New WIP: Think Pink (word game)

[balaporte]

Following Draco's lead, I'm starting a new thread for my current WIP, a word game called "Think Pink". I usually don't like to post about anything unless I really believe I'm going to finish it (hence the 200 games I've never posted about :P). In this case, I already have a working version that friends & family have played and given feedback about. I may post that soon.

Anyway, the idea is that if I post about this now, it will give me a push to keep on going until I finally get sick of it and/or call it finished.

It's a simple word game that was taught to me by a friend years ago. The player is told that the puzzle type is either a "think pink", a "thinky pinky", or a "thinkety pinkety", which tells the player that the answer must use only either one, two, or three syllable words ("think pink" = one syllable, "thinky pinky" = two syllable, and "thinkety pinkety" = three syllables). The player is then given a two-word clue phrase, and must come up with a two-word answer phrase in which both words rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables as indicated by the puzzle type. Complicated description of a simple game, here are some examples:

Puzzle Type: Think Pink
Clue Phrase (given to player): "rodent residence"
Answer Phrase: "mouse house"

Puzzle Type: Thinky Pinky
Clue: "monster movie"
Answer: "creature feature"

Puzzle Type: Thinkety Pinkety
Clue: "ordinary monkey"
Answer: "vanilla gorilla"

Maybe not everyone's idea of fun, but we like words around here. I've written 300 puzzles, which may not seem like a lot, but some of them are pretty hard.

The computer version pretty simply just presents the puzzle, accepts text input for a guess, and then moves onto the next puzzle if correct. However, there will also be options for scoring, using a timer, getting hints, saving progress. Since the game is really so simple, it allows me to learn about putting together all the other elements of a finished, and hopefully finished-looking, game - graphics, fx, sound, save files, all that.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope to post either some screen shots or the basic working version within the next two or three days. Right now I'm late for one of those things that keeps me away from getting this game done...

[Draco9898]

Sounds relatively fun. Good luck.

Ah, and yes getting all the media together can be difficult, but hopefully not for this game. :)

[kevin]

    So it'll find a rhyme or are these built into  it ?

[Rembrandt Q Einstein]

cool.  When i saw ordinary monkey, I thought manilla gorilla -- not many things more ordinary than office supplies.

Kevin, it seems like balaporte is making all the puzzles himself.  It would seem better that way, to avoid ambiguous puzzles.  Plus you would need banks of rhymes, because boot and suit rhyme, but not steak and beak.

[balaporte]

Good answer... I considered using "manila" instead of "vanilla", but out of my testers so far, not everyone knew what manila meant, or how to spell it. Everyone got that vanilla can mean plain or ordinary, though.

Yep, I've made all the puzzles, 300 total arranged in five sets of 60 per set. As the above post said, this is to avoid ambiguous puzzles and rhymes. There are drawbacks to this, such as that I'm using American English pronunciations and spellings, and that once a player gets through all 300 puzzles, the game has no real replay value. But even coming up with 300 that made some sort of sense took a long time...

Again, though, point here is just to finally finish something.

Speaking of which, this hasn't really been much of a showcase so far, has it? Haven't had the time I thought I would to get it going. It's great to see there is some interest, makes me feel like I've got to SHOW something now - otherwise it's just all talk.