Christmas high score challenge is HERE!

[Jbizzel]

The winning games for the high score challenge are:

The Games

• Chucky Egg, 10 votes

• Deflektor, 6 votes,

• Scrabble, 5 votes

The rules

I was thinking the high score challenge would fun from Christmas day to midnight on 2 January. Over all winner announced on the 3rd.

Scrabble would be the first game, I'll accept screen shots or photos of scores for that game between December 25-27. After 12pm on the 27th no further submissions for that game are acceptable.

Deflector 28th - 30th.

Finally Chucky Egg - 31st to midnight on the 2nd.

I hope that is what everyone is expecting and people are happy to compete on that basis. My only worry is scrabble, do we need a specific dictionary as the game lets you decide for yourself if the word is valid!

[spider]

Good Luck Everyone!

[PeterJ]

My only worry is scrabble

We have a book of valid Scrabble words. I'm happy to check the entries as long as the screen grabs are nice and clear. I would suggest any words in the Oxford English Dictionary and / or in the Scrabble dictionary are fine. Don't want to over complicate things. Someone would need to check my submitted entry though.

There is also this site that Mrs J and I use.

https://scrabblewordfinder.org/dictionary-checker


Thanks for arranging this by the way.

[spider]

Here are the games linked for convenience, I think I've picked them correctly:

Chuckie Egg . Deflektor . Scrabble

[R-Tape]

Scrabble as a Hi-Score challenge? Aye I'll have a bash.

https://scrabblewordfinder.org/dictionary-checker

That's not a very complete dictionary

[equinox]

Re Scrabble dictionaries: allowing the OED will permit a lot of very obscure Old/Middle English words that would not be in the actual (Collins) Scrabble dictionary. I would suggest we stick to Collins, or else say that only words the Speccy knows are allowable (sigh).
Also I assume that it has to be a 2-player game? 3 or 4 players won't allow so much scoring obviously, and playing 1 alone is just silly
Argh, there's also the issue of which computer skill to use (1 through 4), and whether to see the computer thinking (probably not, because it gives away lots of info about which tiles are in the bag and whether it's worth waiting for the X and so on).

[spider]

Regarding scrabble, I tend to play this version (on occasion, I'm not very good) with a computer opponent as its boring otherwise.

I'm assuming this is permitted at "level one" computer opponent ? My thoughts here are a higher level will use more tiles quickly with larger higher scoring words, reducing the number of tiles for the human.

But I'm open to any rules that may apply.

[Jbizzel]

Re Scrabble dictionaries: allowing the OED will permit a lot of very obscure Old/Middle English words that would not be in the actual (Collins) Scrabble dictionary. I would suggest we stick to Collins, or else say that only words the Speccy knows are allowable (sigh).
Also I assume that it has to be a 2-player game? 3 or 4 players won't allow so much scoring obviously, and playing 1 alone is just silly
Argh, there's also the issue of which computer skill to use (1 through 4), and whether to see the computer thinking (probably not, because it gives away lots of info about which tiles are in the bag and whether it's worth waiting for the X and so on).

I thought about the difficulty level and number of players issue. Let's say it's up to each person to come up with a strategy to get the highest score possible. Could be interesting.

I like [mention]PeterJ[/mention] s idea to post your boards here for review and final decision about any dodgy words.

[spider]

Re Scrabble dictionaries: allowing the OED will permit a lot of very obscure Old/Middle English words that would not be in the actual (Collins) Scrabble dictionary. I would suggest we stick to Collins, or else say that only words the Speccy knows are allowable (sigh).
Also I assume that it has to be a 2-player game? 3 or 4 players won't allow so much scoring obviously, and playing 1 alone is just silly
Argh, there's also the issue of which computer skill to use (1 through 4), and whether to see the computer thinking (probably not, because it gives away lots of info about which tiles are in the bag and whether it's worth waiting for the X and so on).

I thought about the difficulty level and number of players issue. Let's say it's up to each person to come up with a strategy to get the highest score possible. Could be interesting.

I like @PeterJ s idea to post your boards here for review and final decision about any dodgy words.

My own take on this:

For the highest score , play with no opponents. But that in my mind is perhaps cheating (but again, I'm open to suggestions or rules)

Although the dikshonary (yes I know) is not 100% great in the game, I'd probably only want to use words it allowed, again fully open to ideas on this. I mean I'd probably allow a word like "selfie" or "covid" but they won't be in there! I guess playing within the limitations of the game "as is" is maybe the best way...

