RonHaleEvans
Version 210214a
Here are some guidelines for creating letter-by-letter wordgames such as LiquidCrystals or DisappearingSpell with the Sixteen Segments piecepack game subsystem.
Tiles: Words in these word games are created by placing PiecepackMatchsticks on the backs of piecepack tiles, mimicking 16-segment electronic displays (see below). The outer segments of the displays are represented by tile edges. The diagonal segments are easily imagined on piecepack tiles.
Sticks in use: The grid side of each piecepack tile can hold at most one character (letter, number, or special character such as punctuation). Characters are composed of piecepack matchsticks with the following values: Ace (short orthogonal), 2 (short diagonal), 3 (long orthogonal), 5 (long diagonal), and Null (dot, period, or decimal point).
The six possible piecepack matchsticks (from top left: N, A, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Knight's move: Thus, all piecepack matchsticks can be used to create characters except value 4 (knight's move). These sticks may be used for another purpose, such as tracking money or victory points.
Available characters: Available characters are specified in the table below. These are the only acceptable characters in Sixteen Segment games. Some games may have even stricter limitations, such as using only capital letters, or permitting only the special characters of hyphens (-) and apostrophes (') in words.
All printable ASCII characters on a 16-segment display (click image for more detail)
The seventeenth segment: To indicate a period (.) or decimal point, create an exclamation point (!), question mark (?), and so on, use a dot as a 17th segment: a Null stick placed to the lower right of the tile. You must also use a dot to distinguish a lower-case x from an upper-case X. (The table above does not distinguish them.)
Long pieces: You can (and in some games must) substitute a long piece for two short pieces of the same kind (orthogonal or diagonal), if the long pieces do not cross any other long pieces. For example, you can make an X out of one long and two short diagonals, but not two long diagonals.
Dictionaries: Players may agree on any dictionary or set of dictionaries as an authority for their game. It's also suggested during guessing games that the words to guess be something that all players are likely to know. For more guidelines on acceptable words, see the Games page on the Alpha Word Game System wiki.