eytanz
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michthro wrote:
Those words are perfectly legal in Scrabble, since they are completely legitimate English words, just like any other English words, which is rather the point. What's irrelevant here is how these words happen to be formed. It's no more reasonable not to allow "acter" than it would be not to allow "acting".

No they aren't, at least not in tournament scrabble - words have to be in official scrabble dictionaries to be played.

The problem is that most dictionaries do not explicitly list them, for a number of obvious reasons, such as that these words are determined by universal rules, and the dictionaries are aimed at defining words, not listing every possible one, i.e. we're talking about dictionaries, not lexicons.

Good dictionaries list a lot of words generated by productive rules. They have an arbitrary cut-off point to be sure, but that just means that games based on them have arbitrary cut-off points as well.

I'd agree with you if Lexicant said anything about allowing any possible word in English. It doesn't - it says that all legitimate words are English words, not vice versa. It's a perfectly valid thing to be a dictionary-based game rather than an entire-language based game. Ignoring productive affixation - how would you handle dialects and alternate spellings otherwise?

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michthro
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Yeah, yeah, I agree that you have to draw the line somewhere before dialects, and that word games will necessarily be dictionary based. As long as you know where you stand, which in this case you do, it's ok.

I still feel that a good dictionary should list words derived from the very simple rules for -er and -ness. There's nothing strange about such words - I've often come across them in books, albeit usually for humorous effect. Any such word is far more "common" than most of the 2-letter words acceptable in Scrabble.

If like me, you're a fan of The Times type cryptic crosswords, you miss the old -er idea in other word games.
(What's a 4-letter word for "A little lower"? A 3-letter word for "butter"?)

Anyway, as I said, just a minor gripe. I find the same thing with most word games.

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[Last edited by michthro at 08-07-2006 08:56 PM]

lexicant
Level: Roachling
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The dictionary I use for Lexicant is an open-source spell-checking dictionary... its not perfect, no dictionary is, but I've found it pretty decent so far.

I purposely tried not to make the computer "super" smart, because the game is fairly difficult as it is. I'm pretty sure that if I wanted to I could make it so that the computer would win 99.5% of the time, but then it wouldn't be much fun now would it! Right now the script just searches for a random word which matches the wordstem in play, and then plays it. Whether or not that word has the proper # of letters for it to win (i.e. odd or even depending on who went first) isn't calculated. The computer's benefit is that it will always have a better vocabulary than the person its playing. Easy / Normal / Difficult is the way to regulates the script's vocabulary (though it also regulates the vocabulary allowed to be used by the human player, a bug I've not yet fixed).

Hope that makes sense! Originally I had inserted logic into the script's calculations - i.e. it would choose 10 random words that fit the word stem, and then decide from there which of those 10 would be the most appropriate play based on word-length and additional extensions that could be played off of it. But then I discovered the thing was practically unbeatable. (At least by me)

Person-to-person gameplay would be ideal because then you level out the playing field... you could also allow for bluffing, which is actually crucial to the game but sort of difficult to implement with a computer player. (In the paper-and-pencil version of this game, a common strategy is to "bluff" that you have a word in mind - your opponent can then "challenge" you to specify the word you were playing, and he will win if you can't answer.)

Chaco
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I played this with a pencil and paper with one of my acquaintances, and he was rather pleased. As lexicant mentioned earlier, a dictionary is needed in order to enforce the "hey, that isn't a word stem" rule.

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michthro
Level: Smitemaestro
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I went ahead and analyzed the game, using a somewhat screwy dictionary I extracted from some ancient spell-checker. Not surprisingly, the first player has a winning strategy. What's interesting though is that he loses on most letters.

Of course, as you said, it wouldn't be any fun playing against a computer using such a strategy, but it's interesting to see what happens. You said you use an open source dictionary. Mind telling me where I can get hold of it?

lexicant
Level: Roachling
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Sure - I used a mixture of word lists available here:
http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/

Mostly Scowl, if memory serves.

michthro
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Thanks, lexicant.

golfrman
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 165
Registered: 07-10-2006
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um apparently on insane the game is really smart...

Your opponent was building the word dihdroxycholecalciferol

has anyone ever heard of this word?

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Kevin_P86
Level: Smitemaster

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lexicant wrote:
the difficulty ratings are based on a score that's applied to each word in the dictionary. Words around 30 and lower are "common knowledge", 30-55 are more advanced, and anything more than 60/70 are words that most folks have never heard of (specialty scientific words mostly).

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masonjason
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I play this game frequently (orally) - I find it works best with more than two players, with points-scoring over several rounds. That way you get blocs of players conspiring to catch out the player with fewest points. Not suggesting you implement all this, just commenting on the game.

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