Wordplay

Wordplay is a Unix/GTK+ game designed with Scrabble players in mind. Its main goal is to help players improve their anagramming and hooking skills. However, it can also be enjoyed for plain fun. The game uses the TWL98 word list, which is commonly used in Scrabble tournaments and club plays in the United States and Canada.

Three types of games are available for players to choose from. First, there's Word Mine where players have to find all words of a certain length that can be formed from the letters of a larger word. In this game, players can only repeat letters as often as they appear in the given word. Second, there's Word Hooks which requires players to find all the words that can "hook" off a given word, thus creating a new word by adding a letter to the beginning or end. Last but not least, there's Bingos where players must find all anagrams of the given seven or more letters. In Scrabble, playing a word that uses all the letters on a player's rack is called a bingo, and it awards a 50-point bonus. The bingo puzzles included with wordplay comprise the 500 most statistically likely bingo-able 7-letter and 8-letter combinations, based on the standard Scrabble bag letter distribution.

To play Wordplay, users will need to meet the following requirements: Gtk 1.2.x and Gdk-Pixbuf. The game can be compiled by checking the top of the Makefile for configuration options. Users may want to change PREFIX and/or CFLAGS before typing "make". To install the game, users must type "make install".

One of the latest updates in this release includes the use of the newest Scrabble tournament dictionary (OWL2). Overall, Wordplay is the perfect game for Scrabble players looking to expand their vocabulary and increase their game skills. With multiple game options and the use of professional word lists, players are sure to enjoy a challenging and fun experience.