Word Blitz, the popular Boggle-clone word game, has yet more "improvements" that make sharing a tournament game to a group even more difficult. There are slightly different versions of Word Blitz, the one I am discussing is played via Facebook. First some background:
At its basic level, you play Word Blitz against a friend. Next up, you somehow hook up to a non-friend. The two of you play three rounds of the game and whoever have the most points win. As surprising as it sounds, sometimes you cannot find opponents to play against. Again, I am talking about the Facebook version, where games are limited by the friends or non-friends you have who also play the game. There is also another outlet, The League, where you can usually play up to six single-round games, one at a time, against a random player. Personally, I think it is great that the game doesn't make it too easy to play all the time. Smartphone users in general already spend too much time playing games. But then again there is the Tournament option.
With Tournaments, you can play against a wider range of players. You have up to seven days to try again and again with different board configurations, not of your own choosing, to get the best score you can. There is a limit of seven tournaments you can join at any given time. Still, having seven games over seven days is still a lot of play time. Alas, the issue again is finding people who would join the tournament games you created, which by default only appears on your own timeline. So you need friends who would join. I am somewhat selective these days and try not to have new Facebook friends unless I already know them in person. Or have a need for it, like teachers at my old high school, since I run an active alumni group. Others may have other reasons not to friend people on Facebook. This is where Facebook groups created solely for sharing Word Blitz tournament games come in. One such group is the Word Blitz Tournaments Center, located at https://www.facebook.com/groups/435605317529797 . I am a member of the group and a frequent question is "How do I share to the group?" I hope the instruction below will help. The instruction is for an iPhone user in the U.S.A. In future posts, I can make another for Apple MacOS or Microsoft Windows. Go join the group before you follow the instruction.
Recall that I mentioned there are changes to the game that makes sharing tournaments more difficult? It used to be you can create an almost limitless number of tournaments while participating in only seven or fewer. Maybe some or many tournaments ended up with no participants or maybe the many number of tournaments somehow cost Lotum, the distributor of Word Blitz, too much money. The new rule is you have to be in a tournament game else nobody can join it. You still cannot play more than seven games simultaneously so create tournament games only when you have fewer than seven games going. If you already play seven games and try to create a tournament, you will get some unhelpful error message. No, it does not tell you that you already have seven games active and that you must be in a new tournament game that you create.
On with the instruction!
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| At some random schedule, there is a podium icon that sorta reads Create Tournament, as circled in green. Note the partly hidden Invite button on the far right of that row. It may be necessary to scroll sideway to bring the podium icon into view. Click Create and you will be on your way to creating a tournament. |
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| Be sure to click the line below your name to have it show Public. If it is left on Friends Only then group members who are your friends cannot play. Next click the Share button near the bottom then don't do anything for a few seconds. If you have fewer seven games going, in a few seconds a new game will start. Give it your best, if you wish, to get some high score then leave Word Blitz altogether. |
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| Click the Menu icon in the lower right then scroll to the top and click See Your Profile. Try to do this as soon as you quit Word Blitz in the above step, before your timeline have other new stuff. |
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| The new tournament game you created and shared to your timeline should be easy to find. Click on its Share button. Note the score of only one point. If I played some words before, my score would be higher. In this case, I didn't play any words. |
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| Click Share To A Group (I used title-case to make the instruction easier to follow. I am aware the actual title for link is slightly different). |
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| You should already be a member of the group called Word Blitz Tournaments Center. In the screenshot, next to the magnifying glass, I typed to and the list of groups shortened to just two items. I clicked on the lower choice. |
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| At last we come to the final step to sharing a tournament game to a group. Note that near the top of the screen the group name is shown. I strongly recommend entering some info to make your game different than the many others that are shared to the group. Of great use is the day of the week. Recall that games last seven days. Some people like to join games that end soon, so that they don't have to wait a week to join a new game. For example, if you join seven games that were started on a Sunday, you can only play those seven games and cannot join any new ones. When you include the info, i.e. day of the week, in your posts, people can search for the word Sunday, or whatever the case, and join only those games. Finally, click Share Now and your game will be shared to the group for all to enjoy. |
