Feedback for WordStorm for Windows DirectX beta

[Ber]

I'll kick off:
System: Windows 7 64-bit

Wordstorm installed easily and plays nicely on my system. Looks good rescaled to different sizes. No glitches, slowness or crashing observed so far. Only played for a few minutes so far.

Can tell it's transferred from iPhone version due to fixed aspect ratio when sizing, and reference in help page to shaking device to rearrange letters.

But apart from those tell-tale signs, acts like a nice Windows game app

If other people want to post their feedback below, please feel free. I would suggest including your Windows version as well so Sean can see which versions of Windows this Wordstorm beta has been tested on.

[Sean OConnor]

Thanks Ber, I appreciate your feedback! I've tested it on Windows 7 and XP here at home and it seems to work fine if you have DirectX 9 installed and OK too (although more slowly) if you don't as the game will use GDI+ as a fall-back. I use this code that I wrote for doing that: http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/blitz2D.html

I've heard of a flickering problem on Vista but I don't know if that's the OS or that particular computer's video drivers.

I've just uploaded a new version which fixes the Instructions page bug and fixes a bug where if you started the program on a previous game and then went to the scores table it would let you play a day in the future.

[Ber]

For anyone else reading, the limited time beta download of this is at http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/download/ ... p-beta.exe

More feedback:
System: Windows XP 32-bit, work machine, rubbish integrated video card, no direct x installed.

Wordstorm installed fine, and offered to install Direct X 9. I declined.

While using GDI+ fallback rendering performance was bad, very jerky. I then installed Dirext X 9 using a Microsoft installer, and the game then ran very nicely even with the integrated rubbish video card (not surprising since its only using 2D features of direct x!).

Might be good to add a help menu option that is present if direct x is not yet installed that offers to install direct x so people always have the option (eg 'Install DirectX for better performance').

I downloaded the new version, the instructions page looks nicely clear of device references now. Eventually would be nice to see a button that does the same as shake did - re-arranging letters would be handy. I

Also gameplay ideas:
The response when finding one of the words not in the official list is a little disheartening - what if doing so gave bonus points instead that have some kind of value. eg they could be used to reveal random letters of official words in the list below as hints to help find them - or they could be added once you get 100% so you can get scores over 100% (but not count towards the initial 100%).

Also a different sound effect for surrendering above a certain threshold complete (eg 80% or 90%) would be friendlier (perhaps a slow clap or people making a non-committal 'hrmm' instead of booing).

[flap]

fun little game (however English is not my first language, so it is really tough to get more than 60%)
I do agree with previous suggestions.

I like being limited to a word per day. (well, almost, as we can go back in time...)

[flap]

Also, should there be words in singular form, AND their plural on the same grid (example of the 5th of 2011, British dictionary) ?

[Neoplan]

The response when finding one of the words not in the official list is a little disheartening - what if doing so gave bonus points instead that have some kind of value. eg they could be used to reveal random letters of official words in the list below as hints to help find them - or they could be added once you get 100% so you can get scores over 100% (but not count towards the initial 100%).