word riot deluxe

A little while back, via an “oops”, Pogo gave us all the Robo-Blender 5000.

Now, via a non-”oops”, Pogo has taken it away. Fear not, Robo-Blender fans, the Editor assures us that he’ll be back when Word Riot Deluxe comes out (but you’ll have to win him, which will probably require more time than the free trial will offer).

If you had a favorite room that you played in when Word Riot was originally on Pogo, the Editor wants you to let him know why you loved Word Riot and which room you’d like to see brought back. If you need a memory-jog, check out our list of old Word Riot Rooms from way back when. Oh, did we mention Word Riot Deluxe is “coming soon”? Yeah, that too.

The rules for Word Riot Deluxe are available now. Explained in these rules are the differences between the three modes: Classic, Rally, and Expert.

A big difference between the modes is the type of clue that can be given. In Classic mode, clues can be any 8 letters that don’t reveal the secret word. In Rally, the clue must be a dictionary word that doesn’t reveal the secret word (and there’s an auto-spell window that helps players enter valid clues and guesses). In expert mode, there are a variety of clue formats, including phonetics, rhyming, antonyms, “bacon” (a clever way of wrapping your clue with the capitalized first and last letters of the secret word), chewy (relational hints), ABC’s and Anything Goes. The current game setting will be displayed at the beginning of every game to help avoid confusion.

In addition, there is not a single mention of players being able to kick or boot other players from the game. Let’s hope all of these clue types will help alleviate a lot of the problems of the former version of the game.

It feels like the news this week has been slow, but we think it might be that we’ve had a whirlwind of rumors and information since the new year! A few noteworthy items from the past few days that didn’t deserve a full blog post:

We caught wind that Pogo is redesigning the game room selection pages.

We also heard that Sudoku Puzzle Blast was pretty much done and that it’ll be out “soon” (yes, Pogo actually used the word “soon” again).

And speaking of soon… This week’s Letters to the Editor had us in stitches! Short and to the point, a user wrote in with the question “So… when exactly is Word Riot coming back?” Of course, the Editor’s response was not exact, nor anything we couldn’t have gleaned from previous Editor writings on the topic: “I can’t give you an exact date, but I can say that it will be coming out in the nearish future!” (Insert a collective sigh…)

Ah, Pogo… fans of the “coming soon” and “it wont’ be that much longer.”

In this week’s Letters to the Editor there was a mere two-sentence mention of Word Riot’s upcoming release.

“As for Word Riot, patience is a virtue. But even so, it won’t be that much longer.”

Thanks Pogo for giving us yet another subjective time period to ponder.

We think Pogo is teasing us… In our minis’ closets, under Goodies, today we found a Robo-blender 5000 — several pages back. When we looked at its information window, it read “Make smoothies in a fraction of the time with the latest in robotic convenience. Won in Word Riot Deluxe!” We don’t know what Pogo’s trying to tell us, but you might as well go check it out for yourself. At least it’s kind of cute!

If you haven’t seen it yet, this week’s edition of Letters to the Editor contains a letter from a concerned player who had a bad experience in the original Word Riot, mostly with the ‘boot player’ feature.

Editor: Excellent questions! Yes, the old Word Riot definitely had some features that created some social issues. Thankfully, we have addressed those issues in the new version. Players will not be able to randomly boot people out. The new game still allows players control over bad/obnoxious cluegivers, but innocent players won’t have to fear the big boot.

We’re not sure that any ability to control another player (via muting or booting or any other method) will not result in social issues, but hopefully any player determined to learn and play will be able to do so without too much drama from more seasoned players.

Today, Pogo has posted a very insightful edition of “Letters to the Editor” that covers, among other things, the recent site problems that people have been experiencing and gives a little (..okay, VERY LITTLE, TEENSY, TINY BIT of news, but not really news to BadgeHungry readers, but still…) more information on the upcoming Word Riot Deluxe game. At the very least, it’s nice to see Pogo addressing the recent site problems in a public forum.

Not that we needed any more confirmation, but in today’s Pogo News, the Pogo staff ‘officially’ confirmed the upcoming release of Word Riot Deluxe. Behold:

“That’s right– Word Riot is coming back as a Deluxe game! Fans of the original will be delighted to know that we’ve addressed many of the concerns from the original, and we’ve added tons of incredibly fun features– including ranks, winnable Mini items, different game modes, and all sorts of other cool new things!”

Word Riot fans, rejoice! But don’t hold your breath and expect a quick release, because while only Pogo knows when a game will be released, it could take a while longer due to testing and development issues.