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Contents Getting Started Game Board Playing Your Turn Game Preferences Manager Registration Signing In Using the manager Sidebar Manager Options Add Invite View Completed Games Tournaments Joining Tournaments Creating Tournaments Organising Tournaments Tournament Results Leagues Joining a League League Approval Creating A League Organising Leagues League Results Donating

Getting Started The Homepage Starting a new game Our homepage address is bugcafe.net. You should add this page to your web browser Favorites/bookmarks for easy access. The homepage is your starting point for everything on Bug Cafe. At the top of the page is a list of all the games we offer. To start a new game, you need to click on the name of the game you wish to play. Currently we offer eight different games. Bug Words Backgammon Reversi Letter Bug Bug Boats Chess Anti Reversi Anti Backgammon Most of the games available are two player games. Bug Words and Letter Bug allow up to 4 players. When you click on the name of the game, you will be taken to a game creation page (in Bug words games, you will first be asked to enter the number of players in the game. In Letter Bug games, at the top of the page you will see a menu showing Two players, three players or four players. The default number of players is 2, however if you wish to create a game with 3 or 4 players, click on the appropiate link.). On this page you will be asked to enter each players information. You will be asked for a name and either the players screen name or email address. Enter in this information carefully, make sure That there are no errors in the information before proceeding. Click on the Start Game button to start the game. Some games have additional options, for more information on these options, see below in the section on detailed information on each game. Games can be played in three languages, English , Spanish and Dutch. The default language is English, To start a game in Spanish or Dutch, you must click on the appropriate link on the home page. To start a new game in English, first select the number of players you wish to have in the game and click Start Game. Games can be started with 2,3 or 4 players. The next screen will ask you to enter all the information needed to start a game. The basic information needed is a screen name (does not have to be a real name) and an email address for every player in the game (Please do not copy and paste this information in, as you may get the following error message "Error: You Did not Fill Out All The Required Information"). Then click on Start Game to set the game up and get started. There are some advanced options available when setting up a game. These allow you more control over the game. Use Dictionary: This allows you to choose between OSPD (Official Scrabble Players Dictionary) and SOWPODS (A scrambled name made up of OSPD and OSW(Official Scrabble Words). OSPD is the default dictionary if you live in USA or Israel. For all other countries SOWPODS is the default dictionary. OSPD contains less words than SOWPODS, SOWPODS contains more words with both USA and UK spellings. For games in other languages, the dictionaries will be ones for your language, not the ones listed here. Strict Rule Level: This allows you to control how the Challenge rule is handled in the game. The default level is Medium. Low Level: This is good for new players. Should an invalid word be entered and it is challenged, you are given the opportunity to try again and put in a different word. Medium Level: This is the most commonly used setting. If an invalid word is entered and challenged, the word is removed from the board and the points scored from the word is removed. The player will also lose their turn. This is in keeping with official scrabble rules. High Level: In this setting you cannot enter an invalid word at all. All words are checked before the turn is over and will not be able to complete the turn if the word is invalid. Advanced: There are some advanced options that you can apply to the game. Fill blanks with random players: If you don't have any opponents to play a game with, enter your own information in and leave the other spaces blank. If you choose this option the other players will be filled in from a list of random players, this is a great way of meeting new people. Random player order: Places all the players in a random order, this means the player starting the game might not be the one to go first. Miniature Games: Mini games are made up of 40 tiles, 7 tiles on each rack and 26 in the bag. The letters are randomly picked so there is no way to track the letters if that's what you like to do. Hide dictionary in game: With in a game, you can search the dictionary, if you do not wish to have this option available in the game, check this box. In official scrabble, a dictionary can only be used to check on challenges. It is up to whoever starts a game how they want to handle this. Ignore rating in this game: Ticking this option will set the game to "not count" as part of a players rating, this will only be able to be set during game creation and will not be available to tournament and league games. If you click on the question mark in the manager, or MORE on the game board it will tell you if the game is not being counted. Please note once