Team: Do Mo Ari gato Mr. Roboto
Members: Praetor
 Engine: Ika

• ELEGANCE 18.75/25
  
  • The game graphics were very clean. However, there were no sounds at allbeyond the ong intro that gets very annoying after the first viewing. Thankfully Prae had the common sense to include a way to skip that. At any rate, the graphics were clean, and I'll grant 60% for that. However, it was a bit lacking in ambiance that simple clicks and chimes for word combinations could've made... so nothing granted for sound/music. I will add a 15% bonus for the forsight to include a searchable valid word dictionary, which made an nigh impossible game slightly less impossible.
  
  
  
• FOUNDATION 12.5/25
  
  • Although there's an ability to redeal at the very start of a match, there's no way to abort if you cannot figure out any combinations short of closing and restarting the app. Also, the code does not seem to have been included in a non-compiled form, so I cannot comment on anything more than Praetor's logs. There definitily seems to be something working as evidenced by the output logs and the fact that the game works :P. As far as how well the game plays, well, I have attempted for over two hours in the intrests of being a fair judge. I have played countless matches. I played with the word builder at www.scrabble.com at my side to help me remove rare consonants like J and X and those fucking Q's while keeping my vowels in reserve as much as possible.

    In those 2+ hours, I won exactly 0 times. I cmme close once but was left with a B and TH... and BTH/THB ain't a word. Highly frustrating, and seemingly needlessly so, because the rest of the package is so tidy-looking. I desire to look at the code greatly to see wtf the problem was, but alas it is inaccessable. 50% for having a solid backbone yet making it inconcieable to win.

  
  
  
• NOVELTY 7.5/25
  
  • Intresting card game, but not exactly original. 30% marks, since this appears to be the first electronic implementation. I hope the real version is more winnable.
  
  
  
• EXECUTION 7.5/25
  
  
  
  1. Dream: 0 points. I am not granting points in this category for the 'extra points for the 5 words' portion, since in over 2 hours, never did I have the chance to build these words. And I was trying. The only dream here was mine about 1.5 hours in, on that set where I got down to the bottom of the stacks... and that was crushed beneath the heels of reality.
     
  2. Space: 0 points. No. Don't even. Moving on.
     
  3. Color: I will grant that the colors, limited as they were, were at least vibrant and fitting. 5pts.
     
  4. Chaos: 2.5 points. The card distribution was somewhat chaotic. But if it truley was well seeded, winning one out of 40-odd games should be feasable, no?
     
  5. Emotion: This game caused me to feel the following Emotions: Anger, Hatred, Disgust, Fear, Loathing, and a multitude of other feelings and/or physical ailments. This is, however, not normal or desirable behavior from any card game other than Magic: the Gathering. 0 points.