Goggle
Goggle is a simple word game that runs on the site. You must be logged in to play Goggle.
Rules
The object of Goggle is to score points by finding English words in the puzzle. Every game runs for three days. After that, the player with the most points wins the game.
Words may be input using the keyboard or by clicking on the squares. You find words by starting at any one square and repeatedly 'jumping' to an adjacent square. You may jump horizontally, vertically or diagonally. This gives you eight squares to jump to from any one square.
You may not use the same square twice in one word.
The letter 'Q' does not occur on a square separately, but always as 'Qu'.
Scoring
A four-letter word scores 1 point, a five-letter word 2 points, and so on.
Some letters are harder to use in a word; these letters give 2 bonus points whenever they are used. These letters are coloured differently in the puzzle. They are: J, K, Qu, V, W, X, Z. For example, "waxed" scores 9 points (2 normal plus 4 bonus points).
Palindromes score double! Palindromes are words that stay the same when you reverse them, like "racecar" (8 points) or "madam" (4 points).
These rules may be combined. For example, the word "kayak" scores 12 points: 2 points for being a five-letter word, plus 4 bonus points for using two k's, times two for being a palindrome.
Only the 50 highest-scoring words count toward your final score.
Advanced
The puzzle is actually circular in both the horizontal and vertical directions (e.g. it would be doughnut-shaped in 3d).
This means that you may jump from a square on the right edge of the puzzle to a square on the left edge, or from a square on the lower edge to a square on the upper edge. This allows you to find many more words, and longer words. You can rotate the puzzle around by clicking on the 'compass' in the upper-right corner of the puzzle.
The Aftermath
When a Goggle round is over, you will be able to see everybody's words.
Next to a user's name, his score, his number of words and his average score per word will be shown.
Some words will be underlined. These are words that are unique to that user (no-one else found them). Your words will also be shown in bold. italic words are words that you missed. Gray words don't count toward your final score.
Tips
- Look for common pre- or postfixes like re-, de-, -er, -ers, -ing, etc.
- If possible, enter both the singular and plural versions of a word, and try different verb forms (for example, you might be able to find "baker", "bakers", "bakes", "baking", "bakings" and "baked" in one puzzle).
- Try both the British and American spellings of a word (for example, "realise" and "realize").
- Rotate the puzzle around after a while for a fresh look on it.
- Click the words in the list to see their definition!
How the Goggle is generated
The Goggle is generated by drawing random letters according to a distribution of letters in the English language ('E' is the most common, 'Qu' the least).
Every Goggle has to pass a 'niceness' test that checks the following:
- All two-letter sequences are enumerated; they must be fairly common on average.
- There must be enough vowels (at least 7)
- There must not be too many vowels (maximum of 12)
- There must be no consonants with no adjacent vowels
- There may be only one consonant that has only one adjacent vowel
- A single letter may not occur more than 5 times
- There must be at least 14 different letters in the Goggle
- There must be at most one 'hard' letter (J, K, Qu, V, W, X or Z)