Acrozilla and AcroChallenge have much in common - and some significant differences, too.
This page highlights those differences.
Differences from Acrofever page.
How Acrozilla Differs from Acrochallenge
New, improved features:
- Easier to find a mistake in your acro as the letters turn green when matched.
Explict message in chat telling you why an an acro wasn't accepted.
- Notifications of votes or acros which are submitted after time runs out.
- Occasional wildcard 'letter' appears as asterisk, matches any word.
- Never more than 2 of any letter in the acro letters.
- If yours is the only acro in the round, you can win points even though it was impossible for you to vote.
- All games visible in the lobby, without any intermediate levels.
- Ability to stay in a room in non-playing mode to avoid holding up the game.
- Players automatically put into non-playing mode if two complete rounds missed.
- Games are paused if there are no active players (only watchers).
- Simpler private message syntax: @player rather than /pc player\ (because spaces not allowed in player names). The Acrochallenge syntax is accepted though.
- You can reply to a private message (or follow up one you sent) by clicking it.
- Clicking a players name in the score list sets up a private message.
- /games command or clicking an icon shows you all the active games in a popup graphic rather than chat lines (and you can join one of those games with a click).
- You can see your own acro during voting (but still cannot vote for it).
- For non-voters, the number of votes they received is displayed (along with 0 points).
- Support for Story Time games: Title round and default "Continue the story" topics automatically supplied, as are Story recaps.
- Support for Topics by Creator: can preload a whole set of topics after game is set up.
- "Word Acro" style games - where the letters spell a word which is also the topic.
- "Picture Acro" - where topics are pictures instead of phrases/questions
- Logging of scores and acros, for, say, a league table.
- Recognition of more high scoring acros ("Double Digit Club" vs player's single highest scoring acro shown in profile), without limit on a player's tenure.
- Different scoring: Bonus points are based on the number of votes received rather than the number of letters/words of the round.
- Simpler process for creating a game, with fewer options.
All games are 10 rounds, and maximum players is 12.
No faceoff option provided.
- A much broader range of over
1000 2000 3000 (and growing) server supplied topics, with date-based additions for holiday seasons.
- Simpler re-submit process for acros: Just edit and hit Enter.
If you want to take back an earlier entry, there is a "Revoke" button.
- If you have no acro for a round, you can click "I got nothin" button to save some time.
- If you return to a game after a disconnection, you keep your points.
- Less likelihood of disconnection in the first place.
- Ability to have online moderators who can deal with troublemakers effectively.
- Room creator can /boot a troublemaker and keep him from returning.
- Sounds to indicate start of round, acro submitted, and 10 seconds of acro time left. Option to turn them all off (collectively).
- Diverse background images for holidays and throughout the year
- Available only during limited hours (vs 24/7, when it isn't down).
These bugs are not present:
- Games interrupted by the lobby display suddenly appearing.
- The game getting stuck now and then.
- Long waits when a player disconnects from the server.
- Earned points for acros are not always counted.
- Problems closing the results box.
A few things AC has that AZ lacks (for now at least).
- Message board/forum.
- Statistics, rankings and outside-the-game communications.
- Login passwords and profiles.
- Votes to kick a player out.
- Musical accompaniment to writing (and perhaps pacing) an acro.