Whack-A-Word Help

Contents

1. Overview
2. Whacking
3. Scoring
4. Game Options
5. Statistics
6. High Scores
7. FAQ

Overview

The instructions for Whack-A-Word are quite simple:

If it's a word, whack it with the LEFT mouse button. If it's a fake, eliminate it with the RIGHT mouse button. Score more points by whacking words and eliminating fakes faster. But avoid making mistakes, which penalize your score and take up space on the screen. The game ends when time is up, your target is reached, or there's no room for another word. Such simple rules make the game sound easy, but it gets harder! As the game goes on, the words appear faster and faster, and your mistakes start to pile up. If you don't think fast, the screen will soon be full and the game will end. But if you go too fast, you'll make mistakes, the screen will get cluttered, and the game will end. The challenge is to go fast, but still whack the right words!

Whacking

Whacking is what this game is all about. You declare whether a word is real or fake by whacking it. When a word appears on the screen, use your mouse to point at it until a box is drawn around the word. If you click the LEFT mouse button at this point, you are declaring the word to be valid. If you click the RIGHT mouse button, you are declaring it to be fake.

When you correctly identify a word, it grows larger and then disappears. Congratulations! You receive a few points, your word count goes up, and the mouse cursor briefly changes from an arrow into a green plus sign to indicate success. In a similar fashion, when you correctly identify a fake, the word grows smaller and disappears. You receive a few points, your word count goes up, and the mouse cursor briefly changes from an arrow into a green X to indicate a successful elimination.

On the other hand, if you eliminate a valid word, you have made a mistake. As a penalty, your word count may go down, or your time limit may be shortened. And the mouse cursor changes from an arrow into a red plus sign to indicate a mistake. And of course, if you accidentally whack a fake word, you have made a mistake. Your word count may go down, or your time limit may be shortened, and the mouse cursor changes from an arrow into a red plus sign to indicate a mistake.

Scoring

In a normal game, Whack-A-Word awards 10 points for each word that you whack or fake that you eliminate. It's as simple as that.

Round Robin games are a little different, though, because each game has been calibrated to award approximately the same score when played with the same amount of skill. In games that have a target word count, you receive the usual 10 points per word, but you also get a variable time bonus that gets higher if you finish faster. In games that have a time limit, there is no time bonus because the game always ends when time has expired, but you receive 40 points per word. Finally, in games where the probability of finding a word is small, you receive a whopping 50 points per word, plus a time bonus.

The various scoring schemes for each game are summarized in the table below:

Game Options

There are many, many different ways to play Whack-A-Word, and you can use the Game Options dialog (shown below) to control the way you'd like to play. Nine of the most interesting combinations are provided for you by the buttons on the right-hand side of the dialog. Try clicking on them to see the different types of games you can play. Or you can use the individual controls to customize the game just the way you like it. Experiment! You can always get back to the default game by clicking "Factory Settings".

Quick Combinations

These nine variations represent some of the most interesting ways to play Whack-A-Word. See if one of them is to your liking!

• Any 50 - find fifty words or fakes as quickly as possible; a basic game
• 50 Seconds - find as many words or fakes as possible in fifty seconds; another basic game
• Deep Thought - words appear at a slow and steady rate, but you have to make a decision about every one
• Speed - words appear as fast (or faster!) than you can whack them; do your best to catch them all
• Bonus Round - lots and lots of real words, with only a few fakes; this game is fun, easy, and high scoring
• Jiggle 50 - words wiggle and animate while you try to find fifty words or fakes as quickly as possible
• Spell checker - eliminate fifty fakes as quickly as possible, when the fakes are valid-looking misspelled words
• Forever - the game won't end until you give up; your mistakes go away and ignored words will disappear too
• Factory Settings - whack words and eliminate fakes until the screen fills up with mistakes; this is the default game

Of course, these aren't the only combinations! You can start with them, then click on the various items in the Game Options dialog to specify your own set of rules for the game you like best.

Basic Rules

These check boxes represent various nuances and subtleties of play that make the game balanced, responsive and challenging. Here are explanations of what will happen if each one is checked:

• Score words - the left mouse button works, and scores points when you use it to whack a word
• Score fakes - the right mouse button works, and scores points when you use it to eliminate a fake
• Add words faster - the average time between successive words appearing gets shorter
• Adjust speed - the faster you score words, the faster they appear
• Adjust duration - the more words there are, the longer they remain on screen
• Animate words - make the words jiggle and dance while they're waiting to be scored
• Include power-ups - occasional bonuses like <+100 points> and <score-all-words> will appear
• Remove words - if you ignore a word too long, it will just disappear
• Remove mistakes - when you mistakenly identify a word or a fake, it only stays for a few moments
• Penalize mistakes - making a mistake costs you time (if the game has a time limit) or words (if the game has a target count)

End Game

When You can play Whack-A-Word with different goals in mind, and this setting helps determine which one is your current objective.

• Time has expired - end the game as soon as the clock reaches the specified Time Limit (see Parameters); try to score words as quickly as possible
• Target reached - end the game as soon as the specified number of words have been identified (see Parameters); try to score words without making mistakes
• There's no room - end the game whenever Whack-A-Word tries but fails to add a new word for five seconds; try to balance speed with accuracy
• Never - let the game run forever, even if the screen is full and no more words can be added; just play for fun

Choose Words

Whack-A-Word picks its words at random from a dictionary of almost 200,000. But there are different ways to choose "at random". Specifically...

