New word puzzle game - beta test?

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I just finished my first game for the Roku box! It’s a version of “Mastermind” using four-letter words.
Here’s a mock up screenshot:

[upload|Iz1E3pqsokdZ2KhLQiZ34A==]

I’m planning to submit it as a free public channel. But before I do, I was hoping I might get a few people to test it out? It can be added here:
https://owner.roku.com/Account/ChannelCode/?code=QDGSB

It should support both 720 HD and 4:3 standard-def. (Question: is there a 1080 HD resolution for the main Roku interface? Or is 1080 only available in video playback? Didn’t know if it was worth the effort adding support for that yet.)

Any feedback is welcome. Thanks in advance!

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Just installed it. Cool. How do I play?

And I’m a bit concerned about the first ad I got: A turd with glasses advertisting “The Poofessor Show”. As clever as that is, i don’t think it’ll be approved :slightly_smiling_face:

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1080p is only available for the video plane. The graphics plane is 720p.

Checking out the game now. Looks really nice, but it wasn’t very obvious how to play (more specifically to press Play/Pause to submit a guess, and that blue meant a letter was in the right place). Had you not said it was a “Mastermind” game, I wouldn’t have had any idea what to do. A help screen probably wouldn’t be a bad idea. Overall, very slick, though!

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Looks great ! a help screen would really be nice… i saw that add with the Turd too…

a bit on the difficult side but great looking

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INSTRUCTIONS:

To play: use the arrow keys to move the white cursor-box to a letter, and “select” to choose. Once you’ve chosen four letters, press either “play” or “fast-forward” to submit your guess. If you choose a wrong letter, use “rewind” to delete letters before submitting your guess.

For every letter that’s both correct AND in the correct location, you’ll get a blue peg. For every letter that’s correct but NOT in the correct location, you’ll get a yellow peg. The goal is to guess the hidden word before you run out of chances.

“TheEndless” wrote:
it wasn’t very obvious how to play (more specifically to press Play/Pause to submit a guess, and that blue meant a letter was in the right place). Had you not said it was a “Mastermind” game, I wouldn’t have had any idea what to do.
Yeah, I wrestled with in-game instructions. I wanted to keep the game compatible with the first-gen remote (which is the one I have), so I couldn’t think of a good way to implement them in-game. Currently, the only place the instructions show up is in the full description in the Channel Store (which obviously doesn’t help anyone who installs the game via my direct link). Hmm…I’ll give it some more thought…

“RokuPatrick” wrote:
And I’m a bit concerned about the first ad I got: A turd with glasses advertisting “The Poofessor Show”. As clever as that is, i don’t think it’ll be approved :slightly_smiling_face:
:laughing: Yes, I was curious to see the reaction to this guy. My plan was to use the ad space to promote various other projects I work on, and the Poofessor is definitely the most extreme! I’m okay to replace him with a different ad if you think he’s a non-starter. I’ll put a new ad up before I submit it to the Content Store.

But it begs a question. The ad graphic is located on a website, so I can dynamically update it anytime I want. But obviously, I don’t want to risk uploading a new graphic that gets flagged as unacceptable. So is there anything else you can tell me about guidelines for what content can and can’t be included, beyond what’s in the Developer Agreement? Or is there any sort of recurring approval process for dynamic content like this?

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“NanoZim” wrote:

“RokuPatrick” wrote:
And I’m a bit concerned about the first ad I got: A turd with glasses advertisting “The Poofessor Show”. As clever as that is, i don’t think it’ll be approved :slightly_smiling_face:
:laughing: Yes, I was curious to see the reaction to this guy. My plan was to use the ad space to promote various other projects I work on, and the Poofessor is definitely the most extreme! I’m okay to replace him with a different ad if you think he’s a non-starter. I’ll put a new ad up before I submit it to the Content Store.

But it begs a question. The ad graphic is located on a website, so I can dynamically update it anytime I want. But obviously, I don’t want to risk uploading a new graphic that gets flagged as unacceptable. So is there anything else you can tell me about guidelines for what content can and can’t be included, beyond what’s in the Developer Agreement? Or is there any sort of recurring approval process for dynamic content like this?

There’s no ongoing approval content, though if someone raises an issue, we’ll take a look. Porn, obviously isn’t allowed, but I’d ask that you refrain from poop and other things that might come out of us.

Patrick

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“NanoZim” wrote:
Yeah, I wrestled with in-game instructions. I wanted to keep the game compatible with the first-gen remote (which is the one I have), so I couldn’t think of a good way to implement them in-game. Currently, the only place the instructions show up is in the full description in the Channel Store (which obviously doesn’t help anyone who installs the game via my direct link). Hmm…I’ll give it some more thought.
I was thinking something along the lines of a Help button, maybe just under the HogoWord banner, that the user could get to by arrowing up from the top row on the keyboard. Then, when selected, a popup window with brief instructions…?

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Nice! I’m always impressed by slick looking interfaces. I so bad at it…

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“RokuPatrick” wrote:
There’s no ongoing approval content, though if someone raises an issue, we’ll take a look. Porn, obviously isn’t allowed, but I’d ask that you refrain from poop and other things that might come out of us.
Okay, how about this solution:

  1. First, I changed the ad banner (you may need to reboot for it to update). I can keep these banners very innocuous, using safe imagery, and mainly limiting them to promoting an external link(s).

  2. The link itself would take you a page that would contain many videos, including the Poofessor. But since none of the imagery or videos would be accessible directly from Roku, would this be okay? I’m hopeful this would be viewed the same as a YouTube or Amazon banner, since those sites also carry a range of videos, from safe-for-all-ages to more-mature (or in my case, more-immature). :wink:

What do you think?

