Wordle for the BBC Micro & Electron

[ChrisB]

The current internet sensation comes to the BBC Micro! Now with an improved dictionary & a graphical version!

As seen at Tech Radar!

Here's an unofficial conversion of Wordle (https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/) by Josh Wardle. Requires a BBC B/B+/Master or Electron. It uses a slightly tweaked version of Wordle's target word list. It has two dictionaries of 7000 and nearly 12,00 five letter words to validate guesses dependent on available memory.

Statistics are for the current session only but it does use a machine and dictionary independent seed that allows you to share puzzles with your friends.

DFS:

wordle.ssd

(57.5 KiB) Downloaded 99 times

ADFS:

Wordle.zip

(70.8 KiB) Downloaded 85 times

Play at bbcmicro.co.uk

There is an alternate text colour scheme available on the disk image. CHAIN "IntroA" to use it.

Edit V6 attached

[flaxcottage]

Nice one Chris.

[lurkio]

The current internet sensation comes to the BBC Micro!

B A R V O !

[leenew]

The current internet sensation comes to the BBC Micro!

B A R V O !

He he he

[lurkio]

On bbcmicro.co.uk:

http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=4073

Chris, if you're not totally happy with this, just let me know.

[marcusjambler]

TOUGH

[ChrisB]

@lurkio I can't see how it would be a problem...

However - I've noticed that Wordle gives different messaged depending on how well you did - so I've added that. Also corrected a bug causing a hang in pressing return on a blank entry. Please update with this version.

[Pernod]

Also corrected a bug causing a hang in pressing return on a blank entry.

Was just about to report this.

[lurkio]

I've noticed that Wordle gives different messaged depending on how well you did - so I've added that. Also corrected a bug causing a hang in pressing return on a blank entry. Please update with this version.

Uploaded "Version 2". Please clear your browser caches if necessary.

[fuzzel]

I got my first guess in four, the answer being patel. That's some dictionary you're using.
Every word on the official version seems to be in common usage, maybe a bit of trimming is necessary?
I love your conversion btw!

[marcusjambler]

Phew finally won one... Great game ChrisB

My colour blindness is making it tough to see the green/yellow difference.
Is a palette change option possible

[Soruk]

What does the machine code blob loaded at &900 do? I was looking to see if I could make it run on RISC OS and Matrix Brandy, but discovered this blob and my 6502 knowledge is very limited...

[ChrisB]

Thanks for comments.

Dictionary. Always a tricky one. It is apparently the common words from 12 word lists so should be reasonably "normal". I'll look again at the original one (with a bit of sanitising <cough> color honor <cough>) I might go with a combined approach.

Colours: These reflected the online version. What would be a better combination?

Machine code blob: This is mostly the dictionary search function and a couple of other bits. You might be better rolling you own as you could use the original dictionary.

There is a variance in the way the letters are coloured from the online version that I'll look to correct (if you guess a word with a double letter both in the wrong place they are both marked as yellow rather than only one marked as yellow in the online version)

[jms2]

This is really nice!

However I have got a bit puzzled by something - if you enter a word which isn't in the word list you understandably get the message "Not in word list"... but then you don't seem to be able to escape from that situation. Pressing return again gives the same message, and pressing other keys doesn't seem to do anything..?

[BigEd]

I think you can backspace over your letters in that case.

[jms2]

Ah yes, of course. Thanks.

[dp11]

Bug ? if I enter a word with a double letter e.g. QUEEN I get two yellow "e"'s even though the word has only one "e"

[ChrisB]

Bug ? if I enter a word with a double letter e.g. QUEEN I get two yellow "e"'s even though the word has only one "e"

Depends how you look at it . This is not the behaviour of the web version so I'm looking to change it. Needs a slight rework to the logic.

[ChrisB]

Version 3 attached above.

Changes

• Changed to use Wordle's target word list. This means the dictionary has changed and seeds are different.
• Corrected behaviour where guessed word has a double letter in the wrong place.
• Updated "block" display on game completion to be slightly wider/blockier.
• Allowed game colours to be changed. Change lines 8-10 in "Intro" - although the words in the instructions will stay the same....

@lurkio - could you update this version and the second screenshot.

[jms2]

I just played the "real" version for the first time and I was very impressed that the BBC version appears to be literally identical.

[lurkio]

@lurkio - could you update this version

Uploaded Version 3 to bbcmicro.co.uk. Please clear your browser caches if necessary.

@lurkio - could you update this version and the second screenshot.

Not sure what you're asking me to do re screenshots..?

[Rich Talbot-Watkins]

Nice implementation! Out of interest, how are you compressing the dictionary? Is it Huffman or something more simple?

[marcusjambler]

Allowed game colours to be changed.

Thanks Chris... stops me from guessing

[jgharston]

I'd go for Red for bad, green or yellow for good but not there, and blue for correct.

Annoying as I'm crap at anagrams. I can never think of real words that fit the letters, and my method with the prototype coloured peg game is to put the pegs in sequential order, then swap them around. Which you can't do if the "pegs" (letters) must be in specific orders (be real words).

[jgharston]

To make it work on a platform where you have to be a system user to set the time, use T=TIME+50:REPEAT UNTIL TIME>T

[iamaran]

This is great! The only anomaly I've encountered is the word QWEST .

[davidb]

This is great! The only anomaly I've encountered is the word QWEST .

Strangely, that word worked for me. I was more surprised that it was a valid word.

[iamaran]

Strangely, that word worked for me. I was more surprised that it was a valid word.

I didn't try it, with it not being a real word! I tried QUEST twice, just in case.

[ChrisB]

OK - lots to cover so in reverse order.

QWEST - Very peculiar - not in the word list that I can see. Will need to investigate. I've generated another QU word and this was correct.

JGHarston - Time - Understood - which platform is that problematic on?

Colours - these were taken from the on-line version (green/yellow/grey). We don't have a grey on the Beeb so I chose blue. In any case you can change them. I might look to provide a "high contrast/colour blind" version as an alternative on the next release.

Dictionary - Huffman. The dictionary is broken down into chunks to allow for faster searching. These are by letter so I don't store the first letter of the words.

Lurkio thanks - you didn't have the second shot on the other page so it doesn't matter - However - I do notice that there is a problem with the colouring of the keyboard at the bottom of the screen so there's going to be another version . I'm going to have to solve this "qwest" issue as well.

[sa_scott]

This is a great piece of work ChrisB - I love it!

While playing it, it got me thinking about accessibility. I'm assuming that the web version of Wordle makes use of screen readers, when available.

I'm wondering whether this version can use either of the following:

• particular tone for each combination of letters;
• perhaps use Superior Software's Speech! synthesizer to state each letter as it is typed, read out each letter and whether it is correct or not?

Certainly would be an interesting exercise if nothing else!

Other than that, it's a great conversion