• Completely at random - each word in the dictionary has an equal likelihood of being selected; this is like closing your eyes, opening a real dictionary at random and putting your finger on a word.
• Uniformly over starting letters - each letter A through Z has an equal likelihood of being selected as the first letter of the word; this option produces an inordinate number of words that start with Z, X, Q and J, even though such words represent a small portion of the English language.
• Uniformly over word lengths - each number between 2 and 26 has an equal likelihood of being selected, and then a word with this many letters is chosen at random; this option produces an inordinate number of really short and really long words, even though the majority of words in English are 7, 8 or 9 letters long.

Generate Fakes

Fakes are what make the game interesting, and Whack-A-Word has three different methods for generating them, which you can select here:

• Randomly picking letters - using English letter frequency as a guide, random sequences of letters are selected until they form a word; with this option, you'll almost never see Q without a U because the frequency is rare in English, but you will see lots of fake words with combinations like LL, ST, SS, etc.
• Compounding real words - two or more real words are selected and compounded together as one; this option is especially tricky, because it generates fakes that look exactly like real words, and sometimes even sound like real words, but aren't technically.
• Misspelling real words - a single word is selected from the dictionary, and then 1 to 3 of its letters are randomly changed to something else; this option simulates typographical errors fairly well.

Parameters

To control the speed and difficulty of the game, you can adjust these game parameters. They represent the various "numbers" that govern the game:

• Average time between words - new words will appear on the screen at a more or less steady rate, and this parameter controls how many milliseconds there are between the arrival of any two consecutive words; make it smaller to make the game go faster.
• Chance of a fake word - any given word that appears on the screen is either real or fake, and this parameter controls the percentage (out of 100) that are fake; make this number smaller to see more real words on the screen.
• Average duration - if the "Remove Words" rule is in effect (see Basic Rules), words that are ignored will eventually disappear; this parameter controls how many milliseconds they have to be ignored before they go away; make this number bigger to keep words on the screen longer
• Time limit - if the goal is to play until time is expired (see End Game When), this parameter specifies the length of the game (in seconds); make this number bigger to play longer.
• Target word count - if the goal is to play until you've identified a certain number of words (see End Game When), this parameter controls the length of the game; make this number bigger to play longer.

Statistics

At the end of each game, Whack-A-Word displays its statistics dialog (shown below). This screen gives you information about your current average score, as well as a summary of all the words and fakes you encountered in the previous game.

The first three columns contain valid words, while the contents of the last three columns are all fakes. Here are more detailed explanations for each one:

• Words Whacked - valid words that you correctly identified as valid - GOOD!
• Words Eliminated - valid words that you incorrectly eliminated as if they were fake - BAD!
• Words Ignored - valid words that came and went without being classified by you - NEUTRAL
• Fakes Whacked - fake words that you incorrectly whacked as if they were valid - BAD!
• Fakes Eliminated - fake words that you correctly eliminated as fake - GOOD!
• Fakes Ignored - fake words that came and went without being classified by you - NEUTRAL

High Scores

To help you gauge your progress, Whack-A-Word keeps track of the top 10 high scores it has encountered. You can see the current top ten at any time by selecting High Scores... from the Game menu. And of course, your own score will be added to the list whenever your score exceeds one of those already on the top ten.

When you play the Round Robin Tour, Whack-A-Word tracks your individual scores separately and saves them up for a cumulative Round Robin score. Upon finishing the 9th and final game, your cumulative score is compared to the top Round Robin scores, and recorded in a separate high score table.

FAQ

Q: When I run Whack-A-Word, I get an error message about WORDS.LST. What's up?
A: The file WORDS.LST contains the dictionary that Whack-A-Word uses to look up its words. Whack-A-Word needs this file in order to play a game, but if you're getting an error message, chances are that Whack-A-Word cannot find it. WORDS.LST should have been included in your download of Whack-A-Word, and should have been installed in the same directory as the program itself (WACKWORD.EXE). So the first thing you should do is check to be sure it is located in the same folder as your WACKWORD.EXE file. If it's not, try downloading and installing Whack-A-Word again.

However, if WORDS.LST and WACKWORD.EXE are in the same directory, but Whack-A-Word still doesn't work, check out the Properties of your shortcut to WACKWORD.EXE and make sure the correct Working Folder has been specified. To do this, open your Start menu, point to the Whack-A-Word folder, and the right-click on the Whack-A-Word program. This will bring up the Properties dialog, where you can make sure the Working Folder is set to "C:\Program Files\Haversack Software\Whack-A-Word" (or wherever you installed the game). This works for most people. But if it still doesn't, send me email.

Q: My copy of Whack-A-Word has expired. How can I keep on playing?
A: Go to http://www.haversack.com/whackaword and register!

Q: Why should I register my copy of Whack-A-Word?
A: Because it's the right thing to do!
A: Because it helps to support this site!
A: Because it helps me improve the game and write others like it!
A: Because it gives you a chance to offer feedback and suggestions for the game!
A: Because it gets rid of the download timer and removes the 45-game limit!
A: Because it supports the shareware game industry, which brings you low-cost, high-quality, non-corporate games like this!
A: Because it's so darn cheap!