Popword Dammit

July 2, 2006 3:52 AM

Popword: How do they do it?

If you've ever played Popword, you've seen the scores of the best weekly players reaching up to 70 or 80 thousand points. That kind of score just seems impossible to me, and not just because I'm a dolt. I don't see how a player can get beyond level 7 or 8 and not have mouse breakdwn. It just moves too damn fast! I need some pointers, and I can't find anything online with my weak google-fu. Hope me?

posted by maryh to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Just playing through a few levels, it looks as though if you wait for it, you can get some really big point words, so maybe they are only getting that far as well. What kind of scores are you getting?

Google "Tetris Strategies" and you should be able to follow some of the same tips.

Also, are when you make a bad move to a wrong letter, do you just move the mouse back one letter or do you start over with that word? I was able to save myself a few times that way.

This is a great little game that has already got me saying "dammit" several times!
posted by sciatica at 7:05 AM on July 2, 2006

Arrrrghhh... you just killed my productivity for the next week... one little hint: The dictionary seems to include some proper names (e.g. Rick), so that widens the possible combinations a little.
posted by Herr Fahrstuhl at 8:39 AM on July 2, 2006

rick is not a proper name. It's another word for haystack.
posted by TheRaven at 8:56 AM on July 2, 2006

Response by poster: Herr Fahrstuhl, the game doesn't accept proper nouns (none that I've tried in desperation, anyway). I've gotten up to almost 8,000 points, but I can't get beyond that. I haven't been able to find any statedgy discussion online about it, so I was hoping someone here had some insight. (it was posted here a while back.)
posted by maryh at 12:04 PM on July 2, 2006

wow. thats hard.
posted by radioamy at 3:56 PM on July 2, 2006