I will post this to the bozeman dudes irc channel and see if we can make something of it. Also, if you want to join into the channel (it's me, adam, chris, sometimes ian, and some other friends) it is on irc.scene.org, the channel is #fargate (it's a reference to the distributed lan that one of the members tried to make a while back).

that above comment was actually posted by me.

Sweet. I'll drop in the channel, since the implication that you can chat within the game once you register is fulfilled only in my imagination.

Thanks to everyone else who has given it a spin. I apologize for the glitches but well, that was (and is) a big part of the point.

Things are getting better, in particular an annoying tendency for sessions to time out without any indication and regardless of activity has I think been solved. Oh, and it didn't work at all on IE for a time, which speaks to the preponderance of Firefox amongst my friends. These issues and some smaller stuff are gooder fixed now.

I'd be interested sometime (if it's not secret) how you generate the letter clusters. Did you program a generator, or do you accomplish it with the help of a danish and over a cup of coffee, or what?

I'll have to try the "Time" function sometime, I suppose. Generally I don't care for the pressure. I'm retired now, so have gobs of time to kill!

rhugh

I need to know if you are impressed with the clusters or hate them, so I can properly forward your query.

This is awesome. However, it makes Safari (1.3.2 for 10.3.9) crash (but works fine w/ Firefox).

Hmmm... impressed with or hate... Is this the standard tech help runaround? I hadn't characterized any particular "feeling" about your clusters, just a curiosity question. In this case the clusters are an element of the game, sort of like like breathing is just part of living. In comparison with the alternatives, I am impressed with breathing, I guess.

Well anyway, if one of your stable of tecchies finds an idle moment.

Also, have you considered having like a "seniors" competition category?? Or some other opportunity for handicapping?

I'm working on a system where seniors get to retire from their jobs and gain extra time for each puzzle.

Like how many days were you thinking?

Like how many days were you thinking? Sure! And now I have to try to prove I'm human. How humiliating.

I have a automatic script that is getting better and better at making playable puzzles, but I still have a major influence. I like fancying myself a Will Shortz of sorts.

The suggestion of user-submitted puzzles has been made and I believe will somehow be a part of 'Step 3'.

"Shortz of sortz" I like that.

I suppoz I will now again have to quiz into humanhood. Who handlez your spam control - TSA??

not bot

hah, i just managed to beat aubilenon's score from yesterday. 1838 to be precise. amazing what one can get trying random letter combos. :)

anyway, he's still listed as "yesterday's high score".. which i guess you can justify by saying he had the highest score as of yesterday. but if you're doing a different puzzle each day, can you list them by day and the high scores of each day?

Thanks for playing. I think that's a great idea.

I don't know what should happen with 'new' high scores after the top solution is made public, though.