[Updated 2009-02-11] Scrobble 1.3 - a free crossword puzzle game

SCROBBLE
====================================
Scrobble is a free crossword puzzle board game for Windows Mobile Pocket PCs.


Thanks to everyone who has downloaded and enjoyed Scrobble!
Scrobble has reached over 20,000 downloads since the first version was released in January 2009. It seems like the current version 1.3 is pretty stable and satisfactory. I know some people have requested new features (such as saving your game, adding words to the dictionary, submitting high scores, networked multiplayer, etc.)... and while I would like to implement all of these, I have started developing for the Google Android platform instead of Windows Mobile (if you want to know why, ask and I'll gladly explain! ). I will still fix bugs for Scrobble if they arise, but probably won't be adding any new features for a while (months? year or two?). By the way, for anyone requesting a Save Game feature... whenever I want to "save" my game I just hit the Home button on my phone, which puts Scrobble in the background. Then when I want to pick up my game again I use the task manager to switch back to it (I'm not sure if every Windows Mobile phone has this ability). But this method has worked pretty well for me.


Scrobble runs best on VGA-resolution displays, but it also works on QVGA and WVGA devices. Drag the board around with your finger/stylus or use your device's d-pad to move the board around so you can see all of it.




- NOTE: Installing a new version of Scrobble will automatically overwrite your existing dictionary files. So if you have changed to a different language, you must change back to it manually after installing a new version.
- You can now tap Game->Options... to change your dictionary. Put all your dictionary files in the folder in which you installed Scrobble. Choose a dictionary from Game->Options... then restart Scrobble to use it.
- v1.3 uses the OSPD (I think v4) English dictionary by default, which contains around 80,000 words.



DOWNLOAD ..... (installable CAB file - download to device and run to install)
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- scrobble.cab [v1.3] (222KB)

(Previous versions: v1.2.cab --- v1.1.cab --- v1.0.cab --- v0.53b.cab --- v0.5b.cab)



REQUIREMENTS
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- .NET Compact Framework 3.5 (download from Microsoft here).



NOTES
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- Scrobble is its own game with its own rules. Read the Help & About to view all the rules.
- Thanks to Sam Allen of dotnetperls.com for his C# DAWG implementation and anagram finder. Also thanks to bigchrizzieboy, hanackin, joshrys, and other xda-dev users for their contributions.



CHANGES
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VERSION 1.3 --- 2009-02-11
- Fixed letter distribution issues (now includes the letter "Y"!)
- Modified CPU-Normal user a bit (a tad easier maybe).
- You can now use the Game->Options menu to choose what dictionary you would like to use. (Note that this still uses the English distribution of letters and scores).
- Minor fixes and changes.
- Support for automatic notification of updates via DeviceUpdate. I tried to support AppToDate as well but I'm waiting on some answers from their forum about a registry key that's needed to make it work.

VERSION 1.2 --- 2009-02-03
- Fixed bug where CPU always uses 'Z' for their blanks, and sometimes plays words that are invalid.
- Fixed bug where game would crash if you place one letter to your move, take it back, then try to submit it.
- You can now drag the board around freely on sub-VGA res devices.
- Changed the amount that the board moves when using the d-pad, so it moves shorter distances at a time.
- Changed both NORM and HARD CPU players (speeding up their turns and changing the way they look for moves).
VERSION 1.1 --- 2009-01-31
- Sped up the computer players (especially NORM).
- Made NORM a little more difficult and HARD a little easier.
- Fixed issue where only 1/4th of the board was visible on QVGA/WVGA displays.
- Minor GUI changes (should look better on sub-VGA displays).
VERSION 1.0 --- 2009-01-30
- Added ability to choose AI opponents (NORMAL and HARD difficulty).
- Increased text sizes for better readability on sub-VGA resolution screens.
- The board is now in a bounded area so it looks cleaner when moved around.
- Removed "Turn:" from the upper-right corner, as the current player is already displayed at the bottom.
- Players can only exchange their letters when there are at least 7 letters left in the bag.
- Other minor changes (cosmetic, bug fixes, etc.).
VERSION 0.53 - beta --- 2009-01-22
- Added the ability to move the Scrobble board around with the directional pad, so devices with sub-VGA resolutions can "see" all parts of the board. The center/Enter button snaps the board to its default (upper-left corner) position.
- The Scrobble shortcut is now placed in the Games folder instead of Programs/Applications. If you don't have a Games folder, one should be created for you.


