The Scrabulous lawsuit seems to be going ahead in earnest now:
Scrabulous suspended on Facebook
The developers of the popular Facebook application Scrabulous have suspended the game for some users following legal action by toy maker Hasbro.
The application has been disabled for users in the US and Canada.
Hasbro, the makers of Scrabble, are suing the Calcutta-based founders of Scrabulous, claiming they are infringing its copyright and trademark.
Hasbro had asked Facebook to block access following the launch of its own official version of Scrabble.
A spokeswoman for Facebook told the BBC that the final decision to suspend the game was made by the developers, not the site itself.
If they had to slap a lawsuit on Scrabulous, it was only right that Hasbro should launch its own ‘Scrabble’ Facebook app. I gave it a try this morning (and won). It’s okay, but the tile placement feels sluggish, especially on a timed game when you only have two minutes per turn. Other than that, it seems serviceable.
If you’re blocked from Scrabulous and you don’t like the new Scrabble application, or you just can’t bring yourself to play it on principle, then you have just one question: How am I going to waste time now?
That’s where I come in. Here are my top five games on the Web right now.
5. The Internet Anagram Server
Did you know that if you rearranged the letters in “The Russian Federation”, you get “Oh, unrestrained fiesta”? You didn’t? How about this twofer:
Computational linguistics
I got input, miscalculations
Gulp! I’m uncool statistician.
It shouldn’t be that much fun, but it is. However, it would cheating to use this in online Scrabble.
I think it’s a bad idea for NBC to promote an online version of ‘Deal or No Deal’ because it makes you realise a) it’s essentially chance, and b) it takes about two minutes to play a game, which they then stretch out to an hour or more. But it is useful because you can see what the normal maximum game works out to, which is handy if you ever get on the show. Then you can tell Andrew (or worse, Howie) “Sorry, but I’m going to deal, even though it’s bad television. Going past 100 thou is a sucker’s game. See ya.”
3. Set
Finding a Set means picking cards with shapes whose features are either all the same or all different. Conceptually, it takes some getting used to, and there’s always that last elusive Set that drains all your time. If I can find all six Sets in under a minute, I consider myself to be scorching.
2. Raft Wars
This is basically a variation of Artillery from the Apple ][e all those years ago, except you’re a boat full of kids lobbing tennis balls, rockets, and hand grenades at bad guys who are after your treasure.
It’s surprisingly distressing to see your baby brother get blasted over the edge into the shark-infested waters. Leave him alone, you bastards! He’s two years old! But he is handy with the launcher, so fair’s fair. Watch out for the twist ending.
1. Launchball
Use an assortment of objects to roll, bounce, or blow your ball into the goal. Part of the fun is trying to discover how each item can be used, or which can be used together. A terrific brain game.
And don’t forget the hundreds of games on Orisinal.
What are you into?
30 July 2008 at 11:11 am
Fun links. I guess I fail@Set though, just under 10 minutes.
I have a thing against games that make it too obvious that I’m inferior to my computer. Something like Set is easy to solve algorithmically (a BFS would seem reasonably efficient), and it bothers me that I’m trying to do it manually and it’s slow.
The same thing applies to scrabble (and clones); the data structures can be tricky if you want to be efficient, but a computer is a much better player than I ever will be. Although, there is a game theory aspect: I’ve noticed a trend among successful scrabble players where they play small words that lock up the board but score in multiple directions, for a much lower combined score at the end of the game.
This leaves: Internet Go (where I should be about 35 kyu and I don’t think I could write a better program) and ACM problem archives (where the game is the program).
Live by the philosophy: if I can’t instruct a machine to solve the problem, I can’t solve the problem. If I can instruct a machine to solve the problem, why am I solving the problem?
30 July 2008 at 11:33 am
Oh, just on Deal or No Deal. I doubt they will use their proper bank algorithm online (I suspect it’s a well-guarded trade secret). I tried to work it out while watching once. The offer bounced both sides of the expected value, even with a simple (but concave) utility of wealth function.
30 July 2008 at 2:06 pm
What about something simple, like the average of
= the mean of what’s left, and
– the median of what’s left?
That was my first guess.
30 July 2008 at 3:53 pm
Bah, none of these flash applications for me! Real geeks play MUDs.
31 July 2008 at 2:16 am
@alarik: mmmm MUDs. A friend and I used to get addicted to darkmists during high-school exam periods (we called it MUD-season). I hear people have WoW for that now.
@daniel: “the mean of what’s left” is equivalent to the expected value of a linear utility function (and linear is concave but not strictly so). Like I said it bounced both sides, so it wasn’t that. I didn’t think of median at the time, but I think I would have noticed if it was? Not sure what you mean by “the average… of the median”.
31 July 2008 at 3:14 am
I just meant to try making it halfway between [the mean of all the amounts] and [the median of all the amounts].
But that’s probably not it. Bet they’ve got it randomised in some way. Plus or minus from 100 to 500.
2 August 2008 at 1:15 pm
I found this interesting anagram for occupational therapist:
A Saccharine Tit Plop Out
But mostly they were meaningless.
Wordscraper is the new offering to replace Scrabulous. BTW I was a bit disappointed that you never played the game I started with you. But I got over it.
3 August 2008 at 8:53 am
Hit a carpet; copulations.
Lop archaic outpatients.
Prostitute a pal in coach.
Anyway, you’d beat me at Scrabble and that would never do.
Just kidding. I’ll watch for you.
4 August 2008 at 6:00 pm
I found this one particularly good.
(I love sexual innuendo):
Encryption Secure Communications
A Concupiscences Immure Inn Tort Yo
(what up dog)
And what the hell are you doing playing (I hope not actually watching) “Deal or no deal”????