second rounds compared to Boggle's normal 3 minute rounds would be an interesting twist on the tactics, as you'd have to decide to go for reams of smalls or just focus on finding the best long ones, there would likely never be a round where you aren't manically typing words in right to the end.
An invalid word could either nullify your complete score for the round, or cost you a 5 point penalty or something.
Conundrums could be a scramble, of varying length, which has 2 or more solutions and you have to privately enter both into a letters-style notes box, a successful 'buzz' being automated by the first player entering two correct solutions in their own window.
Contributed by Mark James and added to by Jordan F
Scrambledown
A hyper version of Omelette, where you can make multiple words from the selections of 4-7 letters.
So PVVM could be made into SEMPERVIVUM but could be made into PERV & VIM here. SEMPERVIVUM would score 10 points in Omelette's Stepdown system as it is the best option, but here it would only be worth 6 points, as at 11 letters long the solution is 4 letters longer than the optimum double-word solution.
All letters absolutely must be used (since even if you have one letter left it's no problem making a word from it).
You would not note words separately, you'd note them with spaces in between all in one go, meaning at the end of the round you could still choose from your selections in the normal fashion.
Contributed by Ben Wilson
Bluffdown
For each letters round (perhaps with auto-picked letters), only one of the two players declares a word, and additionally clicks a number to declare the length of their word to the other player, which they are free to lie about.
Based on tactical nuances as well as the quality of the selection, the non-declaring player has to specify whether the actual word the first player has gone for is shorter, spot on, or longer than the length declaration they made alongside.
If the guessing player gets it right, they get the points the word is worth (at flat scoring), if not then the declaring player gets the points.
This would work far better for letters than for numbers, so should be a LA-format game.
Contributed by Mark James
Digitdown
More complicated numbers rounds, where you can use one of your numbers as a "to the power of" (if you have a 2 you can square, if you have a 3 you can cube etc.), you can use exponentials (so you could use your 4 as !4 = 24), and also that allows you to use fractional parts out of order, i.e. you can break up something like x3 /4 so you can still use x0.75 temporarily as long as the final result is a valid integer.
Contributed by Lesley Hines
Sequencedown
You pick a number of letters (perhaps 15) in the regular fashion, and have to find the longest word from the selection as the letters appear in order.
So from M A P E D T O R I G E A L O S you could declare MADRIGALS as the max, but GLAMORISED would not be valid as the letters are not in the right order.
Numbers doesn't translate well, but conundrums would - the 9 letter word is hidden, in the correct order of course, in the same number of letters with all the rogue ones added in.
Contributed by Matt Bayfield