New Word Game : Waffle

ChrisB · Post by **ChrisB** » Sun Jun 26, 2022 4:01 pm

Announcing my follow up to Wordle - Waffle for the BBC Micro, Master series and Electron.

Based on the web game https://wafflegame.net/ by James Robinson (https://twitter.com/jamesjessian). With thanks to joachim for the puzzle generation algorithm.

You have 15 swaps to make the grid of letters into six interlocking words. Letters are coloured yellow if they are in the wrong place in the word and green in the right place. Each puzzle can be completed in ten moves (although sometimes the generation algorithm means that they can be completed in less).

Waffle.ssd: (13.25 KiB) Downloaded 128 times

Waffle.uef: (14.78 KiB) Downloaded 45 times

Edit: New version 2 with colour options added.
Version 3 - Game loss shows puzzle solution + typo correction.
Version 4 - Two proper nouns removed and win screen timeout added.

fizgog · Post by **fizgog** » Sun Jun 26, 2022 5:42 pm

Great puzzle game, you seem to on fire writing new stuff for the beeb

lurkio · Post by **lurkio** » Sun Jun 26, 2022 7:45 pm

Brilliant!

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/index.php?search= ... ne&on_A=on

Cybershark · Post by **Cybershark** » Sun Jun 26, 2022 10:50 pm

Wow! Having read through your development I didn't expect something that moves at such a clip

joachim · Post by **joachim** » Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:28 pm

Nice; like Cybershark said I'm impressed by how smoothly it runs (both the puzzle generation and the game UI in general).

One feature request: colour-blind mode, because green and yellow are a disaster for people with protan-type colour-blindness (i.e. poor red sensitivity). Wordle seems to have established a convention of having an alternative mode with orange/blue as the colours, and the online Waffle game does the same: you could probably dither to get orange if you want to follow suit.

ChrisB · Post by **ChrisB** » Mon Jun 27, 2022 9:16 pm

Thanks for the comments. I'm also pleased with the speed given I'm doing everything legally using the OS. The puzzle generation speed is down to your algorithm

but moving the game play logic to assembler also made a real difference to responsiveness.

Orange might not be possible (only 4 colours in mode 1) however I'll look to make the green and yellow changeable.

ChrisB · Post by **ChrisB** » Tue Jun 28, 2022 6:42 pm

I've added a version with the option to change colours.

f0 will invert black/white
f1 & f2 cycle the yellow and green tiles respectively.

There are also a couple of textual and code tweaks to make space.

chrisn · Post by **chrisn** » Tue Jun 28, 2022 9:21 pm

Nicely done, I'm enjoying playing this! I have a couple of small suggestions though. In the instructions page, add a space in "Right Cursor". Also, possibly an option to show the correct solution if you don't solve it? (yes, I'm not very good at this game!)

ChrisB · Post by **ChrisB** » Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:36 am

I've put a version that displays the grid if you lose over in the development thread. viewtopic.php?p=363163#p363163

Is that what you had in mind?

chrisn · Post by **chrisn** » Wed Jun 29, 2022 10:10 am

Yes, that's perfect. Thank you!

ChrisB · Post by **ChrisB** » Wed Jun 29, 2022 11:23 pm

New version 3 added to start of thread. Includes typo fix and reveal of puzzle on game loss.

Dave Footitt · Post by **Dave Footitt** » Fri Jul 01, 2022 8:13 pm

This is great Chris, I love it!

ChrisB · Post by **ChrisB** » Mon Jul 25, 2022 6:51 am

Just edited the first post with a minor update to V4.

I've removed two proper nouns from the dictionary and changed the win screen to stop flashing after a bit for screenshot purposes.

aidanthegasman · Post by **aidanthegasman** » Tue Feb 13, 2024 11:29 pm

Hi Chris,
I hadn’t come across Waffle before finding your port of it. The game has become a family favourite in our house; in part because we can run it under emulation on an iPad and show it on the TV so everyone can see the letters.
I’ve noticed that some words tend to recur. I assume this is because they offer the ideal combination of first letter, middle letter, last letter which makes them suitable for inclusion in the grid.
But I was wondering how big the dictionary is, and where you got the dictionary from?

ChrisB · Post by **ChrisB** » Thu Feb 15, 2024 8:42 am

The dictionary is around 2600 words. I got it as a filter of the dictionary from my Wordle port as I recall. IMHO if you play the proper online version there are also repeated words that seem to come up more often. There's the development thread here https://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24915

BobWorm · Post by **BobWorm** » Wed Mar 06, 2024 3:02 pm

Hi, Chris.

I had Waffle recommended to me by Vela, the sysop from the BeeBS BBS. He thought it might be up my street and, as it turns out, it definitely is!

It's a fantastic version you've put together for the Beeb, thank you and well done.

Also thanks for introducing me to the waffle game in general - I'd never seen it before in any guise and I much prefer it to Wordle.

Cheers,

BobW

stardot.org.uk