Bookworm (Windows, Mac OS X)

Bookworm
Developer: PopCap Games Publisher: PopCap Games Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X Released in US: February 25, 2003 This game has debugging material. This game has revisional differences.

Bookworm is an endless word-based game from PopCap, similar to Scrabble but in its own style.

PAK Support

The game's executable has full support for loading from a main.pak. However, PopCap never released a version of the game that used one and the game does not read the music directory in a PAK.

Revision List

• 1.00 = Initial release!
• 1.01 = New tiles, bug fixes.
• 1.02 = Bug fixes.
• 1.03 = Bug fixes.
• 1.13 = Windows Vista Compliance.

Two revisions were pushed. Steam only got 1.00, while the retail PopCap version got 1.13.

Command-Line Parameters

The game's executable mentions developer command lines for starting the game, it's not friendly with commands using spaces so use = instead, starting from this method forces the game to act like it's in "Trial" mode. These are:

• -play: Plays popcap.dmo if it's present, if not present, an error is shown. -demofile can also be used to choose the name and location of the file.
• -recnum: Records demos with Popcap.dmo and Popcap#.dmo if that's taken on every boot.
• -playnum: Plays demos with Popcap.dmo and Popcap#.dmo from -recnum if that's taken on every boot.
• -record: Records a demo named Popcap.dmo and saves after shutdown of the game.
• -demofile: Specifies filename for recorded demos.
• -crash: Crashes the game immediately with an Access Violation error.
• -screensaver: Makes the game act like it's a screensaver, any movement or key presses will immediately force close the game.
• -changedir: Changes game installation directory, for the current boot.
• -version: Shows the product name, version, build number and build date with a popup instead of starting the game.

Debug Commands

To do: There may be more.

Pressing CTRL-ALT-D will play a sound (c:\windows\media\Windows XP Menu Command.wav) to indicate debug key input is enabled, allowing options of typing unique keys for debugging displays or mechanisms, another use will disable it.

• F2 - Start/Stop perf timing.

• F3 - Toggle FPS display.
• Shift F3 - Toggle FPS/mouse coordinate display.

• F8 - Show current Video Stats (mostly used to see if 3D acceleration is currently on).
• Shift F8 - Toggle 3D acceleration.

• F11 - Take screenshot (goes into the ProgramData/OEM/Bookworm/_screenshots) directory.
• Shift F11 - Dump all program images in memory to the ProgramData/OEM/Bookworm/_dump directory.