MULTI-LANGUAGE SUPPORT
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To change the dictionary that Scrobble uses from English to your language (if it's currently supported; if it's not please read the first reply to this post below), follow these instructions:

1. Download the dictionaries/languages file: dicts-de-en-fi-fr-it-nl-pl.zip.
2. Extract the desired language files to your device (including d1- and d2-... such as d1-dutch.scro and d2-dutch.scro if you wanted the Dutch dictionary), into the folder in which you installed Scrobble (EX: \Program Files\Scrobble\).
3. Run Scrobble and tap Game->Options. Choose the desired d1-LANG.scro from the dropdown box and tap OK. Tap OK to the "Saved" message.
4. Restart Scrobble. Note that Scrobble only uses the 26 letters from English (A to Z). So just use the English equivalent of any non-English letters (Ä = A, Ê = E, etc.) in a word.

Note: There are a couple English dictionaries -- OSPD is installed with v1.3 by default, and SOWPODS is the very large dictionary from v1.2.

OTHER LANGUAGES: There are some other dictionaries attached as zip files further along down in this thread... such as Spanish and Catalan (page 4 if you are logged in).


DONATE
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If you enjoy Scrobble and would like to donate money to encourage further development, feel free to do so via PayPal.


Generous donations received from the following people:

- del4
- PeteSX
- Ramiz M.

Thanks to all who contribute!



SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A. and Canada by Hasbro Inc. and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons, PLC of Enfield, Middlesex, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. Scrobble and Spacetornado Software are not affiliated in any way with Hasbro, Spear or Mattel.


All comments/bug reports/questions/requests are welcome!

Updates / News

(Look here for future announcements, important messages, etc.).


If you would like to try to create or find a Scrobble dictionary for a language other than English, it must follow these requirements:


1. A single text file, not binary / database / etc. The entire dictionary should be easily editable in Notepad.
2. All UPPERCASE letters. (Use the free Notepad++ for this... Select All, then Edit -- to Upper case).
3. A single list of words, one word per line, no breaks, no spaces
4. You must convert all "special" letters to their A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z equivalent.. so Ö becomes O, Ä becomes A, etc.

Here's how the English dictionary file starts:

AA
AARDVARK
AARDVARKS
AARDWOLF
...

NOTE: I have already found German, Finnish, French and Serbian dictionaries. So if you would like support for these languages, just let me know and I will try to include them in an upcoming version of Scrobble. (In the meantime, playing the English-only version can only improve your English spelling and vocabulary skills if you are a non-native English speaker!).

-----------------
UPDATE - French Language Support

If you would like French support, follow these instructions:

1. download the attached dict-french.zip.
2. extract the d1.scro and d2.scro files to your device.
3. rename the existing files that are installed with Scrobble in:

\Program Files\Scrobble\

to d1-en.scro and d2-en.scro

4. replace them with d1.scro and d2.scro from the zip file.
5. restart Scrobble.

I have not tested this (as I don't know French) so please let me know your results.

Support for non-VGA devices

bigchrizzieboy,

Thanks for trying out Scrobble on your device and posting the results and screenshots.

I will look into providing support for other resolutions (QVGA, WVGA, etc.).
The problem is that the board is very small and not too finger-friendly even on my 480x640 display. I have to use a stylus to tap the desired tile.

But I could look into using scrollbars.

French translation

hanackin,

I actually have a French Scrabble dictionary. I'll try to include this language in the next major release of Scrobble.

Thanks for the interest!

Multiplayer support

Seifer said:

this is very nice, i like scrabble very much. But i like to play against friends.

