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by Tony Kay and Leslie Lawrence
Copyright 2009

This is the home page for the Twistype word puzzle game for Android. Similar to games like Text Twist, the game has two modes (timed and puzzle) where you try to find all of the words that can be made from a set of letters. The game supports 5 to 8 letter words, and has a dictionary with more than 40,000 words. We have made every attempt to make sure the dictionary does not contain offensive terms. If you find a term that you feel should be removed, please let us know via email at twistype@tony-kay.com.

Instructions

When you start TwisType, you will be taken to the main control screen. You may view the high scores, change your preferences, resume the current game (if there is one), or start a new game.


There are three major areas of the screen: The answer area, the guess/clock area, and the current jumble keys where you do your answer entry. You may tap keys to enter letters, and tap the answers to submit a guess.


The game also supports two gestures: swiping your finger left across the keys means "Backspace". Swiping your finger from left to right on the keys means "Shuffle".


The game also supports the built-in keyboard. See the full list of controls, below.

Full List of Controls

All game modes support the following commands:
  • Add a letter to your guess: Tap the on-screen key with the labeled letter, or press that key on your built-in keyboard.
  • Remove a letter from your guess: Swipe your finger from right to left across the on-screen keys at the bottom, or press BACKSPACE on your built-in keyboard.
  • Submit your guess: Tap anywhere in the answer section of the screen (top two-thirds of the screen), or press ENTER on your keyboard.
  • Recall your last submission: If your current guess is empty, recall your last guess the same way you would submit a guess. (tap on the answers or press ENTER). This allows you to very quickly type in a variant of a successful answer. For example, if your jumble had the letters YOTSUJ, you could type T-O-Y-ENTER, followed by ENTER-S to submit both TOY and TOYS.
  • Shuffle the jumbled letters: Swipe your finger from left to right across the on-screen jumble, or press SPACE on your built-in keyboard.

Timed Mode

In timed mode, you must guess one of the longest words possible before time runs out. For example, if you are in 7-letter mode (see preferences), you must guess one of the seven letter words from the jumble. This mode does keep score. The value of a word is dependent upon the round length. If you are playing with more time, the words are worth fewer points. The point values are shown in the table below:

 
  Points (by round length)
 Letters in word  1:00  2:00  4:00  8:00
 3  10  5  2  1
 4  20  10  5  2
 5  40  20  10  5
 6  80  40  20  10
 7  160  80  40  20
 8  320  160  80  40

Puzzle Mode

In puzzle mode, you must find all of the possible jumbles before you can advance to the next level. If you turn on the Bingo Mode, then you will advance to the next level as soon as you find the longest word. The game times your progress, and will let you know how long it took you to solve the puzzle. This mode does not keep score, since you can keep playing forever.

Preferences

Twistype includes a number of useful preferences. NOTE: You must be running android 1.1 or above for sound effects. Older versions of the operating system had instabilities that could cause the application to lock up when using sound effects.

Timed Mode: Switches between timed and puzzle mode.

Bingo Mode: Turns on/off bingo mode. In bingo mode, you will advance to the next word as soon as you find one of the longest words in the jumble.

Sound Effects: Turns sound effects on/off. You may adjust the volume of the sound effects by changing the music volume of the phone.

Maximum Word Length: Sets the jumble size.

Time per round: You may adjust the time between 1 and 8 minutes. NOTE: The point value of your successful guesses is divided by this time. See the scoring table in the Timed Mode section above.

Prevent Huge Jumbles: Some jumbles generate a very large number of words, which do not fit on the screen very well and result in a tiny answer font. If you enable this option then the game will automatically skip words that would cause the answer font size to fall below 10 points. May be renamed in the future to "save your eyesight mode" :)

Saved high scores: By default, the game only saves the top ten scores. This preference allows you to extend that number.