Letter List
The Letter List always contains at least five letters. When it falls below five letters, letters are added to a total of five (timer and score are increased accordingly). Additionally, every few seconds a letter is added to the Letter List. The letters come more quickly as the game progresses.
To get the next letter without waiting, press any number key (or left-click a blank box in the Letter List). The score and timer will be incremented based upon the seconds remaining until the letter would have normally appeared.
Letters used (in the Work Area) to spell words are removed from the Letter List. The Letter List can contain as many as 32 letters. When it overflows, the game is over.
Work Area
The Work Area is where you spell words. Only letters in the Letter List (or Bonus Letters) can be used to spell words. As you type, the letters are inserted in the Work Area at the cursor location.
Standard editing features are available in the Work Area. Right or Left arrow keys move the cursor without erasing letters. The Backspace key erases the letter to the left of the cursor and moves the cursor one space left. The Delete key erases the letter at the cursor location. The Escape key erases all the letters in the Work Area. The Home key moves the cursor to the furthest left position. The End key moves the cursor to the position to the right of the last letter in the Work Area. Alternatively, you can left-click a letter in the Letter List to "type" it at the cursor location in the Work Area; left-click a letter in the Work Area to delete it; right-click a box in the Work Area to move the cursor to that location; right-click a blank box in the Letter List to erase all the letters in the Work Area.
Once you have spelled a word in the Work Area, press Enter or the Space bar (or left-click a blank box in the Work Area or click the WordRace logo below the Work Area). If the word you typed is found in the WordRace Dictionary, it will be accepted. The letters will be removed from the Letter List and Work Area, and your Score will be incremented accordingly. Words must be at least three letters long.
To Begin a Game
Click the "Play" menu item (or press Alt-P) to access the Play choices. --then-- Click "Random New Game" (or press R) to start a new game with random letters to be added to the Letter List. OR Click "Specific Letter Sequence" (or press S) to select one of the 1,000,000 unique random letter sequences. Enter a number between 1 and 1,000,000 in the pop-up Input Box. This allows the exact same sequence of letters to be repeated in subsequent games. This can be particularly useful for competition play.
In either case, letters are added to the Letter List in a random sequence weighted based upon the number of times a particular letter appears in the WordRace Dictionary.
Game sounds can be muted or un-muted by clicking the "Mute" submenu item in the "File" menu group.
Game Timer
The Timer displays the seconds elapsed since the start of the game. Since one point is scored per second, the timer is advanced in these instances:
If you press a number key (or left-click a blank box in the Letter List) to get the next letter into the Letter List without waiting, the timer and score are advanced by the number of seconds that would have elapsed before that letter would have appeared.
Similarly, when the Letter List drops below 5 letters and is immediately brought back to 5, the timer and score are incremented as though these letters had appeared as scheduled.
Scoring
Scoring is as follows:
1 point per second on the Timer 40 points for each 3-letter word correctly spelled 65 points for each 4-letter word correctly spelled 100 points for each 5-letter word correctly spelled 160 points for each 6-letter word correctly spelled 240 points for each 7-letter word correctly spelled 350 points for each 8-letter word correctly spelled 350 points plus 150 points per-letter-over-8 for correctly spelled words exceeding 8 letters
40 extra points for each "f", "v", or "w" used in a correctly spelled word 80 extra points for each "j, "q", "x", or "z" used in a correctly spelled word
Bonus Letter
When the Timer reaches 60 seconds, and every 60 seconds thereafter, you are credited with a Bonus Letter. When you need a letter that is not in the Letter List, you can use a Bonus Letter to add the desired letter into your word.
To claim a Bonus Letter, hold down the Ctrl key and then press the desired letter. The letter will be inserted into your word in the Work Area at the cursor location and will also be added to the Letter List.
Alternatively, you can claim a Bonus Letter by clicking the desired letter in the Bonus Letter box in the lower center of the WordRace window.
Delete Letter
When the Timer reaches 90 seconds, and every 60 seconds thereafter, you are credited with a Delete Letter. Use Delete Letter credits to delete letters from the Letter List that you are having difficulty using.
To delete a letter from the Letter List, first position the Delete Letter Pointer to the location of the letter you wish to delete. Move the Delete Letter Pointer by using Ctrl-{left arrow key}, Ctrl-{right arrow key}, Ctrl-Home, or Ctrl-End to move the pointer left, right, to the first letter, or to the last letter. Then use Ctrl-Delete to delete the letter.
Alternatively, right-click a letter in the Letter List to delete it.
Note that a letter in use in the Work Area (appears gray in the Letter List) cannot be deleted from the Letter List. To delete such a letter, first delete it from the Work Area.
WordRace Dictionary
The WordRace dictionary contains over 47,000 words. It does not contain proper names (normally capitalized words) or words containing apostrophes, hyphens or spaces. It contains no words less than 3 letters long. It does not contain all forms, tenses, or plurals of words. If a tense or plural is enough different from the base word and common enough to be separately listed in the average dictionary, then it probably is in the WordRace dictionary. If the word you enter is not accepted as being correctly spelled, try removing the "ing", "ed", or "s" at the end of the word.
Game Report
At the conclusion of a game, all the statistics of that game are available for viewing and printing. Press Alt-G or click "Game Report" in the menu bar. Various statistics of the game are displayed and can be printed if desired. Type your name in the text box to have it printed with the report. You have the option of printing only the statistics or the statistics plus correctly spelled and misspelled words. |
