Word Zero is a crossword board game in the style of others you may have seen. Two players take turns placing tiles on a board to form words. Tiles have different point values, and some board spaces have bonuses (like double-word score), and so on.

What makes this game different is the absence of ... everything except the game itself.

Instead, Word Zero has a simple model of requiring one "token" for each game you play.

Signing-In

Word Zero coordinates games by using a service in "the cloud" which requires that each player sign-in using "Sign In With Apple". This is designed to ensure that only you can access your account, but also to protect your privacy. We collect as little personal information as possible, and we share none of it within the game. You can use Word Zero without anyone knowing your real name, gender or location.

Each player account has a name, which is "Anonymous" by default, but you can change it. The name you provide will be publicly visible to other players. You may be use your real full name, but many users will prefer to use just their first name, or a nickname.

Your account name can be anything you want, with two restrictions:

Player account names are not required to be unique, but every account also has an ID which is a unique number that is set by the system when the account is created, and can never change. For example, there can be multiple (or many) player accounts with the name "Jenny", but only one of them can be player ID 8675309. Real people communicating outside the app can use these IDs to be certain that a Word Zero player is a specific real person.

Word Zero can send push notifications to let you know when it is your turn. As with all iOS apps, this is configurable.

Game Play

Starting a Game

Every game begins by a player sending a request. The "Request a Game" screen offers several ways of finding a possible opponent:

Fairness Guidelines

Players who use this app are expected to play without outside assistance. Using any of the following during a game is considered cheating:

All players are on the honor system.

Ratings

An Elo rating system is used to give an approximate indication of the strength of each player. The Elo rating system is commonly used to rate players in many games, including chess as well as offical Scrabble tournament play.

All players start with a rating of 1500, which goes up with each win and down with each loss. The size of the change depends on how likely the outcome was, based on the difference in ratings when the game started.

The Elo ratings shown in Word Zero cannot be usefully compared to those from any other game or group.

Bots

Although the primary focus of Word Zero is to facilitate games between people, the ability to play against computer players ("Bots") is provided as well.

The Bot-related features are intentionally kept separated from other areas of the app, so there can be no confusion about whether you are playing a Bot or a real person.

Playing against a Bot can be used for practice, or when a human player is not available, or as a way of increasing one's overall rating.

Several different Bots are available. Currently, all Bots are "greedy", which means they always make the highest-scoring play they can find, ignoring issues of rack balance or defense. Some Bots have access to the full dictionary, whereas other Bots have a more limited vocabulary they can use.

If a player is a Bot, it is clearly identified as such, and a description of how that Bot plays is provided.

Bots never send game requests, and they never decline game requests they receive.