a game is set up to ignore the rating, there is no changing it. Games that are ignored or do not count as part of the rating do not count as part of your win loss record either. The Game Board Score Card: This shows the players name and score, next to the name you may see an icon that looks like bug eyes, this icon show's that this player is a supporter of Bug Cafe and if you Click on the bug eyes icon, you will be taken to a page explaining the benefits of donating and how to get the cute bug eyes next to your own name. The number in green is the players site rating (clicking on this will bring up a players profile). The number in red is the score made during the current turn. The number in blue is the score that the last player scored in the game. Letter Rack: This will show the letters in your current rack. A blank tile is indicated by a ?. If the letter space has no letter in it, then that means that you have less than 7 letters in your rack, this will happen once all the letters in the bag are used up towards the end of a game. Color Guide: The color guide will show you the colors of the bonus squares (the colors are changeable). Letter distribution: This shows the number of tiles that are allowed in the game and their value. Playing Your Turn When you first start playing here, the system will set up the game area to best suit your browser, these settings can later be changed. On the page you will see some buttons, the game board, score card and the seven letters in your rack. To place your letters on the board, click on the square on the board you wish to add the word, a new window will show with your letter rack in it. Click on the letter you wish to add and you will be taken back to the game board with the letter added (shown in red). Repeat this until the word you wish to form has been added. Once you are happy with the word, click on Finish. You are given a page where you can add a message to be sent to the next player. If this is a 3 or 4 player game, you may wish to click the Private message box. This stops the other players in the game (other than the player it was meant for) from viewing the message. Once you have entered a message, click on Finish to complete your turn. On the final turn page you will be shown the following: You have used # turns today. There have been # turns taken in this game, (Non-Donors are limited to 15 turns in a 24 hour period) You have # games waiting to be played. To play your games click here. To Support Bug Cafe Click Here. You will also be shown the tiles for your next turn, this is the only time you can see your new tiles. Game Preferences While the system will first set up your preferences to best suit your browser, there is a few adjustments that you can make to personalize the game board to look the way you want it to. To adjust the setup, click on Preferences and click on the button Set Preferences Manually. If you wish to revert to the default settings, click on Automatically set preferences to best suit my browser. To set the preferences, check the preferences you want to have and uncheck the boxes you do not want and click Save Preferences when you are done to save the changes. Use Lite Version: This is mainly for older browsers that do not have Javascript available. If when you click on a square in a game and nothing happens, then this preference is for you. You may also use this preference if you just think it looks better. Enable Double Click Protection: This option is to ensure you do not double click the Finish Turn button, when double clicked it causes letters to go missing from the game. Use Spelling Checker: If this preference is enabled, a warning will be displayed on the game board if your opponents word was an invalid word. Check my word on finish: After you have entered a word, you will be given a warning if the word was an invalid word. Include Scoring guide: Displays the letter distribution key on the bottom of the game page. Show square value guide: Displays color guide for the bonus squares Use Indigo board: "Indigo" is an alternative board set up, instead of clicking on the board squares, and then clicking on the letter to add it to the board, with Indigo, you must click on the square and type the letters in, this can be a faster method if you are comfortable with it. Indigo board style: Horizontal or vertical, these settings will change where the scorecard and letter rack is shown while using the "Indigo" board. Use Small Board: changes the board into a very small board, that can be handy for those using WebTv. WebTV players may want to play with this and see if it suits the TV they are using. Use Enhanced Board (for newer browsers only): This board is for players that have Bug eyes and is used by clicking on the letter in the rack you want to enter, then click on the square on the board where you wish to place the letter. Show add message window: This will show the box to add a message after clicking on finish. Show game messages on board: This will show the last message in the game on the game board, it will also allow you access to all the messages sent in the game within the last 7 days by clicking on the Message history link on the game board when this preference is enabled. Email Style: You can choose to receive emails by html or Text. Receive Game Start Emails: When someone starts a game with