Over the last several weeks I've been exchanging emails with Sophisticated Games and United Soft Media Verlag GmbH, the makers of the Ingenious iPhone application. I've included a link on the Ingenious game page that will take you to the iTunes Store where you can purchase the iPhone app (circled below). And as a special bonus it's on sale for only $0.99 until Valentine's Day! So, if you're an iPhone user, take a moment to check out the app by clicking through the link.

Hubert Orlik-Grzesik was nice enough to devote some time to providing a Polish translation for Ingenious. Thanks Hubert!

Ronald Schalk, an avid fan of Ingenious, emailed me offering to provide a Dutch translation for my implementation. He quickly provided the translation and I've finally found some time to incorporate his efforts. Thanks to Ronald, I know can provide the Dutch "try before you buy" version. Thanks Ronald!

I periodically check the count of the number of times Ingenious has been played on Marquand.net and noticed that it passed 700,000 in the last day or so. Here's to hoping you're still enjoying the game. I encourage you to pick up a copy for you and your family to play.

In July I was contacted by the Marketing Director of Sophisticated Games, the original publisher of Ingenious. He'd seen and played my online implementation of Ingenious and was convinced that it provided a needed "try before you buy" experience for his customers.

He introduced me to a member of the editorial department at Kosmos and over the course of a few weeks and numerous emails, the three of us discussed how best to position my implementation of Ingenious as the official "try before you buy" implementation for prospective customers for the two companies. We agreed that I would host the implementation at Marquand.net and we would create bidirectional links to the game from all three sites.

However, before we could finalize the agreement, the implementation needed to provide multi-language support (namely German). So, over the last few weeks, I've changed the code so that the initial splash screen provides two language options (depicted as country flags) and when selected, the language content of the game changes appropriately. Given my changes, I can support any number of languages quite easily so if you would like another language supported, please send the suggestion my way.

I'd like to thank the efforts of my Sophisticated Games and Kosmos partners for their efforts at working through, at times, the rather mundane details but persevering through my incessant questions, i-dotting, and t-crossing. I'm proud of the results and I'm convinced the user experience has been greatly enhanced. I look forward to working with Sophisticated Games and Kosmos in the future whenever the need arises and in whatever capacity is deemed appropriate.

Enjoy the new version and, as usual, please reload your javascript by pressing F5, deleting your browser cache, or whatever is appropriate for the browser you use. Doing so will guarantee that you are running with latest code base.

I'm going to be taking Ingenious offline for a bit for an enhancement on Thursday, Sept 10 at 11pm EST. It should take me more than 30 minutes to install and verify that everything is working correctly. I've got some interesting news regarding the update but I'll post more on that when I'm finished. I apologize for the interruption.

After the update please refresh your browser (F5/Command-R) to make sure you've reloaded the latest codebase.

I've neglected the code base for many months but I've had a few bug reports so I want to thank a few hard core users that nailed down the issues. Honestly, I was dreading going back and figuring out how to fix the problems, not because the code is bad but just because I've mentally moved on and I'm currently focusing all of my energy into Uberbadger.com. However, that's rather unfair to those of you who come to Marquand.net mainly to play Ingenious, Coloretto, and Clans. So, with that, I dug into the code and wouldn't you know it, it's only taken about 30 minutes to isolate the issues, test them, and update the code on the site.

You should clear your cache or start a game and then refresh the page (F5) to load new javascript.

The first bug was a wording issue with dropping a tile in an invalid position. The text now applies to all moves rather than just your first move.

The second bug related to starting to move a tile while the computer players were playing. The moved tile would not snap back into its original position as it does if you wait for the computer players to finish, move a tile and then decide to start moving another tile. It was as if the game forgot how to snap the tile back to the rack. With the bug fix, if you drop a tile while it's not your turn, the tile will go back to your rack.

I've also updated the text on the game back to indicate that you can hit the x-key or escape to close dialog boxes. That's always been available but wasn't stated in the page.

Enjoy.

I periodically check the statistics for the games on Marquand.net and over the weekend, the Ingenious implementation surpassed 300,000 plays. I hope you all continue to enjoy the game and thank you again for the donations.

I was contacted recently by a PHD student of Mathematical Statistics and a lecturer of Computer Science topics in South Africa. He is on a quest for a project for his advanced students and he suggested that my Ingenious implementation provides a unique opportunity for creating bot logic without having to design and/or implement a user interface.

My design does lend itself to various bot implementations. Using Javascript Object Orientation and prototype class extensions, I've implemented the human player user interface as an extension of the bot. In essence, the human player class overrides the relatively small number of methods in the bot necessary to decide three high-level questions: 1) which tile do you want to play, 2) where do you want to play it, and 3) do you want to swap tiles at the end of your turn.

The bot implementations answer these questions by navigating their own copy of the board and by using those objects (and their corresponding data structures) make their decision based on a weighted analysis of options. The final answers are derived and returned to the core game logic and play continues with subsequent players. The human player implementation overrides these methods by simply passing control to the user interface for the human to answer. Once answered, the selections are returned to the core logic in the same fashion as the bot and play continues. The core game logic is neither aware nor interested in distinguishing human players from bots.

I'm flattered by the request and relish the idea of being part of the project. However, after some thought I respectfully declined the offer. My reason for implementing Ingenious was not to provide the best bots and/or online experience for the game. The best experience you can have is with the physical game and I openly encourage those who like the game to purchase a copy. By submitting my code to the project I feel that I would lose control of the implementation and would be unable to remove it from the web if requested by the designer and/or the publisher. I also feel that I would indirectly contribute to potentially multiple implementations were the code morphed and published on other sites.

I learned a lot from the implementation and found the bot logic rewarding work albeit challenging and time consuming. Restricting myself to Javascript/DHTML increased the level of complexity but challenge is good. If having your brain heat up to solve a problem you're faced with doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger. I hope those who regularly play, some 256,000 games last I checked, still find it fun and interesting. Enjoy.