what dictionary does this use, i tried a few words that i was pretty sure are in the scrabble set but didnt work here. (could be wrong)
for me the train is a little bit too fast for the letter input method. like even if i have a word by the time i get all the tiles down the train has made more progress than my word added. some kind of way to get a bonus for longer words that gives you more time feels like it would be a nice balance tweak. like risky, take more time to find a longer word but more payoff for doing it. basically makes me look at the rack and say... do i have a long word here... do i have time to find it...
also let me rearrange the tiles on the board not just my rack. its very frustrating if you need to swap two letters you have to move the first one out of the way then put the second then move the first again.
There's an annoying bug where, if you're building off the word the train is currently travelling on, it marks the prior word as invalid, so you can't continue building your extension (even if the train hasn't reached your intersection point yet). This means you auto-fail if the train reaches the current latest word while you're working on the next one.
Interesting game. I like the concept but I feel like it could do with some tweaks.
I think the instructions should be expanded a bit. The details of how the added tiles would affect the train's path were not at all clear to me. It also took me a while to even understand that I was supposed to add words in crossword/scrabble style, rather than just being able to add a new word at the end of my previous one.
The scoring is also a bit weird. Like, the instructions say "reach the star to win". Usually when the goal is to reach a certain point, well, you win if you reach that point. And if anything, your goal is usually to reach it as quickly as possible. But in this game the score is based on the words you put down, so you actually can get a higher score by delaying reaching the goal. That concept isn't bad and can be a cool twist, but it's not at all conveyed by just saying "reach the star to win".
Finally, the mechanism for entering words makes this borderline too cumbersome for me to play repeatedly. I want to be able to type the letters using the keyboard, or at least have some option like double-clicking to add another letter at the end of the partial word I've already placed. Having to drag each individual letter into position is really annoying.
Was confused because it wasn't letting me spell words upwards (I had spelled "Trained" horizontally and then tried to spell "Duke" starting with the D at the end and going vertically up). Great concept !
Edit: I think the train may be too fast (currently playing on mobile)
Thanks for the feedback! I added new ui elements that show a preview of where the words are supposed to go for new years.
About the train speed... yea i'm still in the midst of experimenting/ tweaking it. Were you able to reach the star? Or did you just want the game to last longer after reaching the star.
This is dangerously addictive. The constraint of having to build towards a specific point completely changes the usual Scrabble strategy. I found myself making sub-optimal, silly words just to force the track in the right direction. Perfect coffee-break game. Also, the mobile app or PWA of this game would be great!
Great game. You could maybe have it pause the train a variable amount if you get double/triple words or letters or higher than 50 points for a word. Then you get rewarded for better play.
unrailed meets scrabble.
what dictionary does this use, i tried a few words that i was pretty sure are in the scrabble set but didnt work here. (could be wrong)
for me the train is a little bit too fast for the letter input method. like even if i have a word by the time i get all the tiles down the train has made more progress than my word added. some kind of way to get a bonus for longer words that gives you more time feels like it would be a nice balance tweak. like risky, take more time to find a longer word but more payoff for doing it. basically makes me look at the rack and say... do i have a long word here... do i have time to find it...
also let me rearrange the tiles on the board not just my rack. its very frustrating if you need to swap two letters you have to move the first one out of the way then put the second then move the first again.
Thanks for the feedback and great feature request I'll update it soon!
There's an annoying bug where, if you're building off the word the train is currently travelling on, it marks the prior word as invalid, so you can't continue building your extension (even if the train hasn't reached your intersection point yet). This means you auto-fail if the train reaches the current latest word while you're working on the next one.
Thanks for the report I'll fix it soon!
Interesting game. I like the concept but I feel like it could do with some tweaks.
I think the instructions should be expanded a bit. The details of how the added tiles would affect the train's path were not at all clear to me. It also took me a while to even understand that I was supposed to add words in crossword/scrabble style, rather than just being able to add a new word at the end of my previous one.
The scoring is also a bit weird. Like, the instructions say "reach the star to win". Usually when the goal is to reach a certain point, well, you win if you reach that point. And if anything, your goal is usually to reach it as quickly as possible. But in this game the score is based on the words you put down, so you actually can get a higher score by delaying reaching the goal. That concept isn't bad and can be a cool twist, but it's not at all conveyed by just saying "reach the star to win".
Finally, the mechanism for entering words makes this borderline too cumbersome for me to play repeatedly. I want to be able to type the letters using the keyboard, or at least have some option like double-clicking to add another letter at the end of the partial word I've already placed. Having to drag each individual letter into position is really annoying.
But overall, fun idea!
Thanks for the feedback.
Added some further instructions (text and ui) but I'm still thinking about what makes the best gameplay so maybe the scoring may change at some point.
Will add better keyboard support soon too.
Was confused because it wasn't letting me spell words upwards (I had spelled "Trained" horizontally and then tried to spell "Duke" starting with the D at the end and going vertically up). Great concept !
Edit: I think the train may be too fast (currently playing on mobile)
Thanks for the feedback! I added new ui elements that show a preview of where the words are supposed to go for new years.
About the train speed... yea i'm still in the midst of experimenting/ tweaking it. Were you able to reach the star? Or did you just want the game to last longer after reaching the star.
Failed to reach the star multiple times - maybe have adjustable difficulty slider (I can see wanting it faster once I get the hang of it)
This is dangerously addictive. The constraint of having to build towards a specific point completely changes the usual Scrabble strategy. I found myself making sub-optimal, silly words just to force the track in the right direction. Perfect coffee-break game. Also, the mobile app or PWA of this game would be great!
Thanks! PWA is ready. I'm working on getting it approved on the app stores.
Cool game - maybe pause if you're prompting the user to enter a name.
it's fun! if you want add more challenges, maybe only allow word from certain topic will be great addition, or make certain tile have hardcoded word
Thanks! Those are some good ideas. I'll probably implement it.
Great game. You could maybe have it pause the train a variable amount if you get double/triple words or letters or higher than 50 points for a word. Then you get rewarded for better play.
Thanks! That's a good idea. I'll probably end up implementing something like this.