We fixed frozen answers, missing words and slow Blips

Every room has a Help button, and we read everything that comes through it. This weekend's messages pointed at six real problems. This post covers what each one was and what we changed. Everything below is live now.

Rattle locked you out before you typed anything

In Rattle you get a few seconds to fill in a row of answers. Just before time runs out, the game sends whatever you've typed, so a half-finished row still counts. Some players found the game sent their row the moment the round opened, empty, and then wouldn't let them type.

The cause was the clock on their device. Every round has an end time set by our server, and your phone or laptop compared it with its own clock. Most device clocks are right to the second. Some run half a minute fast. On those, the game thought the round was already nearly over, so it sent the empty row straight away.

The same fault hit Flashback, where you get a few seconds to memorise a board of little pixel pictures. On a fast clock the board was over before it started, and players went straight to a question about a picture they never saw.

Now, when you join a room, the game checks the time with our server and works out how far off your device is. Every timer uses that corrected time. Rattle also never sends a row with nothing in it. And Flashback shows its board for the full time even if it reaches you late, for example after you switched tabs. On a slower pace the board now stays up longer too.

Fuse said real words weren't words

Fuse checks every word against a dictionary. Ours started life as an old Scrabble-style list. It knew plenty of words nobody says, and it had never heard of email, wifi, emoji, website or podcast. It didn't know chai, paneer, biryani or masala either.

We added a couple of hundred everyday words that were missing, with their plurals and British spellings. The same list is used by Word Rush and Word Race, so they get the new words too. When a word is turned down, the message now shows the word, so you can see whether it was a typo or a gap in our list.

We also now keep a tally of the words people try that the dictionary doesn't know. It records the words, not who typed them. When the same real word keeps getting turned down, we'll add it.

Gridlock didn't explain itself

One player opened Gridlock on a small phone and asked, fairly, what they were supposed to do. The get-ready screen had a short description and no steps. Tapping the grid did nothing, and on a small screen the clues sat below the bottom edge, so there was nothing obvious to tap.

• The get-ready screen now lists the steps: tap a clue or a square, type the answer, first right answer claims the word.
• Tapping a square picks the clue that runs through it. Tap the same square again to switch between across and down.
• On small phones the grid shrinks a little so the clues show without scrolling.

The host's screen now shows the game

A host can sit out and put the room on a TV. A player told us it worked for Doodle Dash but not for the game they were playing. They were right: in many games the TV just said that everyone was answering on their phones.

Now the host's screen shows the timer and the live scores in every game. Fuse, Last Letter, Gridlock and Sudoku go further and show the real board, so the room can watch the bomb pass round or the grid fill up in colour.

Blips were too slow, and too easy

Blips are the bot players you can add when you're short of people. Two complaints came from the same Party Mix game: the Blips were slow, and in Type Race they were no match for anyone.

Both had the same root. The Pace setting in the lobby gives people more time, and it was giving the Blips more time as well. On Relaxed, the default, a Blip typed at about half the speed it should. Its progress bar also never moved during the race, so it looked like it wasn't playing at all.

Pace is now for people only. Blips take the same time to answer whatever the setting. In Type Race each Blip now types at its own steady speed, around 40 words a minute, and some are quicker than that, so a fast Blip can beat you. You can watch their bars move as they type. And when every person has finished, the race ends a few seconds later instead of waiting out the clock.

Talking in Imposter

Someone asked why Imposter has no way to discuss in the game. It's a fair question, since talking is the whole game. We don't have a chat box, on purpose. Imposter plays best when you can hear people hesitate, so on a call or round a table. A chat box open to anyone with a room code is also something we'd have to keep clean, and we'd rather not ship that badly.

What we did change: the vote screen now says so up front, with a reminder to talk it through before anyone votes. If you'd use a chat box anyway, tell us. Enough people asking would change our minds.

Keep telling us

Every fix here started as a short message from a player in the middle of a game. Most of them came with no email address, so this post is our reply. If something feels wrong, press Help in any room and say it in a sentence. If you want an answer, leave an email.

• Timers now use the server's time, so a phone with a fast clock no longer locks you out in Rattle or hides the board in Flashback.
• Fuse, Word Rush and Word Race know a couple of hundred more everyday words.
• Gridlock explains itself, and tapping a square picks its clue.
• A host who sits out sees the timer and scores in every game, and the live board in four of them.
• Blips ignore the Pace setting, and Type Race Blips type like real opponents.

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