Crossword Countdown: PowerApps Word Game
Objective
Score as many points as you before time runs out.
How To Play
- Make a word of 3 letters or more by selecting a series of connected tiles
- Tiles can be selected in any direction: up, down, left, right
- Press the score button once you have made a word to add its points to your total
- Points are determined by adding together the numbers shown on the tile used to build the word plus any bonuses for that tile (example: Letter Score x 2, Word Score x 3)
- Words that are 7 letters or longer get 40 additional bonus points
What features in this game would be interesting to a PowerApps developer?
- 170,000-word dictionary used to instantly check for valid words
- Components are powerfully combined with collections to efficiently create the game board
- Actions triggered by clicking any of the 16 game tiles have similar code so they are executed via a single-toggle control. This is how the concept of “functions” found in other “pro-developer” languages can be applied to PowerApps
- Entire game takes place on a single screen by making controls visible or not-visible based on a variable that holds the current screen name (e.g. TitleScreen, PlayScreen, GameOverScreen). Includes a developer panel used to access these screens during development.
- High scores are saved offline to your mobile device using the SaveData and LoadData functions
Check out the article 5 Things I Learned By Making A PowerApps Game on the community blog for more about how I made this app.
Calls To Action
Give a Thumbs Up if you liked the app to make it easier for others to find in the gallery
Follow me on Twitter for more PowerApps tips https://twitter.com/mattbdevaney
Send me a message for any bugs your encountered and I will try to fix them quickly
High Score Challenge (send me a screenshot as proof)
Clarissa Gillingham is currently the World Record Holder with a high score of 247 points. Follow her on Twitter @ClarissaGillin2.
Author's Note:
For the best experience I suggest playing this game on your mobile phone. The app will also run on your personal computer with the web browsers Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, etc. but using Internet Explorer might work due to triggering of a toggle control on a second screen.
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