Other Games at Lexigame.com

Acknowledgements

About Chihuahua

Try out your word-making skills on this free online word puzzle.

The game is based on a traditional paper-and-pencil game known by various names, including Word Hunt, Words within Words and Key Words. In these games, players write down as many words as they can make from the letters of a key word of 8 to 12 letters. The concept has been used for many years in "Target" puzzles in newspapers around the world. (See The Penguin Book of Word Games, 1982, by David Parlett.)

Chihuahua brings this game concept to the Internet for the first time. With Chihuahua, you -

• compete against hundreds of other word game fanatics around the world
• get two daily puzzles
• can create your own puzzle whenever you want
• can come back to a puzzle on any computer (register a password to be sure of this)
• get instant feedback on whether a word is allowed
• can play with mouse or keyboard
• have power tools, like shuffle and previous word
• can choose to compete on "common" words, or on all words, including some very rare ones
• vie for the coveted Star, Rosette and Trophy!

Other Games at Lexigame.com

Chihuahua is a creation of Lexigame.com, founded by Alan Walker in Australia. Lexigame's aim is to produce word games unlike any others currently available.

Try out these other games:

• Letterbox Word Game: A Web game where you make words across and down in a 4 by 4 grid, using random letters. Compete against the computer.
• Lexi Word Game: The Letterbox game comes to your mobile phone!
• Ozlip, the Word Game for Aussies: The word-building game that uses an Australian vocabulary. Play Ozlip on the Web or on your mobile phone. Bonus points for Aussie words.

Acknowledgements

The following sources have been useful in the creation of the Chihuahua word puzzle.

Words

Chihuahua uses its own word list, compiled with the use of many resources, in particular:

• The lists at Kevin's Word List Page, especially the 12dicts lists compiled by Alan Beale
• OneLook® Dictionary Search
• the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993)
• words suggested by players of Chihuahua and the Letterbox Word Game

Chihuahua also uses YAWL (Yet Another Word List), compiled and placed in the public domain by Mendel Cooper. (The list and associated documentation and software may be downloaded from his Available Software site.)

For general information and ideas on word games, David Parlett's Web site and books, The Penguin Book of Word Games (1982) and The Guinness Book of Word Games (1995) have been most helpful.

The Chi-Chat rule, "Be Nice", is copied from the Rules of the JavaRanch Big Moose Saloon.

Software

Chihuahua is designed to run without the need for Java or Flash plugins. (Although where Flash is available, it is used to play sounds if the sound effects option is selected.) Chihuahua uses JavaScript and CSS. Perl and MySQL are used on the server. Communication with the server uses, where available, the techniques that have been called "Ajax" (Asynchronous JavaScript and XMLHttp).

Chihuahua uses Scott Schiller's SoundManager, a JavaScript interface for using Flash to play sounds. Where Flash is not available, Chihuahua uses techniques described on Mark Huckvale's Demonstration of Different ways to Play a Sound from a Web Page.

Chihuahua also uses the JavaScript implementation of the MD5 hashing algorithm by "Paj" (Paul Johnston) and Saltstorm's ESC JavaScript compression tool.

Recommended books and websites:

JavaScript and DHTML Cookbook (2003) by Danny Goodman.

MySQL (Third edition, 2005) by paul DuBois.

The Ajaxian Web site for the latest news and discussion on Asynchronous JavaScript and XMLHttp

The How To Create and QuirksMode sites - full of useful tips for Web site developers.

And thanks also to the many players of the Chihuahua puzzle who have given me valuable comments and suggestions.

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Needless to say, none of the worthy authors listed above are responsible for anything wrong with the Chihuahua puzzle or website. All bugs, design flaws and the like are my own work.