SpellcastSolver

A fast and efficient engine designed to find the best possible word in Discord's Spellcast activity.

📌 Table of Contents

• About
• Features
• Solver Performance
• Installation
• Usage
• Technologies Used
• Screenshots
• License

📖About

SpellcastSolver is a high-performance word solver for the Spellcast game, utilizing a Trie for fast word lookups by passing the TrieNode directly, and a hashmap to store the best version of each word. By using trie‑letter bitmasks for valid child nodes, the solver speeds up 2–3‑swap searches by up ~25%. It also leverages multithreading for parallel processing, and uses a scoring system that prioritizes long-term value, sometimes selecting lower-point words if they yield more gems for future moves with swaps.

🚀Features

• ✅ Interactive Board GUI
  Input and visualize the game state with an intuitive, user-friendly interface.

• ✅ Board Controls
  Easily clear the board, apply modifiers, or generate a random board layout.

• ✅ Advanced Tile Modifiers
  Add strategic elements to the game with:

  • 💎 Gem tiles
  • 🔠 Letter multipliers (2×, 3×)
  • 🔤 Word multipliers (2×, 3×)
  • ❄️ Frozen tiles

• ✅ Multithreaded Processing
  Efficient parallel processing to evaluate word possibilities faster.

• ✅ Inventory Management
  Track your available gems and the current game round.

• ✅ Live Word Highlighting
  Selected words are visually highlighted on the board for clarity.

• ✅ Flexible Word Sorting
  Sort the generated words based on:

  • 📖 Lexicographical order
  • 📊 Evaluation score
  • 💯 Points
  • 💎 Gem count
  • 🔄 Swap usage

• ✅ Strategic Scoring System
  Words are ranked not just by immediate points, but also by gems gained—favoring long-term advantage through swaps over short-term score.

• ✅ Board Shuffle Recommendation
  When the current board has a low score or evaluation, the engine will suggest spending 1 gem to shuffle the board. This can improve letter positioning and increase your potential to score more points.

📈Solver Performance

🎮 Real‑Game

• 360‑point single‑player high score.

🧪Benchmarking

• Round 3 boards, 100 runs
• Tested on an M2 Macbook Air

Gems [Swaps]	Avg Words	Avg Pts/Word	Avg Eval Score/Word	Time/Board (⚡Multi-thread)	Time/Board (⏳Single-thread)
0 [0]	121	34	91.41	1.11 ms	0.31 ms
3 [1]	2,374	59	122.76	4.15 ms	5.52 ms
6 [2]	14,288	74	143.37	37.67ms	108.90ms
9 [3]	46,601	86	160.00	483.04ms	1843.08ms

🛠️Installation

Prerequisites:

• No Java installation required — the app includes a custom runtime built with Java 21 via jlink.

🔽 Download the latest release from the GitHub Releases page. Choose the appropriate installer for your platform:

Platform	Installer
Windows	SpellcastSolver-<version>.exe
macOS	SpellcastSolver-<version>.dmg
Linux	spellcastsolver_<version>_amd64.deb

ℹ️ Replace <version> with the actual version number, e.g., 1.0.0.

---

▶️ Install & Run the Application

🪟 Windows

1. Download and run the .exe installer.
2. Follow the setup wizard to complete installation.
3. Launch SpellcastSolver from your Start Menu or desktop shortcut.

🍎 macOS

1. Download the .dmg file.
2. Open it and drag SpellcastSolver into your Applications folder.
3. Open it from Launchpad or Spotlight.

🐧 Linux (Debian-based)

1. Download the .deb file.
2. Install it using:

   sudo dpkg -i spellcastsolver_<version>_amd64.deb

3. Launch it via your system’s app menu or run:

   spellcastsolver

🧑‍💻Usage

1. Input the board state
   Type in the letters to match the current game board.

2. Add Tile Modifiers
   Right-click on any tile to apply special modifiers. You can also use keyboard shortcuts for quick access:

Modifier	Description	Hotkey
💎 Gem	Adds gem status	1
❄️ Frozen	Freezes the tile	!
🔠 Letter Bonus	Double / Triple Letter	2 / 3
🔤 Word Bonus	Double / Triple Word	@ / #
♻️ Clear Modifiers	Removes all modifiers	0

💡 Tip: Hover over the informational message at the bottom of the board to see a tooltip with available modifier hotkeys.

3. Set game context
   Enter the current round number and configure your gem inventory.

4. Solve the board
   Click the Solve button to generate possible words.

5. Explore results
   Click any row in the result table to highlight the word's path on the board.

   • 🔴 Swapped letters are highlighted in red.

6. Sort/Search your results
   Click on column headers to sort by:

   • 🧠 evalScore (engine-recommended move)
   • 💯 Points
   • 💎 Gems
   • 🔄 Swaps
   • 📖 Lexicographical order

   Type in the search bar to find matches for your desired word.

7. Clear / Play Move

   • Clear: Deselect the current move and reset your tile selection.
   • Play: Apply the selected move — updates the round number, adjusts your gem inventory, and removes the used letters from the board for a smoother full-game experience.

🛠️Technologies Used

This application is built with the following key technologies:

• JavaFX, FXML & ControlsFX with CSS styling – Used for building a modern, responsive user interface with declarative layouts and rich UI components.
• jpackage & jlink – Tools for creating native installers and bundling a custom Java runtime.
• Maven – Handles dependency management and builds the application.
• GitHub Actions – Automates building, packaging, and releasing across platforms via CI/CD.

📸Screenshots

📝License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.