Word Sherlock for PC

Word Sherlock is more than a traditional Word Search Puzzle, which is typically solved by an individual working in a puzzle book, circling words from a list in a matrix of seemingly random characters. While it encapsulates that paradigm, it goes far beyond by allowing users to create their own puzzles and to challenge friends and family to solve them in the fastest time possible.

The target environment for Word Sherlock is a 10” Android tablet, used in landscape mode. The app contains the following screens:

LIST
Displayed when you start the app. It shows the Word Lists that you have created and allows you to create a new list.

WORDS
Displayed when you tap ‘New’ or select an entry from the Word Lists. It allows you to enter up to 20 words for a puzzle.

PUZZLE
Displayed when you tap ‘Puzzle’ from the WORDS Screen. It shows the words in a matrix and waits for a player to find each word by tapping the first and last letter of each word. As words are found, the letters in the matrix are blanked out, as are the words in the list.


FEATURES
Create Your Own Puzzles
Any number of Puzzles may be created. First create a list of words and a Title for the Puzzle, Save the list and tap ‘Puzzle’. A Puzzle will appear, ready for you to solve.

Competition
Solve the Puzzle by yourself in your own good time or compete with others to see who can solve the Puzzle in the fastest time, with the fewest penalties (optional). When a player finds all the words in a puzzle, Word Sherlock displays a message indicating how many seconds it took, as well as the total of any penalties that were assessed.

Word Lists
Create and save any number of word lists, each containing up to 20 words.

Select From Saved Lists
As Word Lists are created and saved, they are added to a scrollable list that is displayed on the opening screen. Select one of these lists to show the words that they contain and to build a Puzzle.

Default Settings
Default settings are specified on the LIST screen:
Size: 8x8 10x10 12x12 14x14
Allow: Backward or Diagonal
If neither Backward nor Diagonal are checked, then all words will
appear in the Puzzle as either Horizontal or Vertical.
Use: Penalties for peaking at words in the Puzzle are Optional!

When you start a NEW Word List, the default settings will appear on the WORDS Screen. You may change any of these settings for a specific Word List.

Save File
After adding new Word Lists or updating existing lists, you may save the changes to a file named WordSherlock.xml. If changes were made and not saved when you tap ‘Exit’ a message will be displayed asking if you want to save changes.
 
Backup and Restore
It’s always a good idea to backup your data. Tapping ‘Backup’ will make a copy of your data in a file named WordSherlock_Backup.xml.

Solving a Puzzle
To mark words that you find in the Puzzle:
1) Tap the first letter of the word.
2) Tap the last letter of the word.

If you are correct, then the letters will be removed from the Puzzle and the word will be removed from the List. If you are not correct, a message will be displayed. If the ‘Penalties’ box is checked on the List Page, then 5 seconds will be added to your adjusted time if you are incorrect.

If you cannot find a word in the Puzzle, you may tap the word in the List and its location will be revealed by removing all other letters. When you do that, the ‘Solution’ Control will be changed to ‘Puzzle’. Tapping ‘Puzzle’ will restore the letters that were removed to reveal the word. Letters that had been removed when words had been previously found will stay removed.

Peaking
A player may peak at the location of a word by tapping the word in the list at the right side of the PUZZLE Screen and may view the entire solution by tapping ‘Solution’. A 5 second penalty will be assessed if the Penalties box is checked on the LIST Screen.