apterous.org

3 September 2010

• News: Just for your information, Lexplorer searches are now being logged, so don't use it to see if your credit card number has any anagrams or something.
• Improved: Ascension leaderboard now shows success percentage.

31 August 2010

• News: Game of the Week time again, and what a selection. One particular name occurs in more than half the games... You know what to do!
• New: apterous history: September 2009.

30 August 2010

• New: apterous history August 2009.

29 August 2010

• New: Welcome to our new game mode: Ascension. Ever wanted to play every single conundrum? Me neither, but now you can anyway. It's under the "More stuff..." tab. And who knows, there might even be a Spoon for the first person to the top.
• New: Ascension: Highest Climbers (updated hourly).
• Improved: By popular demand, Top Dog and Classic games no longer automatically start up when you log in.
• Improved: In-game window is now more compact when your opponent is just a patzer (e.g. Top Dog or the Duellist).
• Fixed: First game in each dictionary after a reboot no longer takes ages to start.
• Fixed: No more spurious flakes and ambulances.
• Fixed: Unawarded Benjamins and other items (this bug is at least a year old).
• Fixed: Clicking the letters after a failed conundrum attempt no longer shows the Patience Bar (thanks Ian Volante).

28 August 2010

• News: There will be a destructive reset at midnight tonight, so make sure you finish your games before 23:59.
• New: Have a sneak peak into the Hall of Spoons!
• Improved: Fastest Conundrum Attacks now includes Speed and Bullet attacks.
• Fixed: Game of the Week nominations no longer give away the score if it's a live Duel (thanks Matt Bayfield).
• Fixed: Item text for Handbook of Hulme (thanks Innis).
• Fixed: Fewest disallowed words no longer shows legacy ratings data (thanks Andrew Feist).

27 August 2010

• News: Aptochallenge 7: it's on!
• New: Fastest Goatundrum Attacks.

26 August 2010

• News: Ridiculous strong week in Game of the Week -- don't forget to exercise your democratic rights!
• New: Fastest Hyper Conundrum Attacks.
• Fixed: Words with no obscurity estimate no longer give weird text on Lexplorer (thanks Andrew).

23 August 2010

• Improved: At the behest of the irresistable Matt Morrison, Fastest Conundrum Attacks now only shows one game per player, so it's not flooded by the same few names.
• Fixed: Harshan Lamabadusuriya no longer has HTML in his name (thanks Ian Volante).

22 August 2010

• New: Statland: Aegilops Numbers Difficulty (thanks Matt Bayfield).
• New: A little treat for all you pencil-hunters.

21 August 2010

• News: What happened in June 2009? Well, now you can find out! Provided you only care about what happened on apterous, obviously.

20 August 2010

• News: May comes but once a year. Usually just after April.

19 August 2010

• News: April 2009 and stuff.
• News: Last week's Game of the Week vote had one of the best turn-outs ever, thanks to everyone who voted! Don't forget to vote again this week to get yourself a lovely ostracon, not available in stores.
• News: A quick reminder about cheating: please don't. You only spoil the site for yourself.
• Improved: Word Stats now allows you to filter by length.

18 August 2010

• New: They've only gone and done apterous history March 2009!
• Fixed: apterous history user counts now longer go haywire in 2009 (thanks Adam).

17 August 2010

• New: apterous history takes us way back to those halcyon days of February 2009.

16 August 2010

• News: Hey, remember when 2009 was the next big thing in chronology? If not, perhaps you should jog your memory

15 August 2010

• New: Word Stats! Most common maximums, broken down for every language and variant. This replaces the broken and limited Statland pages. Anyone for Hebrew Aegilops?
• New: Remember December 2008? We do.
• Improved: Conundrum difficulty estimates updated. Around 1000 conundrums have been given an experimental hardness rating of 1, so please don't complain. Updates should be more regular from now on.
• Improved: Can now easily change dictionaries in Lexplorer.
• Improved: Item pages now show everyone who is tied with the lowest tally required to make the table, so everyone with a Silver Bug or an ostracon is now shown (thanks Ben Hunter).
• Fixed: Finally got around to awarding a bunch of old items, including Ova Lords, Bosses of the Minibash and Licker of the Hunt.

