ANN: Free/Open-source Scrabble-like game

I'm happy to announce that Crosswords, the award-winning PalmOS
implementation of the rules popularized by Scrabble(tm), is now
available for PocketPC. You can get it, and read about it, here:

http://xwords.sourceforge.net

I encourage you to get it, play it, and let us all know what you think.


Here are some of Crosswords' most note-worthy features:

* Supports from one to four players

* Any or all players can be "robots", with the computer making the
moves

* Lots of the features you expect in a mature game: infinite undo and
saved games, game history and scoring explanations, customizable
board color, tray tile "juggle" and hints, optional passwords to
keep your tray secret, etc.

* "Dictionaries" -- compressed word lists used by the robot and to
check your moves -- can be selected per-game to make the robot
smarter or to change the language you're playing in. The
Sourceforge Crosswords site (above) includes several downloadable
dictionaries (including SOWPODS) in English, French, and Spanish.
I'll add German this weekend.

* There's an experimental website allowing you to build dictionaries
from your own wordlists. See the "BYOD" menu at the site above.

Crosswords is open source/free software, with source code available
under the GNU Public License. This means that anybody can study the
code, make improvements, and that together we can take the game
further than one developer can alone and in directions I probably
haven't even imagined. If working on Crosswords interests you, please
grab the code, check it out, and be in touch. But either way, please
play it and enjoy!

BTW, I welcome suggestions for other places to post to get the word
out about Crosswords for PocketPC.

Thanks,

--Eric House

************************************************** ****************************
* From the desktop of: Eric House, fixin@peak.org *
* Crosswords 4.0.6 for PocketPC is out!: <http://xwords.sourceforge.net> *
************************************************** ****************************

Hey, cool!

If you have any other Open Source projects for the Pocket PC or any
other Microsoft Windows platform, please post it to my little blog
focusing on that topic. You can find it at:

http://ogasawalrus.com/os4win/
--
Todd Ogasawara, MS-MVP/Mobile Devices
Online Editor - http://MobileViews.com/ -- PDA & Wireless Info
http://www.OgasaWalrus.com/MobileDot/ - Brief News & Comments

Eric House wrote:
> I'm happy to announce that Crosswords, the award-winning PalmOS
> implementation of the rules popularized by Scrabble(tm), is now
> available for PocketPC. You can get it, and read about it, here:
>
> http://xwords.sourceforge.net
>
> I encourage you to get it, play it, and let us all know what you think.
>
>
> Here are some of Crosswords' most note-worthy features:
>
> * Supports from one to four players
>
> * Any or all players can be "robots", with the computer making the
> moves
>
> * Lots of the features you expect in a mature game: infinite undo and
> saved games, game history and scoring explanations, customizable
> board color, tray tile "juggle" and hints, optional passwords to
> keep your tray secret, etc.
>
> * "Dictionaries" -- compressed word lists used by the robot and to
> check your moves -- can be selected per-game to make the robot
> smarter or to change the language you're playing in. The
> Sourceforge Crosswords site (above) includes several downloadable
> dictionaries (including SOWPODS) in English, French, and Spanish.
> I'll add German this weekend.
>
> * There's an experimental website allowing you to build dictionaries
> from your own wordlists. See the "BYOD" menu at the site above.
>
> Crosswords is open source/free software, with source code available
> under the GNU Public License. This means that anybody can study the
> code, make improvements, and that together we can take the game
> further than one developer can alone and in directions I probably
> haven't even imagined. If working on Crosswords interests you, please
> grab the code, check it out, and be in touch. But either way, please
> play it and enjoy!
>
> BTW, I welcome suggestions for other places to post to get the word
> out about Crosswords for PocketPC.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --Eric House
>
> ************************************************** ****************************
> * From the desktop of: Eric House, fixin@peak.org *
> * Crosswords 4.0.6 for PocketPC is out!: <http://xwords.sourceforge.net> *
> ************************************************** ****************************

--
Todd Ogasawara, MS-MVP/Mobile Devices
Online Editor - http://MobileViews.com/ -- PDA & Wireless Info
http://www.OgasaWalrus.com/MobileDot/ - Brief News & Comments