Scrapple

This is a dictionary which makes up definitions for bogus words. Uhh, you know, for cheating at Scrabble. "Well, let's just check the official dictionary... see, "reunghit" is a word!"

(Look, I'm a sad old man; I've accepted that I can't beat my daughter in a fair contest, so I'm forced to resort to... "unorthodox" methods.)

Relevant link: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/26688666#26688666

YouTube video showing it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjssufweHJc

For notes on checking this out & building it, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

How does it work?

When someone looks up a word, the first thing we do is look it up through the Merriam-Webster Dictionary API; if it's a real word, we display the real definition. If not, we make something up. That second step can be quietly turned off, so that when your opponent uses a bogus word, it correctly says that it's not real. (You can also disable the lookup entirely, so that it says even valid words are bad, in case your opponent is using words I hate, like "qi.")

The way we're doing our lookups is indicated by one square in the logo image. Here's the normal logo (minus the red arrow):

Tapping in the upper-right area of the logo image turns off the bogo-dictionary, and that dark blue square turns slightly lighter blue:

Tapping in the upper-left area of the logo image turns off the good dictionary, so that all words are considered bad, and that square turns pink:

Fun with definitions

The bogus definitions are generated by reading a text file, app/src/main/res/raw/patterns.txt. Comments in that file describe the details, but basically, we use patterns like "starts with 'un'" or "ends with 'ed'" as starting points for choosing random definitions. There are also "mad lib" style bits (probably easier to fiddle with if you don't know regular expressions) where you can define your own lists of strings which will be substituted at random:

@CATNAME@
    Nibbles
    Chi-Chi
    Steve

and then you can use them in definitions:

A subcutaneous fat deposit on @CATNAME@.

If you make changes to the file, it will probably blow up unit tests in BogoDictionaryTest.java, but as they say, if you want to make an omelette, you have to punch a few chickens in the face.