Word Bomb

🎮 Overview

Word Bomb is a fast-paced Discord word game where players must submit real words that contain a randomly chosen letter prompt. Each round gets shorter as the bomb timer speeds up — hesitate too long or submit an invalid word and you lose a life. Lose all three and you're out!

Compete solo for practice or face off against others in multiplayer elimination matches.

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📋 How It Works

🧠 Objective

Survive as long as possible by submitting valid words that include the given prompt before time runs out.

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🧍 Game Modes

🟢 Solo Mode

• You play alone against the timer.
• No stats are recorded (practice mode).
• Encourages word creativity and speed under pressure.

🔵 Multiplayer Mode

• 2–16 players compete turn-by-turn.
• Last one standing wins the game.
• Stats and win records are tracked and added to the leaderboard.

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🔢 Gameplay Rules

❤️ Lives

• Every player starts with 3 lives (🧡🧡🧡).
• Fail to answer in time or give an invalid response? Lose 1 life.
• Run out of lives and you're eliminated.

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⏱️ Bomb Timer

• The game starts with a set time per turn (e.g. 7 seconds).
• The timer gets faster each round for added difficulty.

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🎯 Prompts

• A prompt is a 2–3 letter string (e.g. an, re, tri) randomly drawn.
• Your word must include the prompt, be valid, and not already used.

Example Prompt: re

Valid words: read, rest, represent

Invalid: apple, ghost (no re inside)

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✅ Word Rules

• Words are case-insensitive and can include hyphens (e.g. re-mix).
• Words are validated against a master dictionary (shiritori_dict.txt).
• No repeats: reused words are rejected (even from other players).

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🔧 Game Flow

🏁 Starting the Game

1. Create a lobby using /wordbomb.
2. Host gets a menu to:
   • Invite players (via dropdown).
   • Customize settings like bomb speed and prompt range.
   • Start or cancel the game.

🔗 Lobby UI Elements:

• Join: ➕
• Leave: ⬅️
• Start: 🚦 (host only)
• Cancel: ✖️ (host only)

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📜 In-Game Turns

Each player sees:

• The prompt and a random emoji.
• Lives remaining.
• Bomb timer (displayed in seconds).
• How common the prompt is in the dictionary.

If they respond:

• Valid + in time = survive, reduce future timers.
• Invalid or slow = lose 1 life.

If eliminated:

• Message sent: ☠️ {player} has been eliminated!
• They’re removed from turn order.

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🧮 Statistics & Leaderboard

📊 Tracked Stats:

• Wins
• Games Played
• Win Rate
• Total Characters Used
• Average Word Length
• Turns Played

At the end of every multiplayer game:

• An embedded leaderboard is sent to both the game thread and the original channel.
• Final stats are stored for all players using a StatsTracker.

🥇 Leaderboard Format:

🥇 Username
Wins: 10 / 20 | Win Rate: 50.0% | Chars: 123 | Avg Length: 6.2

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🧠 Prompt Frequency System

Each prompt shows a "solve count":

-# This prompt has **16** solves in the dictionary.

This encourages strategic planning — easy prompts may be used up quickly!

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🧩 Word Validity

Normalization Rules:

• Spaces become dashes: "word bomb" → "word-bomb"
• Words are lowercased and normalized before checking.

Words are rejected if:

• They don't contain the prompt.
• They’re not in the master dictionary.
• They were already played (by anyone).

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👤 Tracking Per-Player Stats

During the game:

• Every word used is tracked by player ID.
• Stats are updated only for multiplayer games.
• Solo games are for practice and do not affect stats