Wordle - a new word game

[SMcNeill]

Now, for version 4, it needs to have a difficulty screen where you choose words from 3 to 10 letters.

Personally, I imagine a game with 3 letter words would be hard as heck to guess, whereas s 10-letter word would be relatively simple (counter-intuitively).  Three letters, you have less chance to get a letter on a guess, and there's soooo many 3-letter words with minute variance in them!  Bat, but, bot, bit, bet... even if you get the b and t, there's 5 unique choices for the middle letter alone!  10-letter words, on the other hand, have more chances to guess a letter from them, and a much smaller pool of words to try and march from.

[bplus]

OK version 4 you chose number of letters / number of guesses for your level, why not :)

For 3 letter words with 3 word guesses: pie, tau, soy
you learn what vowels you have plus 3 common consonants, likely hit with 2 of 3.

[bplus]

OK to prepare for Wordle 4, I cleaned out the unixdict.txt of 757 words that had punctuation or digits in them to Clean_Dict.txt. Then in 2nd part of code, Make N Letter Word Files.bas below, I made 10 files according to word length. Included with the code for making those files I have listed the word counts for each file in comments at the end.

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. ' Make "Clean_Dict.txt" pure letters only b+ 2022-01-12
2. DefLng A-Z
3. Open "unixdict.txt" For Input As #1
4. Open "Clean_Dict.txt" For Output As #2
5. While Not EOF(1)
6.     Input #1, w$
7.     lw = Len(w$)
8.     If (lw > 2) And (lw < 13) Then ' word lengths 3 to 12, makes 9 files
9.         i = 1: OK = -1
10.         While i <= lw ' check for pure letter words
11.             If (Asc(w$, i) < 97) Or (Asc(w$, i) > 122) Then OK = 0: Exit While
12.             i = i + 1
13.         Wend
14.         If OK Then Print #2, w$
15.     End If
16. Wend
17. Close
18. Print "Clean_Dict.txt, file ready."
19.  
20. ' Note: Clean_Dict.txt has 757 words less than unixdict.txt
21.  
22. ' Part 2 make 9 N_Letter_Word.txt files
23. For N = 3 To 12
24.     Open _Trim$(Str$(N)) + "_Letter_Words.txt" For Output As #N
25. Next
26. Open "Clean_Dict.txt" For Input As #1
27. While Not EOF(1)
28.     Input #1, w$
29.     Select Case Len(w$)
30.         Case 3: Print #3, w$
31.         Case 4: Print #4, w$
32.         Case 5: Print #5, w$
33.         Case 6: Print #6, w$
34.         Case 7: Print #7, w$
35.         Case 8: Print #8, w$
36.         Case 9: Print #9, w$
37.         Case 10: Print #10, w$
38.         Case 11: Print #11, w$
39.         Case 12: Print #12, w$
40.     End Select
41. Wend
42. Close
43. Print "10 N_letter_Words.txt files should be ready."
44.  
45. ' N letters - number of words in file
46. ' 3 - 753
47. ' 4 - 2176
48. ' 5 - 3145   the other 5 Letter Words W3.txt had u.s.a that was removed with above code
49. ' 6 - 3852
50. ' 7 - 4042
51. ' 8 - 3608
52. ' 9 - 3088
53. ' 10 - 1971
54. ' 11 - 1120
55. ' 12 - 592
56.  
57.  

Reading through 3_Letter_Words.txt you will find non words like aaa or nne so be glad you can view the dictionary as you play the game! :)

Again I remind that unixdict.txt is in the zip of post at the start of this thread.

OK onto mod Wordle 4...

[SMcNeill]

OK version 4 you chose number of letters / number of guesses for your level, why not :)

For 3 letter words with 3 word guesses: pie, tau, soy
you learn what vowels you have plus 3 common consonants, likely hit with 2 of 3.

My point is the difficulty of getting the last letter.

Lets say you guess SOY.  OY is correct and in the proper place -- that's guess #1.

Boy
Coy
Foy
Goy
Hoy
Joy
Roy
Soy
Toy

You have 4 guesses now to determine which of those 8 letters go into the first slot.

You could try RuT to rule out R and T.
HoG.
JiF

But if none of those work, you're still stuck with 2 choices B and C for the last letter, giving you a 50% chance to win, even if you play your cards perfect.

