Letter Miner

Letter Miner is a game where you mine letters by building words. The game starts with a board of letter tiles and one tunnel tile, which is where you start mining.

Click on a tile adjacent to a tunnel tile to start making a word. Click adjacent tiles to build a word. The following screenshot shows the creation of the word SLOPE.

Submitting the word mines the letters, which means the tiles that make up the word you created become tunnel tiles. Build new words off the newly created tunnel tiles. After submitting the word SLOPE, you can make the word WIRE.

Or you can make the word WINE.

Or you can make the word WRY. The choice is up to you.

Mine as many letters off the board as you can. Each board is randomly generated so no two games of Letter Miner are exactly the same.

Downloads

Letter Miner 0.2 for Mac OS X

The Mac version of Letter Miner requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 or later.

Letter Miner 0.2 for Windows

The Windows version requires a graphics card that supports OpenGL. It should run on Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

I am considering making iPad and Linux versions, but I won't be making those versions until I get closer to a final release.

Feedback

Letter Miner is in the early stages of development, especially the graphics. Your feedback can help improve the game. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to to me.

Release Notes

What's New in Version 0.2?

• The word you're making is highlighted when it matches a word in the game's word list. Highlighting the word lets you know when you can submit the word.
• The game window is larger.
• Bug fixes. In the new version I have been unable to reproduce the bug where clicking the Submit button does nothing when you build a legitimate word.

Mac OS X Installation Instructions

1. Download the game.
2. Double-click the zip file to expand it.
3. Drag the Letter Miner application to your Applications folder or wherever you want it to reside.
4. Double-click the Letter Miner application to start playing.

Windows Installation Instructions

1. Download the game.
2. On Internet Explorer 7 after downloading the game, a dialog will open. Click the Open button to open the location of the installer in Windows Explorer. Double-click the installer, setup.exe, to install the game.
3. If your browser doesn't give you the option of opening after downloading, go to where you downloaded the game. Double-click the zip file to open the installer application. Double-click the installer, setup.exe, to install the game.
4. Use the Start menu to run the game. Click the Start button.
5. Choose All Programs.
6. Select the Letter Miner folder.
7. Select the Letter Miner application.
8. The Letter Miner folder has an application named unins000. Running this application uninstalls Letter Miner.

How to Play

1. Click a letter tile that is adjacent to a tunnel (gray) tile to start making a word.
2. Click adjacent letter tiles to build a word. Clicking a tile with the letter Q adds the letters Q and U to the word.
3. When you finish building your word, click the Submit button. You can also submit a word by pressing the Return key.
4. If you start making a word and want to start making another word, click the Clear button. Clicking a tile that is adjacent to a tunnel tile but not adjacent to the tiles in the word you were building will also start a new word.
5. When you can't make any more words, click the New Board button to play another round.
6. Close the game window to quit.

Known Bugs

Occasionally the word list will not load from disk when the game launches. When the word list doesn't load, clicking the Submit button does nothing when you build a legitimate word. You can work around this bug by quitting the game and relaunching it.