you, you will receive an email to let you know. Receive Tournament Game Start Emails: When a tournament game is started you will also receive an email. Receive Reminder Emails: Opponents have the choice to send reminder's if a player has not played in sometime, but this option cannot be used until after 24 hours of your last turn. Receive Game Digest Emails: This is an email that is sent out about every 6 - 8 hours with all your games in one email, so you can either play your games straight from this email or use the link to go straight to your manager to play your games. Receive Game Turn Emails: This option is for those with bug eyes. This means you will receive an email every time one of your opponents have their turn and it is now your turn. Show player ratings: On the score card, there is a number (colored green) next to the player names. This number is the players rating. Clicking on this will bring up a profile for you or your opponent. More on ratings below under "Manager". Enable shuffle option: This will add a Shuffle button under the letter rack, when you press the button, the letters in the rack will be shuffled around. This can be handy in looking for words in your rack. Show two letter racks: This is for players using the indigo board. It will add a letter rack at the top and a letter rack at the bottom, this can be especially useful to WebTV users. Use Minimal graphics: Having this option enabled will reduce the load time of the page. Changing some of the images into text. The Manager Registration Before you can use the manager, you must register first. To register, go to the main Bug Cafe page and click on the link New Member? Sign up now . You will be asked to enter your email address, be sure that you are entering this correctly. Once you have entered your email address and clicked the button, you will be sent an email with a temporary password. You can keep using the one given or you can change the password to something easier for you to remember. Signing In To sign in to use the manager, go to the main Bug Cafe page and use the box that says "Sign in to play your games" and enter your email address and password in the boxes supplied. You may wish to check the box Remember my password to avoid having to sign in every time. Using the manager The Game List: The first thing that you should notice when opening the manager is the list of the games you are currently in. Most of the time you will see either a Orange or green circle next to the game name. If the circle is green, it is your turn to play. To play your turn, click on the green circle and you will be taken to your game. If the circle is Orange, then it is not your turn. You may click on the orange circle to look at the current board and the scores. It is also possible to have a yellow circle. This only occurs if the game was set up to use Low strict level and your last turn was challenged. You should click on the yellow circle to play your turn. If there is an envelope icon showing next to the game name, this will mean that there is a message from the game waiting for you. You can click on the envelope to read it, or see it on the game board. If there is a star icon showing next to the game, this indicates that the game is a tournament game (tournament games are described later). If there is a trophy icon showing next to a game, this indicates that the game is a league game (league games are described later). A padlock icon next to tournament or league games indicates that the game has gone over the time limit set by the organizer (this will only show if a tournament has the "lock game" option on). Clicking on the padlock will take you to the message center to contact the tournament/league organizer. Games that are highlighted yellow are tournament or league games that have a locked time limit on them and have less than 24 hours to be played before they are locked. This has been added so you can keep track of which tournament/league games to play first to avoid being forfeited. On the right side of the game name, it will show when the last turn was taken. It may show either Today, Yesterday or X days ago. Each day is considered any 24 hour period since the last turn was taken. A game will show as Today up to 24 hours after the last turn was taken. After 24 hours has passed, it will show as Yesterday for another 24 hours. When a game shows as 2 days ago, this means it has been at least 48 hours since the last turn was taken. To the right of the game name, you will see a series of icons. These are: Send Reminder: If a player has not played in a while, you may send them a reminder email. Please note that not every one has their preferences set to receive emails. You can send a reminder as long as the game has been waiting at least 24 hours for your opponent to play. Trash Can: This is used to delete a game. There are some restrictions put in place on deleting games. If a game has had less than 3 turns taken from each player, then the game is free to delete. After 3 turns have been taken, if you are winning the game, you may delete the game. If you are not winning the game, then clicking on the trash can is considered resigning and you will be asked if you wish to concede the game. If you concede a game, the game will automatically end as is. There is no score deduction for resigning a game. Edit: The