Or: bat, cat, dat, fat, gat, hat,  kat, lat, mat, nat, pat, rat, sat, tat, vat.... 15 choices ending in AT,...  :P

[Statsman1]

Maybe 3 letters in 6 guesses is too hard, due to the shortness of the word, the number of 3-letter words with common letters, and the overall number of combinations?

5 letters AND being forced to use real words to guess is important, I think, to being able to get to the word in 6 guesses.  I admit I got a Wordle on the 2nd guess the other day, but that was remarkably lucky, I usually get there between 3 and 5 guesses. 

Using openers like STARE, CLOUD and MINTY burn up 14 unique letters - all 6 vowels and most popular consonants in 3 guesses - I feel like, by that point, there is no way you cannot get it by 6 guesses.  Logic plays a huge part in it after that.

Using 3 letter words doesn’t get enough letters out there in the first few guesses to hope to arrive, logically, at the word by the end of 6 guesses, as mentioned by @SMcNeill, especially if the word chosen has a ton of first-letters that go with the last two - ?at, ?ar, ?en…there are loads of those.  It becomes a real roll of the dice.

Maybe 5 letters is the sweet spot between “relying on luck” and “reasonable number of guesses required”?

[bplus]

Here it is, the answer to all Steve's challenges (so far):

Wordle 4 with advanced level options:

