Snatch Word Game Developer Mark Tucker Shares How to Play this Game and Win
Welcome Mark Tucker
Mark Tucker is a software developer and got into the voice industry in 2016 by understanding Alexa and Google assistants as well as Bixby. Mark started implementing those technologies for himself and his clients and sharing his knowledge with the community.
What Project Has Mark Been Working on?
Mark had been working on an exciting game called Snatch Word. The concept of this family-friendly game is to snatch words and hold on to them for points. It is somewhat like scrabble. Once you snatch a word, you get to hold it exclusively for seven days, but after the seven days, others can snatch the word from you, and you can try to snatch it back. There are three simple commands to remember: find, snatch, and renew.
The most exciting part of this game is that you could potentially be playing with thousands or millions of other people from all over the world. Because Snatch Word is available on Alexa in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and India, it really opens opportunities to play the game with a broad audience. Players can also earn over 20 different badges based on badge-worthy words and it adds an element of competitiveness. More popular words are worth more points and if you are an owner of that word, it allows you to obtain all those points and get up on the leaderboard, however, when someone snatches that word from you, then those points are no longer yours.
What Happens with the Scoring of the Words When Someone Snatches a Word?
Mark mentioned that there are 2 different ways to get points. One way is to get points for earning badges and those points will stay with you. Another way is if you find a new word that no one else has found, you get bonus points as well for finding original words.
Right now, it is kind of a land grab but later on, as more players are active, it will not be as easy. When you snatch a word, you get points for what that word is worth plus any popularity points that the word has. A player’s total score is the sum of all the words that they have, plus the points earned with badges and unique words, however, when someone snatches a unique keyword, now those points are deducted from your total and added to their total. A player’s score will consistently vary based on how many and which words are snatched from a player.
Mark also shared that you could do a command to see which words are expiring or about to expire so that you can use the renew feature on those before someone snatches them from you.
Players can also speak the command of a particular word and research how many points a particular word is and then strategically snatch it if it is a worthwhile word to snatch.
Mark shared that on Alexa you can set reminders for the word that you want to renew 24 hours prior, so you do not lose it. Another strategy is that if someone else owns a particular word that you want to snatch, they can set a reminder for that.
Mark stated that any word that your device recognizes is a word that you can snatch.
What Are Mark’s Future Plans for the Game?
Currently, the game is on Alexa and Google and Mark is working on getting it on Bixby as well. Another great functionality for the future is to have the ability to set your player flag to your country of origin. Mark mentioned that Alexa can purchase additional rechargeable actions on Alexa.
How Long Does It Take for Mark to Implement Certain Features?
Mark said that in some cases it can be fairly simple, and it may be a matter of updating a few settings, however, in other cases, it can require some programming which takes longer.
How Does the Leaderboard Work?
Mark stated that the leaderboards are weekly leaderboards, so in case you can’t play one week, you will be added the next time that you do play. The scores do not reset every week but what happens is that a new leaderboard starts. The points end up carrying over until people snatch words from you.
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