Counting Spaces v1.3.2 Released

v1.3.1 is out now on the App Store and on Google Play.

If you play on Android, this is a much larger jump than the version number suggests. The Play Store has been sitting on v1.1.2 since May, so four months of work arrive at once: challenges you can send to another player, the daily puzzles, weekend events, the column highlight, and the score cards you can share when you win.

The board takes a keyboard now. On an iPad with a case, or on a PC, you can type your guess, take a letter back with backspace, and commit the row with enter. The arrow keys move between slots, and the menus answer to them too. A character you have crossed off is still refused, the same as it is under your thumb.

A game controller works as well. A ring moves between the things you would otherwise touch, the row you are typing, the letters of every guess you have already made, and the keys beneath them. Press to type one, hold to cross it off, hold a filled slot to keep that character for the next guess. It stays out of sight until you pick a controller up, and the first touch of the screen puts it away again.

You can also choose what the game is allowed to interrupt you for. There is a notifications page in settings with a switch each for challenges sent to you, for a challenge you are in finishing, for events, and for the day's new puzzles. Everything is off until you turn it on, and turning the first one on is what asks your phone for permission, so if you want none of this you are never asked at all.

Three smaller things. The board can show the part of speech of the word you are solving, if you want the help; it is off by default, because the game is sold on giving you two numbers and nothing else. The questions the game asks over and over now have a way to tell it to stop asking. And if you are the last player to finish a challenge, the score card is there for you at the end rather than only for everyone who came before.