This utility is meant to ease the life of players using the board version of the Scrabble game.

Scrabble Assistant DS is a utility program designed to run on the Nintendo DS plateform. It has been programmed to run on homebrew-enabled flash carts. A simple "DS homebrew" google search will give you pointers if you have no idea what these things mean.

As shown on the file list above, there are various versions : a french version using the "Officiel du Scrabble 5" word list, an english version using the "TWL word list", another english version using "SOWPODS" word list. As of version 0.6 and up, each dictionnary has the full 2-15 letter words.

The idea came from the fact that if you have no dictionnary, you have to trust other players' words. So here comes the "Check" function. And sometimes, when you have "good" letters, and you make your choice with a word, you feel that you could have done better... So here comes the "Search" function. And you have to bear with the cumbersome score calculation. So here comes the "Score" function. This function allows for solo playing, and up to 9 players. End-game substractions can be done too, see included README file.

Other notable features are : up to 900 search results with paged viewing, score calculations with up to 130 score entries per player and paged viewing, search length/score/alpha sort options, checks all of the dictionnary to find the best candidates for each sort option, provides a mean to lock out search and check options using any custom key-combination to prevent cheating, nice minimalist interface, which is even big enough for you to use your fingers to control the UI, and best of all, sound clicks :-)

Here is a quick overview of the way the program works : The above screen displays the data in the "Search" and "Score" functions. The lower pane displays the functions' buttons on the bottom. Above them you find the keyboard. Above it, you have the input pane, where you can check what you're currently typing (the arrow on its right side deletes the last thing typed). On the right side, you have the optional buttons, which appear accordingly to the desired function. Everything should be pretty self-explanatory. Be sure to take a look at the README file for various information about special functions (such as end-game scoring, and "party-mode" search/check lock function).

Additionnally, there's a "locking" function available. This is used to prevent players to use either (or both) of the check/search functions, by locking them out using any custom key-combo. For example when you're playing serious with friends, or in tournament or something, and you want to be sure noone uses the given function to get an unfair advantage. Both functions can be locked independantly, temporarily (do the same combo again to unlock) or permanently (only a console reset will bring the function back). More information on how to use this "lock" function is to be found in the README file.

Everything is packed in the .nds executable. The program runs smoothly in no$gba, and has been thoroughly tested on an MK5 flash cart. It doesn't access any part of the cart once loaded, and as such, should not require any dldi patching. I kept each .nds size as low as possible so it should load on any cart without any problem. In case it doesn't start, please say it on the forums.

Support is done on dev-fr.org (french forum) and gbadev.org (english forums).

And finally, i'm glad to thank the people at gbadev for the help they provided me for the first application i developped on the Nintendo DS.

Here's a screenshot of both screens on startup :

Here's a screenshot of the "Search" function :

Here's a screenshot of the "Score" function :

Here's a screenshot of the "Check" function :