DINGBATS® word game - Where's the screenshots?

maybe the game is so bad they have to hide the screenshots?

found them here

http://www.dingbats.net/

well i was gonna resist a new game purchase until i beat undercroft, but decided to have a go at this.

very 1st quick initial impression is that its quite polished looking. a promising start!

not suprised this one starts to sink without trace when a tonne of eagerly anticipated apps hit the store.

anyways, to further add to my initial look i found dingbats to be a decent experience if you like cryptic word games.

ive never heard of this dev before but it seems they like to create a bit of polish and it does sparkle. the game doesnt crash, the menus are fluid, theres a nifty help section and its generally very pleasing on the eye, although there isnt much you can do with a bunch of cards admittedly, they are also nicely drawn.

the object of the game is to flip over a card (15 levels of 12 cards each) and try and work out what the phrase, object or meaning is based on the diagram shown. some are riduclously easy whilst others are not quite obvious. the answers are typed in via the touch keyboard so decent spelling is required! you are given a genrous time limit to answer the puzzle and the faster you do it the more points you get. once you have solved all 12 cards you goto the next level. simple as that really. theres an online high score chart for points and time (of which the highest i got to was number 20 so far) and the score updates on the fly so if you quit and resume it saves your scorers automatically to the table ready for you to improve it.

the downside is that each new game is the same cards in the same places. so its effectively all about solving them one by one to get the new cards. a bit linear but if you cant solve one you can pause the clock and go to the next puzzle.

it doesnt look like there are plans to release any new card packs via DLC but i hope im wrong as this would add endless replayability to this title. despite a couple of short commings theres a lengthy enough game here and its priced just spot on for a licensed board game title. ive played far far worse and paid a lot more for games in the past. if the concept appeals to you i recommend this

Any impressions? Im very optimistic about this title.

Cards from the boardgame


Online version is here http://zone.msn.com/en/dingbats/default.htm

Hi Guys,

I just thought I would like to contribute to this thread, as I am one of the creators of the game.

Here's a bit of background on us:

Dingbats is the first iPhone app that Starberry have developed, and it has been boot strapped by a small 'Family' team. We have one lead developer, one designer, a graphics guy, a sound designer, and myself (Rus Sellers) and my Brother Ben. - That's team Starberry!

The original Board game 'Dingbats' was invented by my father Paul Sellers, and was very successful in its day being voted ‘Game of the Year’ in the UK and ‘Toy of the Year’ in the USA back in about 1988.

We wanted to celebrate 30 years of Dingbats and we felt that this was the first digital gaming platform since the launch of the board game that directly suited the mechanic of the original card game.

Ok thats the background done;-)

------------

Dingbats v1.01 - Minor release

We have just launched v1.01 of the game which has a few bug fixes plus:

- ASK 'THE DING KING': One of the most requested features by players - Now when you are really stumped, you can always ask The Ding King for hints to be emailed to you.
- EXPANDED SCOREBOARD: You can now filter scores by country and by day / week / month.
- TWEET YOUR SCORE: Enhanced Twitter integration to make it even easier to tell the world how well you are doing.

------------

The main thing we added in the 1.01 release was enhancing the clues and hints for the game:

We have developed a 2 tier clue/hint mechanism.

The first level is in-game clues, where when the time is up you will get a crossword style clue that lets you know how many words and how many letters in each word.

The real fun of Dingbats is nto just banging in answers it is trying to solve them, so we have decided to not give out the answers, but help to solve.

We find that it is also something that if the player does not know it himself he could as a friend or member of the family to help, just like in the original board game. This is great for interaction and bouncing ideas around for the possible solution.

However in this digital age that is not always so easy, and for the first few weeks of the apps life we had hundreds and hundreds of email every day from people asking use for help with individual Dingbats.

So, because we wanted to help them progress with the game, myself and Tom, the lead developer, invented hints for each one that was asked and we wrote a personal email back to everyone of them!

From that we quickly realised we needed to make this more efficient and grown up so we created the all knowing, Dingbats guru known as the - 'The Ding King' ;-) This has created an invaluable two way relationship between us and the players, and allows the players to reach out beyond the iPhone and the app.

He gives personalised hints and help to guide the player through the game. This has added a human element to the digital game, and in the first week of this new feature we have had thousands of requests and hundreds of people saying how much they liked having someone in their corner with them! (many of of the reviews on the appstore reflect that too)

We realise that this is an ever evolving thing and we intend to move with the flow and react to comments and add new features and new elements to the game as we go.

What we have instore for the next release hopefully in the next few weeks (apple approvals dependent):

Version 1.2 of the game - due out before Christmas, will have:

- More cards (for free)

- Random cards delivery for each level (at moment it is set cards that progressively get harder and harder Through Dingbats, Thingbats, and Kingbats) then you can choose the path of a fixed set that gets harder or random set that gets harder

- Scoreboard integrated with website

- My Dingbats zone linking to website for extra scores, stats about your game

and if we get time for that release, but certainly the next relase:

- In-app purchases of new packs of cards - ‘More Dingbats’, ‘Junior Dingbats’, and ‘Diabolical Dingbats’

Thats all from me for now, if anyone has any questions or suggestions please let me know.

Th graphics look really nice, especially that scoreboard. I used to love doing the WHATZITs in the paper when I was younger, so I'm going to keep an eye on this one for a possible future purchase.

thats fantastic, thanks for stopping by and giving us some background information to dingbats, never realised starberry was a family development team from the makers of dingbats themselves

im amazed noone really picked up on this, especially as i know TA has many word game fans.

i honestly recommend this without hesitation, moreso now i see there is news of DLC card packs. awesome!

i recommended this game to a colleague of mine at work and shes played it for weeks, getting the family involved, as have I and we've managed to get to the final level, 15! its hard as nails at times but its more than worth the asking price.