Scrabble Cheater

I would like to present my Scrabble Cheater program (Windows only; click the link and save it somewhere on your computer).

Here's how to use it:

1. Launch the program. It will take a couple seconds to load because it reads and parses the dictionary before the window itself appears.

2. Populate the board with the words already played (if any). By default, the program assumes that you are entering words horizontally; to make it easier to enter vertical words, check the "Vertical Word Entry" box first.

3. To indicate that a letter was made from a blank tile, double-click that square. Its foreground and background colors will be inverted. Double-click it again to change it back to normal. Note that identifying used blank tiles is important for scoring purposes. For example, if a blank tile was used as a Z, you don't want to count it as 10 points in a potential future play.

4. Once the board has been populated, enter the tiles in your hand in the "Your Letters" text box at the top. Use a question mark (?) to indicate a blank tile.

5. Click the Analyze button and wait for it to finish. The more possibilities there are, the longer it will take to process.

6. When it's done, the list on the right will show every possible play: the total score for the play, and the word(s) formed by making that play. You can click on an item in the list to see how the play was made. (On a nearly-full board, that's often the best way to figure out how the best play was made, is to click on an inferior play and then click back on the best play to see what tiles changed.)

7. You can save and load games using the Game menu. I recommend saving after each turn has been committed.

8. In the event you find that all of the words you entered are one position off, you can use one of the four Board Shift buttons to move all of the letters to where they're supposed to be.

9. The dictionary used is the one from EA's Scrabble game for the iPhone. I believe this to be the official Scrabble tournament word list, because words such as c***s**ker and m*****f**ker are deemed acceptable.

10. It is hard-coded to use the fonts "Calibri" and "Consolas", which are both standard in Windows Vista and later versions. There is a free download somewhere on Microsoft's web site that will install them on Windows XP if you need them.

Enjoy! Happy Cheating!

I bet there are plenty of people that would pay 99 cents for that.

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I bet there are plenty of people that would pay 99 cents for that.

...and here I am offering it for what it's actually worth. D'oh!

I'm not sure you took my remark in the spirit in which I intended it.

Free is nice. But there is a relatively small audience here.

And your idea is worth more than free.


There is a huge audience of App users. I bet a decent fraction of them would pony up 99 cents in a heartbeat. From a seller's point of view, 99 cents may not seem like much, but it does add up! Even if that fraction is only one in 100,000 it would add up nicely.

Also, it seems like, if anyone would want to use it for the purpose that the name implies, it would be easier on a mobile device than a desktop.

Perhaps. Developing apps for the iPhone is rather complicated and daunting to the newcomer, and Apple takes 30% off the top, so a 99¢ app is really only worth 69.3¢ to the developer. I don't see this particular app being worth the time investment because, well, it's not Angry Birds. :)

JB dont be lazy, maybe you are passing up the opportunity of becoming a millionaire. And I mean it! Congratulations for your work!

Quote: aluisio

JB dont be lazy, maybe you are passing up the opportunity of becoming a millionaire. And I mean it! Congratulations for your work!

Ha! There would need to be 1,443,002 cheaters willing to pay for a 99¢ app in order to make a million before taxes... and if there were that many, I doubt the game would be as fun or popular. Eventually only cheaters would be playing, which boils down to a computer playing against itself.

JB,
Would you be willing to share the source code then? Maybe we could reach an agreement on a deal for someone (um, me) to develop an app, market and sell the program?

-Chris

Try to learn from the Apple iTunes Music Store:

Apple discovered that people would willingly pay 99 cents for something that they had gotten used to stealing. They made it too cheap to make the theft worth the effort. And made a ton of cash in the process.


For what it's worth, I don't think there is "millionaire" money to be made with your idea. Nor do I really think many people would actually use it to cheat.

But there are a lot of people that would fork of a measley 99 cents just to have it on their mobile device. Certainly enough to make it more than worth your effort.

Quote: ChrisInCT

JB,
Would you be willing to share the source code then? Maybe we could reach an agreement on a deal for someone (um, me) to develop an app, market and sell the program?

-Chris

I just uploaded the source here. It's a C# project built in the 2008 version of Visual C# Express. Have at it as long as you don't hold me (or the Wizard) liable for anything.

Considering the popularity of Words with Friends, I think your app has the potential to make some money. Maybe not in the millions, but I also don't see a good reason to not charge something for it, and make whatever you can. You put the work into it and you deserve to get some money.

I *finally* had a chance to download it and try it.

It is FAR more powerful than I had imagined.

And with it's capabilities, I think it loses the potential to be a big hit app.

HOWEVER, I can see an adaptation that could be more useful as a cheater's tool - and therefore more appealing. After entering the 7 letters, it produces a list of words, with the basic scores - without regard for position, as well as a suggestion list of words if there is a position with a specific letter available.

Of course, to be truely useful as a cheater's tool, there has to be options to filter out the most obscure words. Or do Scrabble fanatics really obsess about, and know, unusual legal words, even if they don't know the meaning?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I *finally* had a chance to download it and try it.

It is FAR more powerful than I had imagined.

And with it's capabilities, I think it loses the potential to be a big hit app.

HOWEVER, I can see an adaptation that could be more useful as a cheater's tool - and therefore more appealing. After entering the 7 letters, it produces a list of words, with the basic scores - without regard for position, as well as a suggestion list of words if there is a position with a specific letter available.

Of course, to be truely useful as a cheater's tool, there has to be options to filter out the most obscure words. Or do Scrabble fanatics really obsess about, and know, unusual legal words, even if they don't know the meaning?

There are already countless sites that basically do what you are suggesting in the second half of your post; and honestly, I think they're useless without taking into consideration the board and available squares and the multipliers underneath them.

I consider my cheater program nearly worthless because, this functionality was already built into the Scrabble game itself by EA. After you make a play, you tap the Teacher button to see what the best play would have been. However, even their implementation of it isn't perfect because in some rare instances, they count an already-used multiplier in a future play where it shouldn't count. Therefore, sometimes this program will come up with a different result than them.