I downloaded Scrabble for the Kindle a couple of weeks ago. Its a pretty good implementation for five bucks and it is addictive enough where I have played 47 games over the past two weeks (about 10 or 15 minutes a game). “For the love of God, why?” you ask? Well, I am sort of in between books right now and Scrabble appears to be a less traumatic way to pass the time around my two-year-old than Red Dead Redemption. A lot less rocking back and forth in fetal position while whimpering the word "horsey" over and over again, you know?
It does lack something, though. I really would like to see the definition of a word pop up after it is played - there is plenty of room on the screen to make that happen and no reason not to do it. After all, if you are having a friendly game with another human and they lay down a word you are unfamiliar with, you are probably going to say something like "AORIST, huh? What the hell is that?", then you would either learn the definition of a new word or you would learn that your friend is a petty cheat and a liar.
On the other hand, they might grin slyly and say "Are you challenging the word?". The rules say bluffing is okay, but anyone doing that smug-ass smile thing with me would find the game terminated right then and there. They would also find themselves suddenly and violently weighing 100 Scrabble tiles more than they did when the game was started.
Anyway, the AI scans its tiles and the board and its dictionary chock full of "pfft-there's-no-way-that's-a-word" words and lays out the one with the highest point total. I am sure that it is not cheating (What would be the point?) or broken but I still get ticked when it lays down stuff like PEDRO, ZAS, VUG, PROTEI, or some other "word" that I somehow have spent four decades not learning the meaning of or even ever coming across. Frankly, I am surprised the damn thing hasn't tried to lay down QUIJIBO or KLIMPALOON yet.
Oh, I know what ROIL means, and any geek worth his salt knows that AA comes before AARDVARK in the dictionary. I have even seen the word PAEAN awkwardly but enthusiastically crowbarred into a letter of recommendation for a student, probably by professor who was trying to justify writing off their fancy new "Word-a-Day" calendar on their office expense report.
But, c'mon... MM, NTH, and CWM? Really? Actually, there are twenty legal Scrabble words with no vowels (not even sometimes y). Got a Q but no U? No worries - there are about ninety words you can make according to Wikipedia, 25 are actually acceptable in Scrabble. Basically, after playing this I have learned that if a random handful of letters is even remotely pronounceable it is probably a word, so you might as well try it since there is no penalty for doing so.
The AI does not seem to care a) where it is laying its tiles as long as it gets the highest possible score that turn or b) what letters are probably left in the bag or in your rack. It will cheerfully lay the word REHEAT, for instance, smack between two triple word score blocks, not caring at all that you could have a P, a S, a blank, or a combination of those things in your rack. So you find yourself routinely answering the AI's 20 or 30 point plays with 50 or 60 points with no effort. In the above example you could get up to 117 points for laying down just two tiles.
You can take leverage this mechanical play pretty easily. For all of its Rainman-esque advantages, it still plays badly enough for me to beat it on its highest level a little over 50% of the time. 53.19149% to be exact. It seems stupid to me that the game reports a win/loss ratio out to seven significant figures, but there you go. After I play my ten millionth game or so I might have a different opinion.
I don't care that it doesn't play the best possible game. It's well worth the money to sit and relax and not get beaten hollow by a machine.
For once...
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