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. Option _Explicit
2. _Title "Wordle 4" ' b+ 2022-01-12 as Steve suggested add option to choose how many letters, how many guesses
3. Randomize Timer
4.  
5. ' b+ 2022-01-09 Wordle 2: this version you have to select words from word list for your guess
6. '2022-01-10 working but selecting words from wordlist is really slow, need to allow letters to jump up and down the list faster!
7. ' Today we will select word from opened text editor
8. ' 1) copy word to clipboard
9. ' 2) signal this program you've got the new word loaded in clipboard
10. ' Get rid of the ' words in "5 Letter Words.txt" file, too unexpected. So rewrite the file builder from unixdict.txt OK 9 words removed.
11.  
12. ' 2022-01-10 Wordle 3: allow repeated letters (make it even harder! to play and code?)
13. ' Revise "Make 5 Letter Words W3.bas" code to rebuild "5 Letter Words W3.txt" with words with repeating letters.
14.  
15. ' 2022-01-12 Worde 4: prep word files by running, Make N Letter Word files.bas, (posted at forum already.)
16.  
17. '  All the variables use here
18. Dim As Long f, NLetters, NGuesses, topWord, printRow, nGuess, hits, letter, p
19. '  ReDim colorCode(1 To NLetters)
20. Dim wordFile$, answer$, guess$, k$, blank$
21.  
22. f = _LoadFont("arial.ttf", 24, "MONOSPACE") ' a nice font for displaying Game letters with color
23. Screen _NewImage(600, 400, 32) ' leave room for Editor window next to this QB64 app
24. _ScreenMove 200, 200
25. Color _RGB32(200, 200, 200), _RGB32(0, 0, 0) ' not too bright white on black for normal print
26. '      123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345
27. Locate 8, 1
28. Print "                          The Skinny on Wordle:"
29. Print
30. Print "     In Standard Wordle Game, you get 6 tries to guess a 5 letter word.    "
31. Print "          A letter color coded yellow is right letter wrong place."
32. Print "          A letter color coded green is right letter right place."
33. Print "                 ...zzz  means to press a key to continue."
34. Print
35. Print "              Press <a> to run an advanced level Wordle Game,"
36. Print "                  any other to play Standard Wordle Game."
37. k$ = InKey$
38. While Len(k$) = 0: k$ = InKey$: Wend
39. If k$ = "a" Then 'advanced level
40.     Cls
41.     lAgain:
42.     Input "Please enter the number of letters (3-12) of words to play "; NLetters
43.     If NLetters < 3 Or NLetters > 12 Then GoTo lAgain
44.     gAgain:
45.     Input "Please enter the number of guesses (2-10) to allow yourself "; NGuesses
46.     If NGuesses < 2 Or NGuesses > 10 Then GoTo gAgain
47.     _Title "Wordle 4 Advanced Options:" + Str$(NLetters) + " Letter Words with" + Str$(NGuesses) + " guesses allowed."
48. Else
49.     NLetters = 5: NGuesses = 6
50. End If
51. wordFile$ = _Trim$(Str$(NLetters)) + "_Letter_Words.txt"
52. Dim dict(1 To 10000) As String ' oversized array to load word list
53. Open wordFile$ For Input As #1 ' W3 version allows repeated letters, allot of 5 letter 1st names in here
54. While Not EOF(1)
55.     topWord = topWord + 1
56.     Input #1, dict(topWord)
57. Wend
58. Close #1
59. Shell _DontWait Chr$(34) + wordFile$ + Chr$(34)
60.  
61. Do ' again new round
62.     Cls
63.     Locate 24, 6: Print "You have to click the QB64 app to get focus back into the app.";
64.     answer$ = dict(Int(Rnd * topWord) + 1) ' pick new word to guess
65.     printRow = 0 ' reset for round
66.     For nGuess = 1 To NGuesses ' allowed 6 guesses (in Standard Game)
67.         hits = 0 ' how many letters are dead right? reset
68.         printRow = printRow + 1 ' track left print line for inputs display mostly
69.         ' here we are to select a word from word list in the Editor we opened and copy it to clipboard
70.         Locate 23, 3: Print "Select a word from Editor and copy to clipboard, press enter when done."
71.         k$ = InKey$
72.         While k$ <> Chr$(13): k$ = InKey$: Wend
73.         guess$ = _Trim$(_Clipboard$)
74.         If guess$ = "" Then System
75.         Locate 23, 1: Print Space$(75);
76.         Locate printRow + 3, 10: Print nGuess; guess$
77.         _Font f&
78.         blank$ = answer$ ' we use blank to remove letters as we assign colors
79.         ReDim colorCode(1 To NLetters)
80.         For letter = 1 To NLetters
81.             If Mid$(answer$, letter, 1) = Mid$(guess$, letter, 1) Then
82.                 hits = hits + 1
83.                 Mid$(blank$, letter, 1) = " " ' remove green letters taken by direct hits
84.                 colorCode(letter) = 3
85.             End If
86.         Next
87.         For letter = 1 To NLetters
88.             If colorCode(letter) <> 3 Then
89.                 p = InStr(blank$, Mid$(guess$, letter, 1))
90.                 If p > 0 Then
91.                     colorCode(letter) = 2
92.                     Mid$(blank$, p, 1) = " " ' remove so can't color again
93.                 End If
94.             End If
95.         Next
96.         For letter = 1 To NLetters ' now to display our colorful feedback about the guess
97.             Locate nGuess + 1, letter + 13
98.             If colorCode(letter) = 3 Then
99.                 Color _RGB32(0, 0, 0), _RGB32(0, 128, 0)
100.             ElseIf colorCode(letter) = 2 Then
101.                 Color _RGB32(0, 0, 0), _RGB32(255, 255, 0)
102.             Else
103.                 Color _RGB32(200, 200, 200), _RGB32(0, 0, 0)
104.             End If
105.             Print Mid$(guess$, letter, 1)
106.         Next
107.         _Font 16
108.         Color _RGB32(200, 200, 200), _RGB32(0, 0, 0)
109.         If hits = NLetters Then Locate 13, 45: Print "You got it! ...zzz": Sleep: GoTo skip
110.     Next
111.     Sound 50, 4
112.     Locate 16, 38: Print "The word was "; answer$; "  ...zzz"
113.     Sleep
114.     skip:
115.     _Font 16
116. Loop
117.  

 

 

 

 

[Dimster]

This could morph into the new Babble. It would be interesting to guess the English word PIE for the Russian word meaning PIE, or Italian for PIE, or French for PIE etc. Pie is not a good example as the English versions has duplicate meanings, so lets go with WIND .... crap that a duplicate as well ... maybe morphing to the new Babble is a stretch.

[Statsman1]

Love it!  @bplus - for a guy who never played it, you are killing it here!!  :)

[bplus]

Thanks @Statsman1

@Dimster I will look into Babble, as possible option or more ideas.

I have a fixed a couple of feedback Locate's to fit on screen with maximun letters 12 and maximum guesses 10 for the advanced levels:

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. Option _Explicit
2. _Title "Wordle 4" ' b+ 2022-01-12 as Steve suggested add option to choose how many letters, how many guesses
3. Randomize Timer
4.  
5. ' b+ 2022-01-09 Wordle 2: this version you have to select words from word list for your guess
6. '2022-01-10 working but selecting words from wordlist is really slow, need to allow letters to jump up and down the list faster!
7. ' Today we will select word from opened text editor
8. ' 1) copy word to clipboard
9. ' 2) signal this program you've got the new word loaded in clipboard
10. ' Get rid of the ' words in "5 Letter Words.txt" file, too unexpected. So rewrite the file builder from unixdict.txt OK 9 words removed.
11.  
12. ' 2022-01-10 Wordle 3: allow repeated letters (make it even harder! to play and code?)
13. ' Revise "Make 5 Letter Words W3.bas" code to rebuild "5 Letter Words W3.txt" with words with repeating letters.
14.  
15. ' 2022-01-12 Worde 4: prep word files by running, Make N Letter Word files.bas, (posted at forum already.)
16. ' fix some feedback Locates rfor maximum guesses and letters
17.  
18. '  All the variables use here
19. Dim As Long f, NLetters, NGuesses, topWord, printRow, nGuess, hits, letter, p
20. '  ReDim colorCode(1 To NLetters)
21. Dim wordFile$, answer$, guess$, k$, blank$
22.  
23. f = _LoadFont("arial.ttf", 24, "MONOSPACE") ' a nice font for displaying Game letters with color
24. Screen _NewImage(600, 400, 32) ' leave room for Editor window next to this QB64 app
25. _ScreenMove 200, 200
26. Color _RGB32(200, 200, 200), _RGB32(0, 0, 0) ' not too bright white on black for normal print
27. '      123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345
28. Locate 8, 1
29. Print "                          The Skinny on Wordle:"
30. Print
31. Print "     In Standard Wordle Game, you get 6 tries to guess a 5 letter word.    "
32. Print "          A letter color coded yellow is right letter wrong place."
33. Print "          A letter color coded green is right letter right place."
34. Print "                 ...zzz  means to press a key to continue."
35. Print
36. Print "              Press <a> to run an advanced level Wordle Game,"
37. Print "                  any other to play Standard Wordle Game."
38. k$ = InKey$
39. While Len(k$) = 0: k$ = InKey$: Wend
40. If k$ = "a" Then 'advanced level
41.     Cls
42.     lAgain:
43.     Input "Please enter the number of letters (3-12) of words to play "; NLetters
44.     If NLetters < 3 Or NLetters > 12 Then GoTo lAgain
45.     gAgain:
46.     Input "Please enter the number of guesses (2-10) to allow yourself "; NGuesses
47.     If NGuesses < 2 Or NGuesses > 10 Then GoTo gAgain
48.     _Title "Wordle 4 Advanced Options:" + Str$(NLetters) + " Letter Words with" + Str$(NGuesses) + " guesses allowed."
49. Else
50.     NLetters = 5: NGuesses = 6
51. End If
52. wordFile$ = _Trim$(Str$(NLetters)) + "_Letter_Words.txt"
53. Dim dict(1 To 10000) As String ' oversized array to load word list
54. Open wordFile$ For Input As #1 ' W3 version allows repeated letters, allot of 5 letter 1st names in here
55. While Not EOF(1)
56.     topWord = topWord + 1
57.     Input #1, dict(topWord)
58. Wend
59. Close #1
60. Shell _DontWait Chr$(34) + wordFile$ + Chr$(34)
61.  
62. Do ' again new round
63.     Cls
64.     Locate 24, 6: Print "You have to click the QB64 app to get focus back into the app.";
65.     answer$ = dict(Int(Rnd * topWord) + 1) ' pick new word to guess
66.     printRow = 0 ' reset for round
67.     For nGuess = 1 To NGuesses ' allowed 6 guesses (in Standard Game)
68.         hits = 0 ' how many letters are dead right? reset
69.         printRow = printRow + 1 ' track left print line for inputs display mostly
70.         ' here we are to select a word from word list in the Editor we opened and copy it to clipboard
71.         Locate 23, 3: Print "Select a word from Editor and copy to clipboard, press enter when done."
72.         k$ = InKey$
73.         While k$ <> Chr$(13): k$ = InKey$: Wend
74.         guess$ = _Trim$(_Clipboard$)
75.         If guess$ = "" Then System
76.         Locate 23, 1: Print Space$(75);
77.         Locate printRow + 3, 10: Print nGuess; guess$
78.         _Font f&
79.         blank$ = answer$ ' we use blank to remove letters as we assign colors
80.         ReDim colorCode(1 To NLetters)
81.         For letter = 1 To NLetters
82.             If Mid$(answer$, letter, 1) = Mid$(guess$, letter, 1) Then
83.                 hits = hits + 1
84.                 Mid$(blank$, letter, 1) = " " ' remove green letters taken by direct hits
85.                 colorCode(letter) = 3
86.             End If
87.         Next
88.         For letter = 1 To NLetters
89.             If colorCode(letter) <> 3 Then
90.                 p = InStr(blank$, Mid$(guess$, letter, 1))
91.                 If p > 0 Then
92.                     colorCode(letter) = 2
93.                     Mid$(blank$, p, 1) = " " ' remove so can't color again
94.                 End If
95.             End If
96.         Next
97.         For letter = 1 To NLetters ' now to display our colorful feedback about the guess
98.             Locate nGuess + 1, letter + 13
99.             If colorCode(letter) = 3 Then
100.                 Color _RGB32(0, 0, 0), _RGB32(0, 128, 0)
101.             ElseIf colorCode(letter) = 2 Then
102.                 Color _RGB32(0, 0, 0), _RGB32(255, 255, 0)
103.             Else
104.                 Color _RGB32(200, 200, 200), _RGB32(0, 0, 0)
105.             End If
106.             Print Mid$(guess$, letter, 1)
107.         Next
108.         _Font 16
109.         Color _RGB32(200, 200, 200), _RGB32(0, 0, 0)
110.         If hits = NLetters Then Locate 15, 5: Print "You got it! ...zzz": Sleep: GoTo skip
111.     Next
112.     Sound 50, 4
113.     Locate 16, 2: Print "The word was "; answer$; "  ...zzz"
114.     Sleep
115.     skip:
116.     _Font 16
117. Loop
118.  

