Working on marketing...

While putting together a broadcast email for wordXross, I've gotta wonder why, given the game and introductory puzzles are, in fact, free o' charge, it is somehow taboo to put the word FREE in the bleeping subject line! ;-)

It's Official...

We are open and operating and we welcome your feedback!

Visit us at www.wordxross.com.

Well gee...a rather important link should be added here, dontcha think?

A business in the growth stage.

Pay Day!

Once again, the justly deserved checks o' wordXross constructors are in the mail!

wordXross Makes A Sale!!!!

Yes, it's true, we have made the first official sale! While the site is still not perfect and we have not launched in any grand way, people have found us.

What's next you ask? We finish testing with the help of friends, family and strangers alike and start on Phase II.......MARKETING!

To all those involved - thank you and congratulations!

It's about to get interesting.....

17x17 sizes on hold, at least for now

From a note I just sent to wordXross constructors:

I'm now dropping, at least for the present time, the 17x17 size, with my client's approval. Until the rate for 15s can be adjusted upward -- and it can't right now -- the discrepancy in paying $40 more for a 17 seems a tad unfair to me.

NB: This temporary dropping of 17x17s does not apply to those puzzles whose theme entries or completed puzzles I've already approved.

Thank you for your attention and, more importantly, for your puzzles and theme ideas -- keep 'em coming!

Very cool puzzle check tool gives players a break!

wordXross players rack up points based on how quickly they complete the puzzle. The point system is based on the assigned difficulty level coupled with a judgment of how long it should take the average player to complete the game. Part o' my job is to encode this data into each puzzle.

Alas...poor Harvey.

It turns out that, due to a coding error, a player would've been told that he or she was expected to solve a Harvey Estes puzzle in about...a year or so.

This was not good.

So Jerry put on his programmer's hat and made a tool for Vicki and I to easily check for any coding errors. Very cool. I spent Labor Day checking for coding errors on every single puzzle. There were, um, several.

But the good news? Folks can now be expected to solve a Harvey Estes puzzle in 'way less than a year! :-)

Pay Day!

Guess what, constructors? You're check, as they say, is in the mail as of yesterday.

Oh, BLEEP!

Got a note -- make that TWO notes -- from Jerry today...seems like I screwed up in the coding in two puzzle packs o' ten each.

Let me explain: this is not rocket science.

There are essentially two codes I need to include before sending completed puzzles to Jerry. One is the title. Duh. The other one is a description (in code-speak) o' the expected time it takes the solver to complete the puzzle, along with a numerically stated rate o' difficulty. From this data, Jerry works whatever magic he is that he works.

I can't imagine how this happened...wait, I think I can.

"Carelessness" is the word that pops into my mind. Sheesh!

Technical snag

Some beta testers found certain movements o' the game to be too slow on certain operating systems. Jerry's working on it.

Cheer up, gang...this is why God invented beta testing :-)

Google hath spoken

Constructor Clive submitted a pack o' puzzles in a business-related category. One is called "It's Fun to Work At Google." I've gotta admit, I was skeptical o' some entries, not being able to fact-check them authoritatively, despite Clive's links. So I wrote to the company, and faith and begorra, they checked in with me yesterday.

All theme entries and clues are accurate.

So, Clive, good for you! You were right. I was...cautious.

Kelly <-----noting that wordXross and Google are not related in any way

Constructors' pay day -- how sweet it is!

Well, I learned from Julie that all checks on approved and edited puzzles went out today. This company has got to be setting records in speedy compensation!

Read Me File

Great idea Kelly.....now you and I get to write it!!!

The Website...

Well Raider and I continue to work on the site and get it fine tuned for our soon to be "beta testing" - the more I work at it, the more I want to do with it - I am getting sucked into a never-ending process of trying to make it the perfect place.....I must focus!

The Constructors Are Coming!

Wow.....the last couple of days have been very busy for Kelly - the constructors are really turning out! I'm very excited to see we have some first timers as well as some very seasoned pro's in our midst........keep up the good work!

Another advantage to a "read-me"...

...is that it would give the downloaders all the info on how to buy more puzzles...like, the website?

"Read Me" enclosure?

I'm wondering if Jerry plans to include a "read-me" file with the game. Not that I think it needs it -- the game seems pretty intuitive to me -- but it occurred to me that it might be nice to include something about the free puzzlers (and constructors) included with the download.

Kelly <---wondering how to get rid o' the "rating" bleep that installing Halo Scan resulted in ;-)

Halo scan installed

Big deal, you say? Well, maybe not, but I prefer it over the regular blogger comment format...not that there's a need for it right now. :-)

Web site sneak preview!

Last Monday we got a sneak preview o' the web site -- cool! 'Course, everybody had comments...hang in there, Jerry o' mine!

Themeless dilemma solved!

Brilliant idea on categorizing themeless puzzles. We're going to call them "Themeless, Summer 2009," "Themeless, Fall 2009" etc. Whew!

In other category news, while struggling to build a "category tree" for Nancy's "food" puzzles (a great pack) I came up with the head category: "Basic Human Needs."

Jerry kindly informed me that "food" is a category unto itself.

Ah well...sometimes the simplest answer is usually the correct one.