The Play4Scholars Blog

“Pssst! Pinoys got Facebook game!”

Wordtrotter, fondly dubbed “The World’s Coolest Word Game” by fans and gamers from around the world is now the first Filipino-created, Filipino-developed, and Filipino-owned video game on Facebook…

The game challenges players of all ages to guide an uncanny word bug known as Wordtrotter in a quest to catch mystical alphabet bugs, the Letterbugs, to form a secret magical word that will save the world from being destroyed by the curse of a wicked witch.

Or monsters will have them for lunch—alive!

Launched on Wordtrotter Facebook last November 9, 2009, Wordtrotter aims to stand toe-to-toe with foreign video games on the social platform.

Wordtrotter , currently ranks number one in the world in Google’s search results for the keyword phrase “world’s coolest word game.”

It also appears on top of over 204 million Yahoo! search results pages when you look for “free internet word game.”

“I am thrilled to unleash, by the grace of God, an offspring of innovation on Facebook,” Gil De Palma, Wordtrotter creator and President & CEO of comics/animation/video game company Palmagick Entertainment, said. “And it’s 100% proudly Filipino-made.”

Unique Homegrown Game

What could anyone possibly do with a word game—aside from guessing the game word? Everything has been pretty much cut-and-dried for this genre.

Test drive Wordtrotter and you’ll discover that it’s unlike any word game you have ever played before.

It’s like a fusion of three of popular video games—Pacman, Text Twist, and Snake—framed by De Palma’s distinctive creative twist.

“First, I put the game within a story,” De Palma said. “Then I told the story as a game.”

The synergy of game mechanics gave birth to a unique word game with an engaging mystery, engaging gameplay and distinctive design and skill requirements that feature a far greater entertainment value than what each of the abovementioned individual game offers.

Play Wordtrotter as a word game or a puzzle game or a casual-action game, but you’ll have to watch your words (literally!) for it is engaging and so much fun you’ll hardly notice that you’re building your vocabulary as you play.

But that’s just the beginning of your Wordtrotter adventure…

Can You Find the Word that will Save the World?

The curse of the wicked witch Grimmar has plunged the bug world Wordth into darkness. You must guide an uncanny word bug known as Wordtrotter in a quest to catch mystical alphabet bugs that form the Anti-Spell, a secret magical word that will save Wordth from destruction.

Seek out dictionary bugs, the Vocabugs, to obtain word clues like synonyms, antonyms, and definitions to help you catch the right word.

To power up your Wordtrotter and earn bonus points, feed it with bugstuff found on top of Wordth’s sleepy letter-shaped hills.

Watch out for bug traps!

Grimmar has discovered your mission, dispatching her bug-eating monsters, the Buggers, to smother you.

If you fail, they will devour your Wordtrotter—alive.

You may implore Def the Forgetful Wizard for a talisman that will give you magical powers—but use it at your own risk. The absentminded wizard randomly grants both helpful and harmful powers.

Otherwise, just pile up game points to earn Wordtrotter Coins and use them to purchase power up items. It will also unlock magical powers that you can send as a gift to your friends.

Find the word. Save the world. Achieve score milestones to win Wordtrotter Crowns. Hot tip: The last crown rewards you with 100 coins.

Win a free game! Achieve 100,000 game points to download a free Wordtrotter special edition game. All this you can easily share with your friends on Facebook.

Oh, and…just try not to become a Bugger’s lunch.

It’s Got Full Facebook Social Gaming Functionality!

Wordtrotter comes with full Facebook application functionality so you can enjoy it with all your friends here: http://apps.facebook.com/wordtrotter/

You want to share the game? Easy. Just one click and your friends will get it.

You want the world to know your top score? Just click!

You want to send a free game, power-up gifts, and other game freebies? The Wordtrotter FB app will handle it all for you.

Wordtrotter even features an in-game coin system that allows you to buy magic powers and other game items on the fly.

One of the coolest things is that you can also invite friends and compare scores (and brag!) on the game’s leaderboard.

And you and your friends and friends’ friends can all be a Wordtrotter fan right here: www.wordtrotter.com/facebook

Of course, if you fail to get the right word, everyone in your list will know, too!

How to Make the First Filipino Facebook Game

Wordtrotter is an all-Filipino child with one birthfather and two sets of adoptive parents, in a manner of speaking.

“I did not do it alone,” said De Palma, also the founder of video game publishing company Gameris, Inc. “It took months of prayers, hard work, and fun with the best team I have ever worked with.”

De Palma considers his partners, businessman Johnny Tamayo and lawyer Ma. Arlene Mendoza, as Wordtrotter’s first adoptive parents.

“Leny and Johnny were there at the onset, sharing their business acumen and legal expertise to help me conceive a game that would break the mold,” De Palma says.  “I could have never done it without them.”

Then there’s the Palmagick team of Filipino artists and programmers that helped him turn his concept and story into a world-class video game.

“My team works like a street gang,” De Palma said. “We go at every project tooth and nail as one man.”

It worked well when he gave the game a whimsical letter-shaped world with a distinctive gravitational orientation—characters trot and jump horizontally, vertically, and even upside down—never been seen in any other Flash games before.

De Palma said: “There were no available source codes we could use as a model. The forums didn’t have any answer to our development queries either. The notion that innovation spells the difference between a leader and a follower gave us the impetus to do it on our own—from scratch.”

Creative Director Jd Dimanarig and Graphic Artist/Animator Cristian Sigua collaborated with Lead Programmers Roy Sanchez and Rafael Hingco, researching, experimenting, and complementing each other with creative and technical input to build Wordtrotter’s unique game engine.

“Let’s build the “awesomest” word game!” It was the team’s development war cry, according to De Palma. “Of course, we would change it to ‘coolest’ later,” he said.

The Facebook project duo of Technical Director/Web Designer Fred Timajo and Senior Game Programmer Jan Manalaysay teamed up with De Palma, Dimanarig, and Sanchez again to integrate Wordtrotter into the social platform as an application.

When the FB project hit a snag right about the same time when Sanchez also discovered a game-breaking bug, the gang would strike again… The rest of the team, including SEO Chief Mary Rivera and Social Media Manager Ina Mangalindan who supposedly were supposedly just in-charge of search engine optimization and Internet marketing, backed them up with research, programming, and game testing works to surmount the hurdles.

Singapore-based Creative Directors Joni Raso and Jeff Mendoza also provided artistic guidance to the team. Gameris’ Tamayo and Mendoza likewise suggested ways to help make the first Filipino Facebook game application globally competitive.

“God gets the glory,” De Palma said. “Right from the start, the Lord has blessed with a team that’s on top of its game. I knew then that we could make this Facebook game.”

Let’s Make History!

Test-drive Wordtrotter on Facebook and see that Filipinos can hold their own against the best in the world.

And yes, you’ll be playing the first Filipino-created, Filipino-developed, and Filipino-owned video game on Facebook—with your head held high…

It’s your game!

“Wordtrotter puts a piece of video game history in the hands of Filipinos,” De Palma said. “And we can all proudly say, ‘We got Facebook game!’ ”

So you think you can find the word that will save the world? Play WordTrotter at www.wordtrotter.com/facebook