green Theft

Hello In this film I want to show you a new game which is called Verda Ŝtelo. It's a game in a webpage where you can play with friends through the Internet and the game is totally in Esperanto. So the webpage is found at gemelo.org and when you go to this page it first asks you for your name. So, I'm typing in my name and now I'm in the game. It's showing the board and in the board you can see that there are 6 boxes, the white boxes, and one of those boxes is mine. So, my name is written on the top box and now we are waiting for more players. If anybody comes to the page before the game begins, that player will also be in the game. So to show you I can add a fake player with another computer. OK. So he appears in the bottom box and he is called Aliulo. So, it's a word game and the aim of the game is to create words with anagrams. And when you create a word you put the word in your box. So that's why we have our own boxes. So, I think we now have enough players. So I'll start the game. To start the game I'll turn the first tile. To turn a tile, you push the button ‘Turn’ and it's there at the bottom of the page or actually there is a key to do it faster. So the key is the space bar. So I'm pushing the space bar and the first letter appears. And the game works so that the players take turns turning letters. So I turned the first tile and now it's Aliulo's go. You can see whose turn it is because their box is green. So, Aliulo's box is green and he's now turning a tile. And we continue like that until someone sees a word in the middle. You don't have to wait for your turn to take a word but you can take it any time. So I still don't see a word. So I can continue. Okay, now I see a word. And I want to take it. But first to take a word you have to ‘shout’. So the shouting is to notify the other players that you want to take a word. So the idea of that is that if multiple people shout at the same time, then the computer can decide who pushed the button first. So there's a button called ‘shout’ to shout. So I can either push that, or again there is a key for that. So it's faster to push the enter key. So I'm doing that and… I'm shouting. And my box goes red. And that means that I'm the first to push the button. So now I'm taking the word. To do that, you drag the first letter and then just click on the other letters and they jump to the right place. So now I have my word and we can continue the game. So it's my turn again and I'm turning the next letter. OK. And Aliulo takes a turn. And now Aliulo sees a word and takes it. And I can see the tiles move while he takes it. So the rules for the words are that they have to be at least 3 letters long. So ‘mus’ is correct. And you can also take a word without an ending, for example ‘mus’, or you can add the ending. So you'd also be allowed to have ‘muso’, ‘musos’, ‘musis’, ‘musa’. OK. And there's another rule. The game is called *Verda Ŝtelo* [Green Theft] and the theft part is that not only can you take words from the middle but you can also steal words from another player. But to do that, you have to add at least one letter from the middle and change the word to a different word by an anagram. And ‘change the word’ means change the root. So, for example I could add the next letter. It's ‘o’. So ‘muso’ would be a word but I'm not allowed to steal the word with that, because that doesn't change the root but I can steal it and make ‘sumo’ and that is a new root. So now I have two words and Aliulo has none. So you can steal words from other players, but you can also steal your own words. So for example now I can see that I can make my own word longer if I steal another letter. So in the same way that you steal from other players you have to change the root. Ok, so I'm doing that. And I'm making ‘knabi’. So that's a bit of a strange word but it is acceptable. So there's an instant messenger at the bottom of the page so that you can argue whether a word is valid. So the game continues like that until there are no more letters left. You can see how many letters are left because the bottom of the page says ‘remaining: 109’. When that number reaches zero the game still continues until everybody agrees that it's no longer possible to make a word. So at that point, the one who has the most words wins. But if there is a draw, and at least two players have the same amount of words, the one who has the most tiles wins. So I think that's everything. If you didn't understand or I explained something badly, the rules are listed in that page. I clicked on ‘help’ and there it is. That's all. I hope that you will enjoy it and maybe I will see you sometime in the game.