Cannot access previous or new packets
Response from developer
Thanks for the input! It turns out that Apple “modernized” the purchase window by reducing the visible screen area to portrait size on the iPad. We found a workaround & Version 5.5 is out with a fix.
Great app
Response from developer
Bug reports can be submitted to tech support at https://tothenineswordgame.weebly.com/contact.html. Please include a screenshot and a brief description of the problem. Thank you so much for your active participation in the To The 9s community! It would be lovely to hear what you enjoy about To The 9s. We are constantly striving to improve our content.
It’s an ‘S’ thing
Disappointed
It’s hard to see why you’d play a game like this
It makes doing your best impossible
I think traditionally the game is supposed to know more words than I do
Response from developer
We triple-checked “ablute” in Oxford, Collins & Merriam-Webster & found that this format of the word is not valid. “abluted” & of course “ablution” are ok. Thanks for checking in - we use authenticated suggestions from players in all different regions to expand our dictionary. For further suggestions, please contact app support at https://tothenineswordgame.weebly.com/contact.html.
There’s no 9 letter word
Response from developer
The letters do form a nine-letter word, best known in Australia & New Zealand. For more information please contact support at https://tothenineswordgame.weebly.com/contact.html
Best of the few
Response from developer
We love to hear our players are having fun!
Thank again
Response from developer
We’re happy we could give you a challenge.
Disappointing
Response from developer
Blokes & sheilas here, all very nice. Jokes are meant to add a bit of spice. Tarry awhile with this very fine app, And better puns may you have on tap!
Really Fun & Helps me learn more words!
It really switches on my brain and I feel an indescribable surge of happiness and relief when I find out another word, it’s not too addictive and I would recommend it to literally anyone! 😃
Grow your dictionary
Response from developer
Thank you for reporting some words you would like to see included in the “To The 9s” dictionary. Thanks to our test team and users, we have built an inclusive, worldwide English dictionary. “Neem” is a good one; we will add that. We use gold standard dictionaries, such as Collins and Merriam-Webster. These include “perv”, but not “perve”. I have sometimes seen it misspelled like this before, so I will consider including it. We would welcome any further suggestions at tech support: https://tothenineswordgame.weebly.com, but hopefully not too many tiresome words from the Scrabble Dictionary.
Enjoying the app but …….
Finding some inconsistency when a word is deemed acceptable on one puzzle but is declined on another.
Would be great to learn what words I missed so I can extend my vocabulary but this feature is not available.
Fairly decent.
Unfortunately missing some “definitely a word”words. Not referring to obscure scrabble words many do not agree on.
(Example “cist”. Not to be confused as a misspelling of cyst. It is a type of box, chest, tomb etc. Recognised in both English and American English).
Deceptively simple but so fun
My favourite part is the little touches of sassiness when you try to reuse a word (“No way José! You can’t use ____ again”) or when you input random letters (“A dictionary is not a bonbon tray!”) Would love an option to shuffle the letters around. Thanks for the great game
It’s a challenge
My 2nd review. Love it BUT…..
Update: info sent via link provided by developer.
To the 9s - reliably enjoyable
Great, needs better dictionary
With some polish and some extra work it could be truly fantastic.
Needs a good dictionary. Didn’t accept “engine” in game 2 packet 11.
Game 5 in packet 25 doesn’t have a valid 9 letter word.
From some of your reply comments, I am not sure what algorithms are being used to generate the games. And why some form of automatic generation is not being used. There seems to be an allusion that all the games are generated by hand?
The dictionary used should transcend each game. That is, the same dictionary is available and used with all games. Not sure why this doesn’t happen.
Yes there are approximately 42,000 nine letter words in the English language so there a huge pool to generate from. The list of valid 4 to 9 letter words should be relatively static. No plurals are allowed, but conjugated verbs ending in “s” are.
The initial labour intensive part is going through the wordlist to cull plurals and to add singular third person verb conjugates that end in “s”. The SOWPODS and NASPA scrabble word list goes up to nine letters and I believe is publicly and easily available. These wordlists exclude proper nouns.
Yes it is a drag to trawl through wordlists, but this initial step will produce a polished product. Once suitable word lists are generated the games could be easily created, possibly on the fly. Dictionaries could be stored as directed graphs to speed up acces and search ability. I understand that by having in app purchases to buy the game packs make sense from a business and remuneration stance.
For example from SOWPODS This is number of words of length 4 to 9 characters.
It would be a simple matter to cull plurals by only looking at words ending in “s” and making the call about whether the word is a plural or conjugated verb.
4
5,638
5
12,972
6
23,033
7
34,342
8
42,150
9
42,933
Needs good dictionaries based on theOxford and American Oxford and the MacQuarie.
I like the interface mostly except that a scroll bar should appear when you have answered a large list of words irrespective of whether you have touched the list.
Also the game should be able to flip into landscape mode.
Keep up the work.
Response from developer
Thanks for the nice review of “To the 9s” and for reporting this bug in Packet 11, game 2. I checked, and “engine” is definitely in our dictionary. That’s the good news, but occasionally human error creeps in when we curate the word lists to toss out acronyms and abbreviations. -Lauren
Can’t solve 11/5
But puzzle number 11/5 seems unsolvable for a 9 letter word.
These are the letters:
t s e
s a u
r u s
Pls help
Response from developer
Hi Josephine, Thanks for the kind review - I’m so happy to hear you’re enjoying our game!! There are a couple of embarrassing errors in Packet 11. (See the previous review.) So sorry, but there is no valid 9-letter solution to puzzle 5. “Susurrate” should have been the solution, but it was misspelled in the puzzle as “sussurate”. Unfortunately we’re not able to correct a packet once it’s been published. Thanks for alerting us. -Lauren
Very slow in realising new games.
Response from developer
Thank you for your long term support! It is wonderful to hear from a user who has tackled 220 unique “To The 9s” challenges to date. Thank you for the vital feedback and your interest in our app. We know it’s frustrating to wait for new packets, but Packet #22 will be out soon.
Improvements needed
Response from developer
Thanks for your straightforward comments on “2 The Nines”. Our developer is an ardent admirer of the cartoon character “Mad Maxine”, but she acknowledges that many people are not fans of this style of humor. We are relieved to note that you are not reporting problems with the basic functionality of our learning tool. We think you will find more to like about our upcoming version.
