Word Game Builder

Community Showcases
1

Edition Comparison | Docs/Support

Word Game Builder is an extensive, versatile system to create your own high-performance word games.

Word Game Builder is available in two editions: Standard and Pro.

Compare Word Game Builder editions here.

Features of Word Game Builder:
• Multple languages (English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish are included)
• Fast, efficient word checking
• Permutation checking and prefix checking
• Letter tiles, players, tile distributions and word game AIs
• Easy to use event binding
• Mobile-ready, with a fully documented example game
• Built-in support for sprites, meshes, Unity UI, NGUI, and 2D Toolkit
• Source code access [WGB Pro]

The package is mobile-ready and comes with a fully documented example game.

Play with our interactive web demo!

Updates
October 5, 2015
Word Game Builder 2.0 is here! Featuring all new art and a bevy of new features, we promise it’s been worth the wait.

New art
WGB has been given a major facelift and now features bright, colorful new artwork for bringing all your word games to life.

Expanded platform support
Now offering full Unity UI support, as well as Windows 8/8.1/10 app and WebGL support for all editions, WGB is more versatile than ever.

AI improvements and updates
This release incorporates improvements for Word Game Agent, an AI that can automatically find the best word out of a set of tiles. Word Game Agents are multithreaded with support for automatic tile selection/submission.

More information about releases are available on our blog, but drop into our Slack room or follow us on Twitter for up-to-the-minute feedback and news!

Download Word Game Builder

Word Game Builder Editions

Media

Screenshots

2567×1399 330 KB

Fast, efficient word checking

2572×1393 363 KB

Support for blank tiles and wildcard letters

2577×1401 349 KB

Full AI player support

2

Updated the build to load in the languages asynchronously (no interface hiccups) and to use the NGUI demo scene (1 draw call).

Also, I’m considering building an editor tool called a “Rules Manager”, which lets you create word rules - with this, you can build the entire logic of your word game (if it’s fairly simple) without any code. It won’t be as extensive as say, visual scripting, but I can have some rule modules (more can be created by the user). Would anyone be interested in this?

3

Yep. Interested.
Regards
Johnny

4

very interested.

5

Okay, here’s an outline of what I have so far. Let me know what you guys think - the more feedback I get, the better I can make it.

Simple game logic is currently handled by a few components. More advanced concepts (like crosswords, game boards, etc) will need to be handled through the API, because those are very game-specific.

WordGamePlayer component:

  • Player ID
  • Score
  • High Score
  • Last Word
  • Best Word
  • Max Tiles
  • Current Tiles

The Word Game Player keeps track of score values as well as the current tiles, and does all of the word checking. When words are checked (from one of the other components), it automatically handles score, and sends success/failure messages to the Game Object that it is located on.

Note that high score and best word is per-session - you will need to handle loading in high scores and best words through the API, based on how you save/load data in your game.

TileSelection component (for games where you click/touch letters):

  • Selection Mode (Adjacent - specify a maximum distance), or any
  • Whether or not tiles are checked in the order they are input
  • A toggle for real-time checking (you can use this to grey out buttons to prevent invalid moves)

This component goes on each tile (for example, on a board) - you’ll want it in your tile prefab.

You can access the list of selected tiles through the API if needed - you only need a one line script on a button to submit a word (requires a player ID). You can also clear the selection.

TileDistribution component (for word games where tiles are handed out to players, like Scrabble):

This component goes an empty Game Object. It allows distribution of tiles in specific amounts.

It comes with a simple method to give tiles to a player ID. If no more tiles are left, the component gives as many tiles as it can to the player. It sends a message to the player object when tiles are given to it (with the amount given).

6

Thinksquirrel looks very nice. Looks like an complete Templates to build Word Games on Unity. I love this. And would buy it. But i’m really interessted on a beta tester.

I’m looking forward to the future of this project.

Nice work man.

