Here's an idea - if you can get a good list of frequencies or reading
age values, instead of running quackle with a restricted vocabulary,
run it with the full game vocabulary but adjust the scoring function
to weight word scores higher for more popular/easy words. You may
need to also impose a cut-off value for computer plays, so that if
there is *no* easy play, and only some plays of obscure words, then
nothing is played at all.
Since Quackle supports different algorithms ('players') this *ought*
to be a relatively easy mod, as long as you have the data for the
reading age or frequency of the words.
Graham
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 2:52 AM, tinytim1234uk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Quackle uses many unusual words in its plays thanks to its
> comprehensive lexica. I found myself wanting to use a restricted
> lexicon that made me feel like I was playing a parlour game rather
> than a tournament game.
>
> As such, I set out to create my own, more restricted, lexicon. I ran
> into two challenges:
>
> - Technical: building a .dawg lexicon file.
>
> - Editorial: Which words to choose?
>
> I have made some progress on the technical challenge. I took the
> source code for makeminidawg and produced a single makeminidawg.cpp
> module that will build as a standalone command-line application
> without the need for the rest of Quackle or Qt. I have built it on
> Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. I hope that this will help people create
> their own customized lexica.
>
> The editorial challenge is trickier and arguably unsolvable. I
> produced a list of 63,012 words by taking the intersection of
>
> - Sowpods; and
>
> - A list I found of all the words in the British National Corpus that
> appear six or more times.
>
> The result is not entirely satisfactory; for example, TANKBUSTERS is
> in the list but not TANKBUSTER. However, I find that I personally
> prefer playing with this list so that when Quackle thrashes me I know
> most of the words it has used.
>
> I have put a tarball on my website at http://www.nihilist.org.uk
> containing:
>
> - The restricted lexicon;
>
> - The list of words that I ran through makeminidawg to create the
> restricted lexicon;
>
> - A Windows executable version of makeminidawg;
>
> - The source code for said makeminidawg (as per the GNU GPLv2);
>
> - A readme file explaining the contents;
>
> - A sample batch file for building the Windows executable.
>
> Enjoy!
>
> -- Nihilist
>
>
