Blabla Quick Manual

François PESSAUX - December 2004

Version 1.0.
    This documentation is subject to changes in order to reflect evolutions of the game. That's the reason why screen snapshots may differ a bit from the real version of the game, development being still running.


Legal stuff

    Blabla is a game developed for the Gameboy Advance™. It is aimed to distributed freely and at no cost. The author provides the software as it is and may not be responsible in any case in any direct or indirect damage due to the use of this software. The current software is not licensed by any institution. The author, although he distributes freely and at no cost his software, remains the owner  of this software. Nevertheless, he accepts that parts of the software may be freely reused or modified or that the software may be enhanced as long as the aim remains non-commercial.

After all this blabla that nobody read, annoys everybody, but always written by everybody to be bullet-proof... let's go to the interesting part !


Aim

     The aim of the game is simply to find the maximum of 3 letters long words compound among a set of 7 letters that is proposed at the beginning of the game.  These letters are randomly chosen according to their probability to appear in the words of the game's internal dictionary. This dictionary is used as the reference in order to determine whether your word propositions are valid.

Letters that are proposed are displayed in the second box of the lower area of the screen (6). Those you use to create your word are displayed in the first box (5). Each time you select one letter in the second box in order to add it to your word, this letter is moved from the bottom box to the upper box. Proposing an invalid word does not lead to penalty. The list of correct words you have already proposed is displayed in the notebook (1) and you can turn pages with the L and R buttons (previous and next pages).

    The available time is limited and reduces with the number of levels you already have completed. In order to go to the next level, you have to propose, during the available time, a minimal number of words depending on the current level. The progress status of the elapsed time is depicted by the second progress-bar of the right side of the screen (4).

    This number of words also changes according to the game level. You do not have to guess all the possible words according to the dictionary. Only some percents depending on the current level is sufficient. The total number of possible words is indicated at the top left of the screen (2).

    More accurately, the cumulated number of letters of all the words you proposed is important. In other words, the longer the words you propose, the quicker you will be granted the right to go to the next level. The first progress-bar, at the top right area of the screen (3) indicates your progress percent according to the minimal performance required to be allowed to go to the next level.

    Once this minimal performance reached, you will be warned but you will be able, if there is some time remaining (and some ideas), to continue playing with the current letters. In this case, all the words you will propose until the time gets elapsed will bring you double points.

    Two extra buttons are available in the bottom right area of the board:

   Once the time is elapsed, either you reached the minimal performance and then you will go on the next level, or you did not reach it and the game ends.

   In this last case, the five highest scores are displayed. Scores are automatically recorded at the end of each game.

Pressing the A button allows removing this list and going back to the game screen. You can then navigate with the L and R buttons among the list of all the possible words that gets revealed to you. To start a new game, you then just have to press the A button.

Controls

  • Direction pad: Move to point a letter, or select the (bottom right) buttons to shuffle letters or surrender.
  • A button: Select the pointed letter in order to add it to the word currently built. Getting out of the message popups.
  • B button: Remove the last inserted letter from your proposition to put it back in the set of available letters.
  • L button: Navigate in the list of the already proposed words (or in the list of solutions if in and ended game) back to the previous page.
  • R button: Navigate in the list of the already proposed words (or in the list of solutions if in and ended game) toward the next page.
  • SELECT button: Validate and submit the word with the current letters.
  • START button: Pause the game. Press the A button allows to resume the game.

Scores

    As long as you did not reach the minimal performance, each letter of an accepted word weight 10 points. Submitting a 7 letters long word provides 100 points. Once the minimal performance is reached, all these points are multiplied by 2 (20 points per letter and 200 points for 7 letters).
    Hence it can be appealing to keep the longest words to submit them once the minimal performance is reached. However, in order to reach it with shorter words, you will have to submit more words. And because time is limited... up to you to find the best balance.

Contact

For any information, suggestions, flames I can be reached by email at :

francois_pessauxHATyahoo.fr

address in which, of course, you will straight replace "HAT" by the character "@" (it's just to prevent automated mail addresses scanners from registering me one more time, I still receive enough spam !)