7

Thanks for the interest guys! I’m finishing up a few components before the initial beta release - I’ll be sending out a private beta to people on the beta list.

If you’d like to get on the list, send me a PM with your email and I can add you.

8

Preliminary API documentation can be found here (this may be updated multiple times a day, and is subject to lots of change as I get ready for the first release):

http://support.thinksquirrel.com/docs/wgb-beta/reference

I’m about to send out beta 1 today (finally).

9

Got a bit more work done on the builder this past weekend with some new features. I’ve also exposed more of the core underlying system, for use with other applications. Here are just some main points of interest:

Core system:

  • Language Editor
  • Word checking
  • Permutation checking
  • Prefix checking (new) - find every word that starts with a specified string - easily implement auto-complete in your games!
  • Asynchronous word check methods
  • More access to the underlying word structure

Letter tile system:

  • Example project with a simple “sample game”
  • Tile pool / distribution system
  • WordGamePlayer class
  • Tile selection class
  • LetterTile classes and ILetterTile interface for custom class design

The letter tile system builds on the core system and both are included in the package.

10

This has been submitted to the Asset Store. I’ve updated the thread.

1.0 online reference should be up soon!

11

This has been released!

Download:
Professional ($75)
Standard ($35)

12

Just a heads up - I’ve fixed an issue with the common libraries that prevented multithreading on the Web Player. Since this is more of an edge case scenario, I haven’t uploaded a new Asset Store package. If you’re having this problem, please replace the common libraries with the source from here for now:

https://github.com/Thinksquirrel-Software/Thinksquirrel-Common

There’s also an included build script for OSX (not required).

13

Fixed a few bugs other bugs with the first update:

******* VERSION 1.0.1 ********
Word Game Builder:

  • Added set accessor for WordGamePlayer.score
  • Moved menu options to unified Thinksquirrel menu
  • Added click and press events for wildcard tiles
  • Added OnTileSelect message
  • Fixed issues with the blank tile implementation
    Example Project:
  • Modified prefabs to work with new blank tile implementation
14

Just set up a product page here! I should have some more in-depth starter docs and hopefully some video tutorials within the next few weeks.

For everyone who has already purchased Word Game Builder - I’d love to hear your questions/feedback! You can leave feedback in the Asset Store, this thread, or through emailing support AT thinksquirrel DOT com. Thanks!

15

I’d like to introduce the Word Game Builder Support Forum!

http://thinksquirrel.com/forum/word-game-builder-support

I’ll be providing support over there, as well as posting updates, guides, and frequently asked questions from these forums.

16

Just released a FREE evaluation version of Word Game Builder! This version is fully-featured, and places a watermark. It is intended for evaluation use only, and not for commercial work.

Try Word Game Builder for free!

17

Well I was just starting work on a word game myself.

I have to ask though…

I can’t figure out the difference between Pro / Standard other than the expectation that anyone that can afford Unity Pro can afford WGB Pro?

18

The pro version comes with full source code, whereas the standard version is a .NET assembly. The standard version is usually enough to make a fully featured word game (it comes with a completely exposed API) - the pro version is helpful for anyone implementing low-level features in their word game.

19

Thanks very much, I think I’ll have to go with the Pro version if case some odd bit of a word game requirement needs some finessing…

20

I went ahead and bought the standard for now as I’ll need it to save writing that whole framework myself. I’ll be upgrading to Professional and maybe Enterprise later (ahem, after I replace a 6 year old computer).

I just imported over the paid version over the demo WGB.

Your word lists will save alot of time. Some things you may want to consider for future releases:

As word games tend to be more ‘education’ or ‘child friendly’ oriented you may want to include an ‘maturity’ and a ‘vulgarity’ ratings: I added vulgarity because most mature people don’t want to hear a stream of vulgarities being passed off as intelligence given the choice.

The other thing is currently I’m correcting a list of english idioms from the web and putting the list in XML format. It’s not fun. It’s be great if you added idioms for your package too.