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Hi,

Im looking for some users to test my upcoming Android game Wordsearch Hunter. Its getting pretty close to being finished, and i'd like to gather a range of feedback from people about how they like the game, if anything could be made better, or anything else regarding the game in general. Feel free to complain heavily about it here

The current test is for Android only, but the game will also be released on iPhone once its finished.

Link To Download APK: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24279271/WordSearchHunterFree.apk

A couple of users have been testing the game privately, but now I would like to get a few more people involved, and heres a copy of the log since the last beta was released.

Changes In V0.9.1:
* When a word is found, the ring for it is now faded in, instead of appearing suddenly.
* Internal code structure for building puzzles has been completely changed, producing faster cleaner builds.
* When puzzles are created, multiple layouts are built and the best one is now selected before play, to ensure quality playing.
* Added an additional 30 seconds to the overall time to complete the level.
* Each game difficulty now has it's own timer level, which is slowly decremented with each completed puzzle to spice things up.
* The puzzle building algo has been changed slightly, and produces more words that overlap each other on the more difficult levels.
* Overlapping words is now better, and should no longer produce abbreviated words unless another problem occurs internally.
* When a word is tap-clicked, the line will stay on the screen for a brief period of time, so you can see where it was you let go.
* When a word is dragged or tap-clicked, the first and last letter (or the letter currently under the finger when dragged) will be shown slightly bigger and in a different colour.
* Adjusted some of the word categories around for the Free version of the game.
* Options let you pick between Upper & Lower case game grid now.
* All 3 game difficulties now enabled, for further debugging. Can be accessed in the Play screen. Easy = 9x9, Medium (Default) = 12x12 and Hard = 14x14. A challenge 18x18 mode is present, not activated just yet (saving it for a special competition mode for later).
* High score sharing is working. Game will now record scores for anyone who completes at least 1 puzzle in the game.
* Added quite possibly the best ever logo designed by man
* Shits getting serious now, made an Icon

As always, feedback is always welcomed The instructions are pretty simple, during a game, tap the background gear to bring up the ingame menu (or use your devices menu button).

Screenshots:

Looks really great!

I will install it right now.

Hi,

I have released a new beta of the game, V0.9.2, which you can download and install using the same link as above. The new apk should overrite the data on the device with the new stuff, and play should keep going the same as before.

The biggest change in this new version is the use of an FBO texture to control the word rings. On some devices, mainly older ones, the game would start to struggle a bit when rendering lots of rings, which causes lag and also it causes heavy battery drain. The 2nd and 3rd blue numbers on the upper left of the screen should now draw noticeably smaller with the addition of the FBO, and the letters should spin faster when the puzzle is complete, or it is game over. If you see any wierd bugs with ring drawing, please let me know, especially if you can repeat it. Feel free to post screenshots too showing potential bugs

Ive made a few other minor changes internally, another noticeable change is the effect of when a word is found, just to make things look a bit more interesting.

Playing Instructions
Some people have asked me to clarify a few things in the game, as the Help screen isnt completed yet. The game uses 2 different methods for word input, you can either drag a word (tap the first letter, hold down, and release on the last letter of the word) or you can tap one, which involves tapping the first letter, then tapping the last letter (which then causes a line to be drawn showing the result). You can automatically switch between either control method during a game at any time, without changing any game settings.

The game is over when you solve all the words (and move onto the next puzzle) or you run out of time. The score is only shown on the Normal game mode, if playing in Relaxed mode, there are no time limits, so you can take as long as you want to find the word you are looking for.

When playing in Normal mode, the score is shown on the upper left of the top bar on the screen. There is a small timer on the right which shows the overall amount of time left in the game. Inside this bar, is a smaller score value (along with a multiplier). The quicker you find words together, the more the multiplier increases. If the timer is normally at 10 points, a multiplier of 3 will give you 30 points, and so on. As the timer ticks down, the number of available points per word will tick down, and whatever is on the display at the moment the word is found, will be added to your main score. No points are taken away from your main score at all, only the available points counter ticks down.

Every time you find a word in the grid, a small amount of time is added back to your timer, though im thinking I might take this out as we get closer to release, as it makes it more challenging, and TBH I already feel like the game has way too much time to solve a puzzle for each of the 3 difficulty levels, feel free to comment on that if you feel the same, or more time should be given for a difficulty. For each round that passes, a small amount of time (about a second) is reduced from the overall time, so it does get progressively difficult as you continue, but will never go below 50% of the 1st round starting time.

Changing Words
By default, the game starts using a Random word category, so each time a puzzle is built, it picks a random set of words to use, and pulls the data from it. From the main menu, click on Words and you can choose an individual word category (such as Movies) or click Random. From this point on, all puzzles will use your chosen category. If you picked Movies for example, each puzzle will only use that word group. This option is placed on the main menu to prevent people swapping it around mid game to try and gain point advantages for certain categories etc.