[Jbizzel]

Definitely you need to play against at least one opponent. Let's make that an official rule

[Jbizzel]

My only worry is scrabble

We have a book of valid Scrabble words. I'm happy to check the entries as long as the screen grabs are nice and clear. I would suggest any words in the Oxford English Dictionary and / or in the Scrabble dictionary are fine. Don't want to over complicate things. Someone would need to check my submitted entry though.

There is also this site that Mrs J and I use.

https://scrabblewordfinder.org/dictionary-checker


Thanks for arranging this by the way.

And let's say anything from the word finder is ok too.

[equinox]

Okay. So I just tried a few Scrabble games according to these rules:
* Must play a 2-player game against the computer (any difficulty level).
* Words must be valid here: https://scrabblewordfinder.org/dictionary-checker
* Using that word finder to check words before playing them is okay (right? -- otherwise a bad guess would invalidate your whole game), but other tools (e.g. anagram finders, Scrabble board solvers) should not be used.

I eventually managed a score of 508:

[equinox]

Chuckie best so far: 208640. I'm not sure I will be able to improve on this much, because level 20 is completely savage.
However, back in the Speccy Tour 2001, Aleksandar Lukic got to level 174 with 115 lives, and a score of 3,420,250.

[Jbizzel]

Okay. So I just tried a few Scrabble games according to these rules:
* Must play a 2-player game against the computer (any difficulty level).
* Words must be valid here: https://scrabblewordfinder.org/dictionary-checker
* Using that word finder to check words before playing them is okay (right? -- otherwise a bad guess would invalidate your whole game), but other tools (e.g. anagram finders, Scrabble board solvers) should not be used.

I eventually managed a score of 508:

"Vehm", can you use it in a sentence? How did you come up with that word [mention]equinox[/mention] ?

[equinox]

"Vehm", can you use it in a sentence? How did you come up with that word @equinox ?

It's a German mediaeval tribunal thing. I used to play a lot of Scrabble, a lot lot.

[Jbizzel]

[mention]equinox[/mention] ah, are you playing in Germany, and the CPU is the English words?

[equinox]

And let's say anything from the word finder is ok too.

[Jbizzel]

I have to confess I had not looked at the word finder before I said that. I'm not much of a Scrabble player either. But my partner is.

Her view is:

• We should play in 1 language

• Proper nouns are not allowed

She also suggests we only use the actual words in the Scrabble dictionary built in to the spectrum game.

They are her suggestions, what do others think?

[PeterJ]

• We should play in 1 language

• Proper nouns are not allowed

She also suggests we only use the actual words in the Scrabble dictionary built in to the spectrum game.

Agreed with all those. I suggest we follow those rules because otherwise it will be Christmas 2022 by the time we have agreed

[Jbizzel]

Thanks [mention]PeterJ[/mention] agree!

These rules are now official!


Merry Christmas

[Jbizzel]

Score: 269



Well its a start! here goes nothing. No 13th century German peasant slang in sight

Its like Russian roulette as to whether or not the Speccy has the word!

[R-Tape]

No 13th century German peasant slang in sight

[R-Tape]

207

The computer made a fool out of me, and hammered it home by using "IDIOT". I hung on for too long to get a ZY on a triple letter, and the computer bloody stole it!

It doesn't look the fantastic, but this is a really good program. I'm glad this was suggested now. The 'thinking' feature is really good, and all of my words were allowed.

[equinox]

Well its a start! here goes nothing. No 13th century German peasant slang in sight

Lol, peasant slang? You're certainly proud of your ignorance. I assume you also don't think "spaghetti" and "opera" are words because they sound a bit Italian.

The built-in dictionary does seem sadly lacking, with common everyday four-letter words often missing. Maybe someone should try hooking it up to the Tasword +3 spell-checker disk

[Jbizzel]

Well its a start! here goes nothing. No 13th century German peasant slang in sight

Lol, peasant slang? You're certainly proud of your ignorance. I assume you also don't think "spaghetti" and "opera" are words because they sound a bit Italian.

The built-in dictionary does seem sadly lacking, with common everyday four-letter words often missing. Maybe someone should try hooking it up to the Tasword +3 spell-checker disk

Yes the built in dictionary is a bit hit and miss. Made worse by the fact that the CPU seems to know the dictionary and we don't.

Did you play a game using words accepted by the built-in dictionary [mention]equinox[/mention] ? If so, how did you get on?