Home For Fiction – Blog

Note: If you’re interested in word puzzles, also take a look at my newest game, Word Journey.

Please note that none of my Android apps is any longer maintained – and they’re not even available on Google Play anymore – for reasons you can read about here. If you still have any of the Home for Fiction Android apps installed on your phone, you’re advised to uninstall them. The post below should be seen purely as a snapshot of history.

I’ve been enjoying programming lately – more than usual, that is. When you enjoy something, you become better and more productive. That’s why we need Universal Basic Income instead of jobs making us miserable. But let’s leave that aside for now and talk about Worder, a word puzzle game for Android that I made.

Worder is a word puzzle game. You must create words from randomly appearing letters before time runs out. As you move through a beautiful environment, letters begin to fly in front of you. Pick them to form a word recognized by the app’s dictionary.

Each word adds seconds to your timer and points to your score. But strategy is important! Should you wait for “A” and “L” to form the word “Mor[al]”, or play it safe and just wait for an “E” to form the word “Mor[e]”? Longer words means more points, but the clock is ticking!

What’s a Word Puzzle Game without Words?

This app deploys the wonderful RiTa library, which I’ve used for many of my Android apps. It’s also – together with Datamuse – the driving force behind the iambic pentameter generator and the rhyming anapest generator I’ve made.

The app continuously checks for valid words in its dictionary. As soon as the user forms such a word (minimum length: 4 letters), points are added to the score and seconds to the timer. When the timer runs out, the game is over.