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“NanoZim” wrote:

  1. First, I changed the ad banner (you may need to reboot for it to update)

If you download the banner image to tmp:/ and use from there, you shouldn’t have to deal with any of the caching problems. Then again, with all the talk about the Roku caching images, did anyone try setting last-modified headers to see if the Roku honored them?

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“kbenson” wrote:
If you download the banner image to tmp:/ and use from there, you shouldn’t have to deal with any of the caching problems. Then again, with all the talk about the Roku caching images, did anyone try setting last-modified headers to see if the Roku honored them?
Ah, I’ll have to look into this. I’m still kind of a newbie at BrightScript…

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“NanoZim” wrote:

“kbenson” wrote:
If you download the banner image to tmp:/ and use from there, you shouldn’t have to deal with any of the caching problems. Then again, with all the talk about the Roku caching images, did anyone try setting last-modified headers to see if the Roku honored them?
Ah, I’ll have to look into this. I’m still kind of a newbie at BrightScript…
No need to download to tmp:/. Just add a random number querystring to the end of the URL so it always loads from the server (ex. http://my.url/images/myimage.jpg?uid=).

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“TheEndless” wrote:

“NanoZim” wrote:

“kbenson” wrote:
If you download the banner image to tmp:/ and use from there, you shouldn’t have to deal with any of the caching problems. Then again, with all the talk about the Roku caching images, did anyone try setting last-modified headers to see if the Roku honored them?
Ah, I’ll have to look into this. I’m still kind of a newbie at BrightScript…
No need to download to tmp:/. Just add a random number querystring to the end of the URL so it always loads from the server (ex. http://my.url/images/myimage.jpg?uid=

Geez, I’ve only seen this discussed 4 or 5 times now. You would think I would remember that by now. :wink:

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No!!! Not more game competition… :slightly_smiling_face:

Nice look btw :slightly_smiling_face: I haven’t tried the game yet… but I will. :slightly_smiling_face: I had actually contemplated doing a mastermind game. :slightly_smiling_face:

“kbenson” wrote:
Geez, I’ve only seen this discussed 4 or 5 times now. You would think I would remember that by now. :wink:
Don’t feel too bad, I still haven’t dealt with that issue on mine… :slightly_smiling_face:
-YB

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Question: About the pegs.

I think you should have any option for matching the peg with the correct slot.

Ex. Let say the word was: LUCK. And you choose the these letters: KITE. Since Letter K is not in the right Slot, then you should put a peg in the 4th slot telling you that K the letter is correct but in in the wrong slot. You can use the WHITE peg to tell you the letter is incorrect.

EX. IF the Word DYED, and chose the letters DUCK. The Colors would be as followed: BLUE, WHITE, WHITE, YELLOW (Or GREEN for duplicate letter). (but not telling you which letter is a duplicate. However if you have only one BLUE Peg, then you could assume that the duplicate letter is the same as the BLUE PEG.

Maybe an Option for using only Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. Or combination or those types of words.

Other options that will allow different settings for super easy all the way to supper hard: including timers (no timers) Even using numbers. Which does not have to be limited to 1-9. You can also use from 00-99 for each tile. [03], [23]. [45]. [00]. Or option to limit it to 00-50, or 00-26, or any number start number or end number. Or random letters.

Option to turn off or on duplicated numbers or letters.

Also. I suggest adding a “U” to the letter “Q” so when you click on the letter “Q” it would act as if it had a “U” after it, and at the same time just just a “Q” if you happen to have any words that just have a “Q” in it.

For ex: [QU], . or [QU], , , but you could also allow

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“pjoshua5000” wrote:
options that will allow different settings for super easy all the way to supper hard
You know, it never occurred to me to include a choice of difficulty levels. :oops: When setting the difficulty, I used myself as a guide; I created something that would give me a challenge while still letting me win more often than not. But clearly, having an easier setting would make this more accessible to a wider range of people (maybe even including a really easy version for kids).

Anyway, good idea! It probably won’t make it into the first official release, but I may include levels in a later release.

Oh, and mentioning “kids” reminds me: while this game features almost 2000 common four-letter words, the big guns are missing (the “F”,“S”, “C” words, etc). Just in case anyone was wondering…it should pretty much be kid safe. :slightly_smiling_face:

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If any one want a list of 4-letter words. Here is a site.

But no guarantees that every word that is in this game is on that list.

“NanoZim” wrote:
Oh, and mentioning “kids” reminds me: while this game features almost 2000 common four-letter words, the big guns are missing (the “F”,“S”, “C” words, etc). Just in case anyone was wondering…it should pretty much be kid safe. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Okay, I finished implementing a series of changes:

  1. Instructions are accessible by pressing the fast-forward button in-game. This is noted at the top of the screen, directly beneath the “Hogoword” title.

  2. The ad banner no longer shows questionable content. :wink:

  3. When the ad banner’s graphic changes, it will immediately update the next time the game is launched, instead of only after a box reboot (thanks TheEndless, kbenson).

  4. Slight tweak to the background graphic.

The new version has been submitted to the Channel Store. Thanks to everyone who helped refine it! If new issues are found, please don’t hesitate to ping me.

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There needs to be a clue. Other than that GREAT game. Another game suggestion: Sweetthooth
Thanks!!!

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“WardFamily” wrote:
There needs to be a clue. Other than that GREAT game. Another game suggestion: Sweetthooth
Thanks!!!

Want a clue. Here is what helps me win most of the time:

Start with common groups of letters.

AUGH

IUST

CHYO