Word game mechanic (reversal)

tatiang

I'm sure this game exists, probably ten-fold but since it just popped into my head I thought I'd see how hard it would be to make. The idea is to find a word that is reversed and highlight it to score points (I still need to add highlighting while the mouse button is down.) This used to be possible but very tedious because it used individual table cells for each letter and they had to be constantly concatenated or individually displayed in an actor.

The nightly build available to Pro members includes some powerful text manipulation functions, which made this much simpler to code. It uses a table to store the letter strings (one for each round) but does all of the letter rearranging and displaying using a single text attribute, a Loop behavior, and the textSubStr() function.

Hopscotch

Cool @tatiang, call it OTPYRC

While you are busy with the highlighting, is it sensitive to the direction in which you highlight the letters? I would find it natural to also highlight in reverse.

Braydon_SFX

The nightly build available to Pro members includes some powerful text manipulation functions, which made this much simpler to code.

I know! It's amazing what you can do with the new functions. Great idea you have going on there. Looks like fun! I love word games, by the way.

gyroscope

Well neat, @tatiang, good one! It'll be great if/when these new text manipulation features make their way into the mainstream beta. :-)

tatiang

@Hopscotch Ah, clever naming idea.

While you are busy with the highlighting, is it sensitive to the direction in which you highlight the letters? I would find it natural to also highlight in reverse.

Yes, that's my plan and I just added it this morning. Thanks!

beefy_clyro

Lovely idea

tatiang

Couple more videos:

(1) Added bi-directional "live" highlighting (blue highlighting still needs to be widened).



(2) I'm working on the reversal animation for each letter (only 8 frames currently so it's not that smooth looking).

ImNiklas

(2) I'm working on the reversal animation for each letter (only 8 frames currently so it's not that smooth looking).

[video]

That looks amazing! Is it possible to something like that with GameSalad Text or do you need to create your own image for each letter? I'm working on a quiz game and that animation would be just perfect for my needs. If I succed with it, it will be my first successful app (except a poor flappy bird clone)

tatiang

@ImNiklas

That looks amazing! Is it possible to something like that with GameSalad Text or do you need to create your own image for each letter? I'm working on a quiz game and that animation would be just perfect for my needs.

Thanks! There is no way to turn or otherwise physically manipulate the text in a Display Text behavior, so you would need to create custom graphics, which is what I've done. Each letter in the animation above was made with 8 individual frames. I'll probably go with 2-3 times that amount for the final version.

Animating something like that is quite simple. Allowing the user to swipe and control the flipping of the letter, as I've done in the video, is a bit harder.

Braydon_SFX

Nice update, @tatiang‌ - That looks like fun! Although, I have to say, my brain just doesn't work that way. How you ever find those reversed words I'll never know.

tatiang

Thanks, @Braydon_SFX!

Oh, it's easy... you come up with them and put them in a table. When you see them again your brain says "wait, that's the word I just entered in the table." )

Braydon_SFX

@tatiang‌ - LOL I'd probably still mess it up haha! I still couldn't figure it out. :-B