Tiles for the RISC OS platform*

Tiles is a visually attractive and entertaining crossword game that provides a basis for learning spelling, vocabulary, strategy and computer literacy.  To cater for all levels of ability a number of boards are supplied in 5 languages: English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. The game is played using only the mouse by up to 4 players, some or all of whom can be 'autoplayers', whose play is generated by the computer.  Timeout features are also optionally available.  Each player has his own window from which he drags tiles to the main board window.  If a word is completed an entry is made in the player's score window. 17 sets of sprites, each with up to 7 different sprite patterns, optimise the screen display for standard, multi-sync, 24 bit colour and monochrome monitors.  User defined patterns and boards may be added, saved or re-loaded.  Players' names, some of the rules and the display setup are user specified and may be saved.  Sprites are generated from the user's outline fonts or the system font.  Speech output has been available for the ARCticulate system for many years, but a recent addition has been the ability to output texts to Jonathan Duddington's Speak application, with consequential speech improvement.  The standard French data has been equipped with phonemes for use with Speak, in an attempt to more accurately pronounce the French words.  Please note that the Speak application is not included on the CD. Tiles interacts with the Help application.  Bells and whistles complete the picture

Within this page, jump to:- Tiles, version 3.91 Tiles, version 3.72   abridged freeware Tiles, version 3.50   freeware version Comparison of version features GCSE Basic French for Beginners GCSE Basic French for Improvers Details of available datasets for use with Tiles

Tiles, version 3.91, 12th April, 2004

This current version is the result of a large amount of maintenance work on the program and data, and includes the ability to output texts to the Speak application.  Eleven extra sprite veneers and a limited on-line manual are included in this package.

The features of each version of Tiles can be compared in the table below.

Tiles, version 3.72, 13th April, 2004

This version of the game is available in abridged form from this site.  Please note that it can only be used on the RISC OS or VirtualRPC operating systems and runs in the Desktop.  This download is packaged in a Zip compressed data file, so you will need an UnZip application such as SparkPlug or ZipFrend which are available from Hensa, amongst others.  ArcFS is not required.

This version (3.72) is the corrected version of the previous versions (3.67, 3.69, 3.70 and 3.71) on this page.  It corrects the TIME function, return of tiles to the pool and allows play under the Select versions of RISC OS, allowing for hard and soft spaces in pathnames.

Note that the absence of Sound is to reduce the size for transmission.  The sound modules have been made 26/32bit neutral and can be downloaded separately by clicking here.  The size is 269k (zip).  The Sound folder which results from the unzipping should be added to the Tiles application folder.

The size of the file is 243K (zip) and can be downloaded here ... ... version 3.72

Tiles, version 3.50, 1st January, 1999

The size of the file is 538K (zip) and can be downloaded here ... ... version 3.50

Tiles: GCSE Basic French for Beginners

This resource was originally separately available on a floppy disc and contains over 200 French Language crosswords of words of six letters or less for students starting the GCSE Basic level French course.  The words in each crossword are to be found in the vocabulary of one of the topics directories of the GCSE syllabus and an English translation of each is given.  These boards are arranged in sixteen directories corresponding to the topics.  The English meaning of every word is displayed when the word is completed in the course of the game, or when the mouse button is clicked over the word on the board.  Study of one topic can be reinforced by playing the Tiles game using a board from the topic directory.

This data will now only be available with a future version of the game.

Tiles: GCSE Basic French for Improvers

This resource was originally separately available on a floppy disc and contains 217 French Language crosswords for students approaching examinations in the GCSE Basic level French course.  This data is a companion volume for the GCSE French for Beginners (see above) and is laid out in a similar manner.  Word lengths and crossword sizes are generally longer than those in the Beginner's volume. 

This data will now only be available with a future version of the game.

Tiles Datasets

Detailed information about the datasets, contained within the above folders, is available in text and diagrammatic form. The text form is available as ASCII, CSV and Pipedream format. The diagrammatic form is available as Acorn Draw files.

Platform independence: thanks to VirtualAcorn