14 August 2010

• News: So, you think you maxed a Conundrum Attack?
• New: Perhaps, in your lonelier moments, you've wondered what apterous was like in November 2008. Now you can find out.

13 August 2010

• News: Just wanted to take the time to say thank you to everyone who votes on Game of the Week, it's a really cool thing and only works because people take a few minutes each week to pick out their favourites. Thank you all!
• New: Another installment of apterous History as we rewind to October 2008, host to the closest and maybe most exciting Duel run-in ever seen.
• New: The ultimate leader board: all-format high scores!

12 August 2010

• New: The apterous history series continues with September 2008's entry. Ah, those were the days...

11 August 2010

• New: As of this week, everyone who votes on Game of the Week will receive a shiny new ostracon. Ain't no other way to get 'em.
• Improved: PBs and high scores are now only announced in the high scores-worthy formats, so chat and news are no longer flooded with minutiae.
• Fixed: A few more places where excluded games weren't really excluded (thanks Kirk).
• Fixed: Occasional divide-by-zero error in Superstats pages for users with few games.
• Fixed: Red is not orange. Thanks Matt Bayfield.
• Fixed: Holy items work again (or, in the case of Holy Velvet, for the first time ever).

10 August 2010

• News: It seems like only a few weeks ago that I was congratulating Joe Denniss on having apterous' longest standing record. Perhaps because it was only a few weeks ago. Anyway, Joe's record was beaten soon after reaching the top spot, and competitors have been making ground. Now we have a new leader atop maybe the most prestigious leader board of all. So congratulations to Steve Briers, whose Flat 15 score of 117 has now stood for 496 days and is officially the longest standing record... ever! Let's see how long this one lasts.
• New: New Star Path for Touch Jnr.
• New: Item pages, at last!

9 August 2010

• New: As apterous soars gloriously into its third year, perhaps you're feeling a little nostalgic for the early days, or perhaps you're new and wondering what it was like back in the day. Well, now you can find out with the new apterous history series! I'll be releasing a new month's history every few days, starting with August 2008 (you can scroll backwards a bit, but not much happened in the first two months). You can see the important news and top scores, notable users who joined, and a bunch of other fun things. It's cool. Enjoy!
• New: Silver Bugs have been awarded retrospectively to everyone who reported a significant bug. Gold Bugs have been awarded to people who found potentially exploitable bugs and kindly reported them instead. Thanks to all of you.
• Fixed: Multiply and divide signs should now be correct displayed again (thanks Luke and Jack).
• Fixed: Sorry for this morning's downtime. Blame the Mac. Thanks Karen and others who reported promptly.

8 August 2010

• New: All pages are now XHTML 1.1 Strict compliant. Gold Bugs will be awarded for anyone who can coerce the server into producing a non-compliant page. The only exemption is the applet page itself, since there appears to be no way to validate that. Also this has been a mammoth hassle and I'm quite glad it's over.
• Improved: Completed migration from legacy database interface. One of the most boring hours of my life. Enjoy the increased reliability!
• Fixed: About fifty minor changes in pursuit of HTML compliance. Please report any breakages.
• Fixed: Game Archive pages no longer have weird titles.

7 August 2010

• Improved: They said it couldn't be done. The Duel Haul of Legends, which has been broken since October 2008, is back and better than ever!
• Fixed: Much tougher controls on valid usernames. I hope some of you enjoyed my experiments.

6 August 2010

• New: Podium finishes in Game of the Week are now shown in Glory Roll. Yes, that means being on the receiving end of an awesome performance is now considered an accolade.
• Improved: Slightly increased the conundrum difficulty cap for most players, since not enough people were enjoying the delights of 10/10 conundrums.
• Fixed: Mac users should no longer notice weird angle brackets showing up everywhere. I am now developing on a Mac so expect more fixes like this in the near future!
• Fixed: Fastest conundrums is now working again (thanks Adam Gillard).
• Fixed: German should be working again. Really really this time. I promise. No, seriously.
• Fixed: The last duel of each month no longer counts towards the next month.
• Fixed: Removed buggy games from Most max games.
• Fixed: Glory Roll now labels average maxes for Top Players leader boards as average maxes rather than percentages (thanks Kirk).

4 August 2010

• Fixed: A bunch of (theoretical) XSS flaws. There will certainly be Gold Bugs for any new ones you can find.