SCRABBLEAI(6)

NAME
scrabbleai - Scrabble[TM] game

SYNOPSIS

scrabbleai

DESCRIPTION

scrabbleai is an application for Linux that lets you play the popular word game against a computer opponent at varying difficulties. It has a graphical user interface, and is played with the mouse and keyboard.

There is no way to play against another human, either locally or via the network. This is strictly a single-player game.

There are no command-line options.

GAMEPLAY

At startup, or after choosing New Game from the File menu, choose a difficulty level (1 to 10; default is 5), then click Start Game.

You (the human) always go first. If you don't like this, you can click Pass Turn to make the AI play first. Remember that on the first turn, you have to place one of your tiles on the center square of the board.

On your turn, use the mouse to drag letter tiles onto the board to spell out a word in the usual Scrabble fashion. Your move isn't finalized until you click Make Move and the game decides your word is valid. Until then, you can move your tiles around as desired, or click Return Tiles to Rack to start over.

When placing a blank tile, you'll be prompted to right-click on it and set the letter it represents. If you return the blank tile to the rack after doing this, don't forget to right-click on it and press Space, to make it appear blank again. If you forget which tile was the blank one, it's the one with no score number in the lower-right corner.

If your rack is empty at the end of the game, you still get a turn; you must click Pass Turn to end the game. When the game is over, click File => New Game to start a new one.

NOTES

Note that the first time you start a new game, it will take longer than usual to launch as the dictionary is cached for future use. Subsequent games (even after relaunching the program) will be able to skip this step and start up faster.

The AI is based on an algorithm from a paper written by Andrew W. Appel and Guy J. Jacobson, which you can find here:: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/academic/class/15451-s06/www/lectures/scrabble.pdf

The AI is really good. However many words you know, it knows more. On level 5, the AI beats the author of this man page about 50% of the time, with final scores averaging above 250. The original Scrabble rules say that a good player should be able to score 300, so your mileage may vary.

If you want to peek at the dictionary, there are two of them located in /usr/doc/scrabbleai-20150324_6f8db6b/. enable.txt is used to validate your words, and a smaller ospd.txt is used for the computer's words.

The game board is the standard 15x15 version, with the bonus squares in the regular locations. There's no way to customize the board or the tile distribution.

SCREENSHOTS

The intro screen: https://apikler.github.io/ScrabbleAI/intro_screen.png

The main game screen: https://apikler.github.io/ScrabbleAI/game_screen.png

A completed game: https://apikler.github.io/ScrabbleAI/finished_game.png

The help dialog: https://apikler.github.io/ScrabbleAI/help_dialog.png

VIDEOS

The AI makes a move: https://apikler.github.io/ScrabbleAI/ai_move.html

Resizing the window: http://apikler.github.io/ScrabbleAI/resize.html

FILES

The directory ~/.config/ScrabbleAI/ contains the settings and cached dictionary, as perl(1) Storable(3) files, which means they're not human-reable or -editable. If the directory or its contents do not exist at startup, scrabbleai will create them.

settings
    Application settings: default difficulty, window size and position.

library
    Cached dictionary, used to speed program startup.

COPYRIGHT

See the file /usr/doc/scrabbleai-20150324_6f8db6b/LICENSE for license information.

AUTHORS

scrabbleai was written by apikler (GitHub username).

This man page written for the SlackBuilds.org project by B. Watson, and is licensed under the WTFPL.

DISCLAIMER

This program is free, not for profit, and for educational purposes only. Any usage of elements from the Scrabble board game is provided only to illustrate the functioning of the AI. Scrabble is a registered trademark belonging to Hasbro Inc in the US, and to J.W. Spear & Sons Ltd., a subsidiary of Mattel Inc., throughout the rest of the world. Neither the author nor this program are affiliated with the Scrabble Crossword Game, Hasbro, Spear & Sons, or Mattel in any fashion.

SEE ALSO

The scrabbleai homepage: https://github.com/apikler/ScrabbleAI

The Wikipedia entry on Scrabble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble