Word Poker

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We rate this game somewhat hard. (This is our rating, not Neopets')		NP Ratio: 3.23 3230 pts :: 1000 NP

Introduction

All depending on how good you are with your literacy, this can be a great game. Its not as hard as most games but requires a lot of thinking and at times tests your patience greatly. You play as a student of Captain Roundhoof the Terrbible's Pirate School; after seeing the quality of his pirate's spelling, he devised this game for his students to play. Good luck!

Controls & Instructions

To play the game, you can use either your mouse or your keyboard. To use your mouse, simply select the letters (clicking them in the correct order as the word that you're trying to spell), or type them out on your keyboard.

Here's an example of the screen you get, annotated.

Basically, you have 60 seconds to find as many words from the list given. At the end of that, you must categorise your list of words. You can only use one category once, so choose wisely as to which category your list of words suits best.

The categories:

3 Letter Word - entering your set into this category is best if your words mainly consist of 3 letter words. 3 Letters is the minimum you can enter for a word. You'll get 4 points for each word entered here. The points that you get are given.
4 Letter Word - just like the 3 letter word, just you get 6 points for every 4 letter word found.
5+ Letter Word - 8 points up for grabs here for every word you submit with 5 or more letters!
Flush - got two or more words starting with the same letter? You'll get 20 extra points. And for every extra word starting with the same letter after that, you get 10 points for it.
Full House - If you get 15+ words, you'll get 50 points :) If you manage to get 25+ words, then you'll also be awarded and additional 100 bonus points.
Wild - woah, a random amount of points for each word. The more words you have, the more point you'll get.
Bonus - 50 points are automatically given for any 7 or 8 letter word. If you have a few (or just one) of those, enter this category!

Tips & Strategies

When you start, the first thing that you need to look at is the letters that you've been provided with. Sometimes they'll be rubbish, and you'll notice that straight away; if you get a bad set to start off with, you're stuck. Good luck with that ;)

Once you see a word, type it in, or click the letters in the correct order. Go quickly, as you only have 60 seconds to find as many as you can; now isn't the time to go for a cup of coffee.

If you select the wrong letter, just hit 'Enter' and it'll wipe clean.

Once you have entered a word that is acceptable, it'll appear in the list on the right. Ignore the numbers in the middle; these state what the score would be if you entered your current list into the categories. During game play, these numbers aren't important. Similarly, nor is the Captain (who tends to be a distraction with his little jigs).

Once your 60 seconds are up, select the category. Obviously, its best to go for the highest points. This game isn't that great for NP if you're not very good at it, so always try and get as many points as possible. Try and go for the "flush" and "full house" in the early rounds, as these are much easier to achieve with the good sets of letters available at that time.

If you have an 'S', feel lucky ;) You can usually add this at the end to make a plural of a word. For instance, line could also become lines.

Look for common patterns in words. For instance, words that suffix with 'at' (boat, beat); or words that have patterns such as 'ate' (late, mate) on the end.

If you find a good word, try running the word through your mind with other letters starting it. Light, fight, might for example. It's likely you will find another one similar, so this method is great :)

Neopets words are also in the dictionary. For example, you could type in "pteri" and it will be acceptable ;)

A Little Cheat

To help out with word poker, use a Scrabble cheat program (one is here ). You type in the letters you're given and it gives you all the words that can be made from them. I suggest going to the very bottom of the list and entering any of the long words, since you get an extra 50 points for 7 and 8 letter words, then just start entering as many words as you can.

Please use this at your own risk... you could get frozen.

Conclusion

This is quite a hard game, so good luck with it. Follow the methods outlined above, and just hope you get a good set of letters to be able to do well and earn some NP. The trophy is achieved at around 1,650, so good luck learning with the Cap'n!