Word Guesser Game

Overview

Word Guesser Game is a Unity-based game where players generate words from a set of randomly generated letters. The game checks word validity against a predefined dictionary and calculates scores based on word length and specific bonus word criteria.

Project Structure

Assets/
├── Prefabs/
│   ├── EndScreenWindow.prefab
│   ├── GameWindow.prefab
│   ├── HighscoreText.prefab
│   ├── LeaderboardWindow.prefab
│   ├── Letter.prefab
│   └── MainMenuWindow.prefab
├── Scenes/
│   └── MainScene.unity
├── Scripts/
│   ├── Core/
│   │   ├── GameManager.cs
│   │   ├── LeaderboardManager.cs
│   │   ├── ScoreManager.cs
│   │   ├── WordGenerator.cs
│   │   └── WordInputManager.cs
│   ├── Scoring/
│   │   ├── IScoringStrategy.cs
│   │   ├── LinearScoringStrategy.cs
│   │   └── OddScoringStrategy.cs
│   └── UI/
│       ├── UIEndScreen.cs
│       ├── UIGame.cs
│       ├── UILeaderboard.cs
│       ├── UIMainMenu.cs
│       └── UIManager.cs
├── StreamingAssets/
│   ├── dictionary.txt
│   └── highscores.txt

• GameManager.cs: Manages overall game flow, state transitions, core gameplay mechanics and interaction with other managers.
• LeaderboardManager.cs: Handles leaderboard operations, including storing and retrieving high scores.
• ScoreManager.cs: Manages the player's score, including calculation and display.
• WordGenerator.cs: Generates Letters for player to guess from, handles validation logics.
• WordInputManager.cs: Processes player input for typing words and interacts with game logic accordingly.
• IScoringStrategy.cs: Defines an interface for different scoring strategies within the game.
• LinearScoringStrategy.cs: Implements a linear scoring system, where points increase uniformly.
• OddScoringStrategy.cs: Implements a scoring system that rewards points based on odd-numbered criteria.
• UIEndScreen.cs: Manages the end game screen UI, displaying scores and replay options.
• UIGame.cs: Handles the in-game UI, including score display and game status. Core part of the game.
• UILeaderboard.cs: Manages the leaderboard UI, showing top scores and player rankings.
• UIMainMenu.cs: Controls the main menu UI, including game start and options.
• UIManager.cs: Central manager for all UI elements, handling transitions and updates.

Features

Menu

The main menu provides the following options:

• Play: Starts a new game round.
• Leaderboard: Displays the top 5 high scores.
• Quit: Exits the application (in builds) or stops Play Mode (in the Unity editor).

Game Round

Each game round consists of the following features:

• Letter Set Generation: A random set of 4 to 9 letters from the English alphabet is generated at the start of each round.
• Timer: A 60-second countdown timer starts once the letters are generated.
• Word Entry: Players can input words using the generated letters.
• Word Validation: Entered words are checked against a provided dictionary.
  • Dictionary is implemented as HashSet for fast word lookup O(1).
  • Valid words are scored based on their length.
  • Invalid words are rejected, and no score is added.
  • Already entered words are rejected, and no score is added.
• Bonus Words: Three random valid bonus words are selected for each round. Bonus words yield higher scores.
• User is notified when their word is valid, invalid, and bonus using different screen flashes.
• End of Round: The round ends when the timer reaches zero. The player is shown their score and option to return to Main Menu

Scoring Systems:

The game supports two scoring systems:

• Odd Number Scoring System: Default scoring system, awarding sum of N odd numbers, where N is the length of the word and bonus of 2 points for bonus words.
  • Example: "word" = 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 16 points
  • Double the points for bonus words.
• Linear Scoring System: Optional scoring system giving one point per letter, with bonus words yielding triple points.
  • Example: "word" = 4 points
  • Triple the points for bonus words.

The scoring system can be changed by adding/removing LINEAR_SCORING_SYSTEM define in the Unity Symbol Defines.

Bonus Words

Bonus words are special words that yield higher scores. Each round has three bonus words. Bonus words are calculated based on the following criteria:

• Each word the user enters has a 50/50 chance of being a bonus word, when the word is valid.

Leaderboard

• Shows the top 5 high scores.
• Scores persist between game sessions.
• High scores are saved to a file on quit and loaded at the start of the game.
• Notifies the player if they achieve a high score and adds it to the leaderboard.

Known Issues

• The game does not end when the player enters all possible words that can be generated from the LetterSet.

Future Improvements

• Object Pooling to handle letter objects in the Game Window.
• Score Multiplier based on the time period between each word entry.
• Separate container to show already found words.
• Show more information like No. of Words Found, No. of Bonus Words Found, etc. in the End Screen Window.