So my first feature request is:

- Multiplayer support through Bluetooth or wi fi.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Seifer,

I would love to do multiplayer support over Bluetooth or WiFi, but this would be quite complex and take a long time. So I may implement it in the future, but for now you will just have to pass one device back and forth. I designed Scrobble so that when one player's turn is over a large "Move Results" dialog covers up their letters, so the next player cannot see the other player's letters. They have to tap a large button in order to take their turn. (If people are close enough to play over Bluetooth or WiFi, they are most likely close enough to pass their device back and forth! ).

v0.53 has ability to move the board around using d-pad

bigchrizzieboy said:

The board is 4 way to big (you can see the star in the middel in the down-right corner). Also somethings are hard to read (the screenshots says it all i guess, they are not scaled).


Request:
I hope someone (you acrosse?) could make this great game work for Qvga devices.

Some other Feedback:
- The Shortcut is placed under programs, I think it´s better under programs\games

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

bigchrizzieboy, check out v0.53 and see if this helps any. I couldn't really do anything about the hard-to-read text. This text is already very small on VGA devices, and it just gets more distorted when WM6 tries to fit it on a QVGA screen / aspect ratio. It looks like it's at least legible from your screenshots, although not very pretty.

But now you can use your device's d-pad to move the board around (thanks to joshrys for this idea), and the center/Enter button will snap it back to its default top-left corner position. I only tested this on my Fuze/Touch Pro so feel free to let me know your results!

Also the shortcut goes to Programs\Games now.

non-English languages

animelover said:

Erm ...! Can I replace the words database with a german one? Or how can I edit the words database for this little great game?


Have long time searched for such a game as for freeware!

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I searched for this game, too, but only found the Handmark Scrabble "official game." But it didn't even display correctly on my VGA screen (half the letters were missing).

Anyway... unfortunately the game is somewhat hard-coded in English.
Replacing the dictionary would only work if it was with a language that had exactly 26 letters (same as English), and the same exact ones (A, B, C, ..., X, Y, Z).

But German (and most other non-English languages) have umlauts, accents, etc. So I will have to work on providing support for other languages (your vote for German is counted).

Translation to Dutch

bigchrizzieboy said:

In the attachment is a dutch (netherlands) dictonary file. I used the dictonary for PocketCM Keyboard that i used in while ago, i tought i got it somewhere from xda, couldn't find it on pocketcm...

What is needed to make this work? I think:
- delete/customize the words with special letters like ö,é (coöperatie, privé).
- anything else?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Once you change all the "special" letters (anything that does not appear in English's alphabet, A-Z) to their "normal" equivalent (like all ö's become o and all é's become e), re-upload the file.

I will take it and write a little custom Windows app to convert it to ALL UPPERCASE (or something like Notepad++ or an advanced text editor could probably do this). Then I will create the 2 special dictionary files that Scrobble requires, d1.scro and d2.scro. These are located in \Program Files\Scrobble. You can rename the current d1.scro and d2.scro to d1-en.scro and d2-en.scro, and then put in the special Dutch ones.

Then you can play the game and just use e instead of é, etc.

EDIT: Yeah, in Notepad++ (a great, free, advanced Windows text/code editor) you can do Edit...Select All, and then Edit...to Upper case. You probably also want to make sure that once you remove all special letters that there are no two words in the list that are exactly the same. Does Dutch use a lot of special letters? Would it be pretty easy to play Scrobble in Dutch with only the use of normal A-Z English letters?

hanackin said:

Thanks a lot acrosser !!!!!

I will test it right now

edit : so far everything seems good. Just to be more frenchy, I can translate all the srtings to make it fully french, just send me what needs to be translated and I will proceed.

Little remark, the game board on a VGA screen is a little bit small a bigger one would be better. And A WVGA version would also be great

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I have uploaded the French dictionary in text format. Feel free to edit it and make it more "Frenchy" --- just remember to only use capital letters, A to Z.

I could make the board a little bigger, but I want it to all fit at once on a VGA screen. The problem with support for non-VGA devices is that I am developing in Visual Studio .NET 2008... and as far as I can tell it doesn't really support multiple-resolution device development very well. WM tries to scale it down and fit everything that it can, but any text that is very small already on a VGA resolution is going to be tiny, distorted and unreadable on smaller screens.

I would almost have to create a new project just for WVGA, and another QVGA... and then any bug fixes in the "main" one would have to be duplicated across all three! (This is my first project for Windows Mobile devices).