InkLink

General

Gameplay

Inklink is a multiplayer internet game by Shockwave.com. It involves many rooms, each with a capacity of eight players. While in the room, anyone can chat; when they say something, the text appears in a speech bubble from their name. Once there are at least three players in a room, a game begins. The first player that entered the room gets a word or phrase, such as stick figure in beginner rooms, carpetbagger in expert ones, or any word from all three levels in mixed bag. <p>The drawer's only tools are eight markers --black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and brown--and an eraser. The markers' lines are about two millimeters wide, and the eraser's about a centimeter. <p>As this player draws, he can no longer chat, but the other players can chat and guess at the word at the same time. If the word or phrase is contained in a player's guess, he gets 120 points minus 10 points for each 10 second interval between the time the drawer gets his clue and the time the clue is guessed; and the drawer gets the same amount of points. The guess counts as correct if it is the complete guess with no other characters in the speech bubble, or if there are special characters or numbers on either side of the phrase. For instance, if the clue is harvest moon, the guess abc123harvest moon*&&t would count as correct, but 123abcharvest moon would not. <p>In most rooms, after the first twenty seconds of the round, a hint that is a blank for each letter in the word(the hint includes any spaces and punctuation). Twenty seconds later, when the points remaining for the round hit eighty, the first letter of the clue replaces the first blank. A minute gone, and a minute left, and the last letter falls into the hint. At the forty point mark, the second letter of the clue appears, and when there are only twenty seconds left, the hint gives the guessers the second-to last letter in the phrase. If the clock runs out, no player gets any points and the game advances to the next numerical round (there are ten rounds in a game). However, from the time the drawer gets his word, he can pass. If he does, the next player up to draw gets a new word, and the round number does NOT change. After ten completed rounds, the game is over, and the three players whose points are the greatest are listed in order on the screen.

Cheating/Spelling

<p>If someone is cheating or being annoying or abusive, one can click the player's name and then click a button labeled boot. This will put a small picture of a boot next to his name. If a majority(MORE than half) of the people in the room vote to boot someone, he will be booted out of the room, and not able to reenter, under that profile, for a few hours.

<p>The most common act widely considered as cheating is spelling as you draw. In beginner rooms, rarely will anyone be angered or annoyed by someone's spelling, even if they write out the exact word. In intermediate however, writing the word exactly is frowned upon, and you will probably be booted if you do such a thing. Often, you will find a group in intermediate who do not mind occasional letters or words in the drawings. But in expert level rooms, hardly anyone will allow writing of any kind, even numbers. Anyone who tries spelling very much will soon find himself outcast from all the rooms that have people in them.

<p>Another method of cheating is to have a friend also on Inklink, playing in the same room, and have some way of communication. Whether over the phone, through some instant messaging, or just being in the same house, whenever either of you get up to draw, you can just tell your friend the phrase. You can make this look obvious by not even drawing anything, while running the risk of getting booted in higher level rooms; or, you can make it look like you're both just really good, by actually starting to draw a picture. However, you could still be found out just by one's observing that you only play well when the two of you are drawing.

Unnatural Occurrences

Bugs

<p>All games have their bugs, and there are a couple easily-spotted ones in this game. For instance, sometimes (perhaps when two people guess the correct phrase at nearly the same moment) the exclamation point, which always comes up next to the winning guesser's name, pops up by one name, but quickly changes to another. On some people's screens it shows the exclamation point on one players name first, then the other; while on others' screens it shows the other one with the exclamation point first, and then moves to the one it appeared by first on the other players' screen. Similarly, some people see different guessers gain the points and the other gain nothing. To the two guessers against which this error occurs, usually they each see themselves as getting the points first, and the other stealing them away, which can cause great confusion.

<p>Another Inklink bug is the Catcher's Mask Bug in expert rooms. When the word catcher's mask is the clue, it is [as far as is known] impossible to guess it correctly. Whether you put the apostrophe in or not, it doesn't count correct. Also very strange, when the hint comes up it has it as a nine letter word(rather than eight) and a four letter word, with no apostrophe.This suggests that perhaps the apostrophe in the trigger phrase was replaced with some random letter accidentally. However, these bugs have been fixed since the creation of Inklink 2.

Lag

Inklink has lag sometimes; if you get lag, you will be able to type what you want to say in the box, but when you press enter, it takes a while to come up in the speech bubble. This can keep someone from winning a round, even if they guessed the word first. On a normal day, there will be no lag, and the game will run fine. Some days, there will be minor lag of up to two seconds. But rarely, there will be days--or sometimes a few days--when the servers have problems, causing lag of up to fifteen seconds; or even completely down, preventing anyone from playing. Also, if someone scribbles with the marker while drawing, it will cause extreme lag to most players(except the drawer). This lag sometimes lasts all the way through the next round or two. Lag this long can be extremely frustrating, because the lagged players usually see the people drawing, but very slowly. They can type the correct answer in fifty times, but it won't show up until rounds later. For this reason, scribbling will sometimes get you booted.

Tricks

Drawing Straight Lines

There is a way to draw perfectly straight lines (any multiple of 45 degrees from a straight vertical line). Using this rarely known method, you can create great drawings, or just make incredible creative designs, confusing everyone in the room as to how you could draw so straight. Although few people even know of this trick, it is easily performed using a certain tool found on any Windows computer.

Having Multiple Appearances in a Room(s)

You can have multiple Shockwave.com profiles at one time with different names, but that is nothing special. But, you can also have many of your names playing at the same time--in the same room, or different ones. This can really confuse other players, and is an easy way to cheat by guessing your other name's words. This also is not difficult at all if you can figure out how to do it.

Guessing Your Own Word

It is possible, in a certain situation, for one player, while drawing, to guess his word. When he does this, he gets double points--the points for drawing and for guessing. This great trick can be done by anyone; but only on a certain occasion. This occasion does not happen too often; but, perhaps it happens once every game or two. This one is so vexing and happens so rarely that even in expert, if you are among friends, they usually don't mind if you do it.

Using Word Lists and Macros

An interesting Inklink concept is keeping a word list. These lists can be typed into a word processor, but a spreadsheet makes a better list format. Using a spreadsheet, you can have your list organized very well, by number of letters and alphabetically, and it is easily navigated. This is not usually considered cheating, and even if you are playing against anti-listers, there's really no easy way to detect that you are using one.But if you really want to cheat, try converting your list to a macro program. Macros are programs that perform recorded operations on a computer on command. These tools are spectacular for Inklink, especially if you have a list. With a good macro program, you can make several macros--one for each number of letters. Then, when you see the first hint, run the macro for that number of letters, and every word from your list in that category shoots out faster than any human could possibly type.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, InkLink has fixed some things, including this. Now, if one attempts to say several things within a very short period of time, only the first one goes through.

Becoming a Ghost