Some Option Comments
Word Assist? - If it takes you more than 20 seconds to find a word, the computer will help you by flashing the letter of the next available word on the list. This is supposed to just give you a subtle hint to the words location, and catch the corner of your eye. In the next update, it will play a sound when it happens so you know to look for it.

Upper Case Grid - A couple of players asked for an upper case grid option, so if this is unchecked, it shows the letters in lower case. Upper is the default.

High Scores
If you do well in the game, you will get a high score! Once entered, if you go to Highscores from the main menu, you can click the Share button to post it online, where it will appear at http://www.fishguygames.com/wordhunter/high-scores.php When the game is eventually released, these scores will be wiped.

Next Update
Stuff to do in the next update:
* Tinker with the amount of game time for each difficulty level, and the possibility of not giving back any time per word.
* Make some epic splash screens for when the game loads.
* Do a bit more work on sound effects. Im really hoping that Xerxes (Klaus Lunde) will be able to do the jingles I need for the game, with Revision coming up I might have to wait until after then to know for sure.
* Limit word numbers on some screens. On the tiny (320x480) game screen, too many words make it really hard to read, whereas on an iPad its not a problem, so some logic needs to be done there to ensure that it can be read properly on any device at any difficulty.
* Fix up the main website pages, as the only ones that work right now are the scores.
* Do some other optimization maintenance, cleanup work, and look for stupid stuff to fix before accidentally leaving it in.

As always, if anyone has any questions or complaints, please post them here To download, use the same link at the top of this thread. Thanks FishGuy876

Version 0.9.3 added to fix some FBO issues (if they didn't work before, try again with this new version. Same with you, Falken), added some new splash screens and logos, and a few other bits and pieces.

The newer version with the FBO fixes causes what I assume is the FPS counter to go rather erratic on my Nexus 4. It seems to switch between 14, 15 and something in 20 very quickly. I guess that's not really a problem since the game is still smooth, even with the adverts.

Hi,

Those numbers when they get above 30 or 40 cause issues with laggy framerates, so anything below that is always good Different machines will react differently on those numbers, the iPad version I just built wont go above 6, for example. And on my Note 2 it hovers around the 14 mark with all my other stuff running in the background.

Hi,

Version 0.9.4 has been released. This is probbably the last big update before the game is finally released, so if you do find any problems or bugs in this version, now would be the time to report them The last thing for me to work on over the next couple of days is a proper Help system. One Revision is over, sound will be finished, and it should be good to go.

Whats new in this version:

* Altered the difficulty arrangement of Medium, so it builds puzzles without as much squishing of words. The Hard level will still try to pack the words in as best it can.
* On small screens, the number of visible words is kept to a minimum to prevent them from being rendered too small to read.
* New word lists in the Pro version, Video Games (composed mostly of Spectrum/C64/NES/GameBoy/Sega games) and Fruits & Vegetables. Fixes & Updates to several other word lists.
* Puzzle words are now sorted alphabetically when selected.
* Starting point counts have been altered for all three difficulties, along with times, instead of one fixed amount for all of them.
* Word Assistant takes longer to appear in the Relaxed mode game, so you can spend more time searching for words.
* Default starting difficulty is now Easy, instead of Medium.
* Added remember tables for categories and words, so the same categories/words are not selected in short proximities of each other. This only applies to Random category puzzles.
* Buttons added to the screen when a puzzle has been completed, or time runs out, so you can pause before going to the next level, or if it's Game Over, you can see the words that you couldn't find (which are drawn with an effect at the end of the game automatically).
* Various gfx tweaks & alterations, new tile background, handle on the game logo magnifying glass etc.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback so far. Be sure to grab the new version from the link at the top of the page. Remember, if you score more than 1,000 points, you can submit a score, which will be handy to use for testing right now FishGuy876

Hi,

Version V0.9.5 has now been released for testing, which will most likely be the last version released unless someone starts finding bugs Thanks to everyone who has been testing the game You can download it using the link at the top of the screen.

Changes in this version:

* Several word list updates, changes and refreshes.
* Fixed some bugs regarding words that didn't appear in their normal positions when highlighted. Now they are credited properly, and also work with backwards selections.
* Implemented lookup tables for words & categories, so the same set of words or categories are not selected over and over again. The same categories will be used only if selected from the list of words.
* Words on the puzzle can be sorted horizontally or vertically (default) via an option.
* Lots of other tiny tweaks, gfx changes, and visual improvements.

If anyone has any issues with the game, please let me know. Thanks

Hi,

Just a quick mention that the game is now live on the GooglePlay Marketplace for anyone in the world to try at this URL: http://bit.ly/WordHunterAndroidFree

Feel free to spam the page to the planet Thanks to everyone who gave feedback during the development. As the game goes live on other markets, I will post the links here. Thanks!

It s already done but in the future I can support u as a testing is my favorite thing