Unless Beta testers find more things, I will post whole package in one zip for Best Answer a little later.

[bplus]

This could morph into the new Babble. It would be interesting to guess the English word PIE for the Russian word meaning PIE, or Italian for PIE, or French for PIE etc. Pie is not a good example as the English versions has duplicate meanings, so lets go with WIND .... crap that a duplicate as well ... maybe morphing to the new Babble is a stretch.

@Dimster did you babble the word game Boggle?

[Dimster]

Boggle? Had to look that one up....1972....pre digital era. Can't say I ever played it but I do recall a square plastic filled with chicklets with numbers on them. The idea was to get the numbers in order. A 2d version of the 3d rubric cube filled with colors.

[bplus]

Boggle? Had to look that one up....1972....pre digital era. Can't say I ever played it but I do recall a square plastic filled with chicklets with numbers on them. The idea was to get the numbers in order. A 2d version of the 3d rubric cube filled with colors.

The "chicklets" are die with Letters in Boggle:
https://qb64forum.alephc.xyz/index.php?topic=4570.0

@Dimster maybe you can find a good link of what you are talking about?

[SMcNeill]

From my memory of Boggle, the game pieces were made like scrabble, but with the bottom hollowed out, making them look more like the keys on a keyboard, if you've ever pulled those out from the board.

The purpose was to allow for words to build over another...

A vertical word might be:

C
H
E
A
T

For the next turn, the other person might want to spell the word PEON....  A valid way to do that was to:

C
H
E
A
PEON

The hollow bottom P would stack on top of the T and overwrite it, leaving both words "Cheap" and "Peon" to score off from...

Similar to Scrabble, but with that one main word-building difference.

[STxAxTIC]

This game was called UpWords. Boggle was different.

 

[Statsman1]

Boggle was 16 6-sided cubes (each side had a letter) that were scrambled (shaken up) and then settled into a 4x4 grid.  (Or, later, 5x5) The idea was to make as many unique words out of the cubes that were touching each other, using each cube once, before the timer expired.  Longer word = more points.

Unique because if you found it and your opponent did too, nobody got credit for it.