edit button allows you to change your name and email address in a game. If you started the game, it also gives you access to alter any players name and email address in the game. You may also freeze a game from the edit icon. The freeze option may be used in cases where there is a conflict between players or if something has gone wrong with the game and you need to hold the game until it is fixed. Only the person who froze the game, can unfreeze it. Question Mark: Here you will find information about the game including: Game number, game name, player names and email addresses (you can click on the players name to send them an email), dictionary being used in the game and date and time of the last play. The Side Bar The side bar shows various information about you and your tournament and league games. You may see a button to make a Donation. If you wish to make a donation to Bug Cafe, click on the button and enter your email address and manager password to sign in to make a donation. Follow the instructions given once you are signed into the donation area. Once donated the donation button will be replaced with "Thank you for your donation!" and the date your donation expires. Under the donation button is a link Check Messages, this link will take you to your Message Center, where you will send and receive message's to and from players for leagues or tournaments. When you get a new message, this will say, you have new messages. Under the check message link, there is a link for Tournaments and Leagues, this will take you to the tournament and league page where you will find a list of tournaments and leagues you organize and participate in. Tournaments I am in: This is the first drop down menu and shows the tournaments that you are active in, once you have been eliminated from a tournament and that round is complete, the tournament will no longer show in the list. If you click on one of the tournaments in the drop down menu, you will be taken to the tournaments result page. Leagues I am in: This drop down menu is a list of leagues you are active in. Again if you click on them you will be taken to the leagues result page. Tournaments I am organizing: You will only see this option if you are a tournament organizer. In the drop down menu, you will find a list of all your tournaments and again if you click on one you will be taken to the tournament organizer section of the site. Leagues I am organizing: This is the same as above, you will only see it if you are a league organizer and again if you click on a league you will be taken to the league organizer section of the site. Tournaments waiting: This drop down menu, will only be seen when a tournament is either ready for the next round or if the tournament has finished. Again when you click on a tournament you will be taken to the tournament organizer section of the site. The tournament drop downs have a blue background and the leagues have a yellow background. The tournament waiting drop down will show up with a green background so you can not miss it. Under the tournament and league link you will find a link for Player Profile. Screen Name: This will be the name you have set in the manager options. Rating: A players rating is calculated by the formula [average turn score * 15]. The average turn score is the average score a player makes each turn they play. Rank: The ranking is how their rating compares to other players, a #1 ranking would mean that you have the highest rating of all players. You must complete 10 games in order to have a ranking. Games: The number of games that have been played that are counted in a players stats. Wins: How many games you have won. Highest Score: Your highest game score. Tournament Wins: How many tournaments you have won. Please note that this is only updated around once a month so you will not see changes immediately. Country: Where you are from. Dictionary Preference: Which dictionary you prefer to play with. This can be made from the manager option profile. Please note that not all games are counted in your stats, they are as follows 3 and 4 player games will not be counted. Games with less than 15 turns and more than 40 turns will not be counted. Mini games are not counted. Players forfeited out of a tournament or league will get a 0 rating for that game (the winning player in the forfeit will get their full rating). Once games are complete they get moved to the "completed game" section for 5 days, then they move over into the archives. Your rating information is then updated about every 10 days. Manager Options The manager options allow you to personalize the manager and games to best suit your needs. To change the settings click on the Change links or the links provided. Add Screen Name: Adding a screen name gives you access to additional parts of the site. You can add any name you like, it does not have to be your real name. Tournament Name: By adding a tournament name, no one else can use that name to enter any tournaments. Also you can log into the manager with your tournament name and your password instead of using your very long email address, this makes logging in a bit simpler. Of course, you can still use your email address if you wish to! Once this has been chosen it cannot be changed unless by contacting Bug Cafe staff. Random player list: If this is turned ON, you will be added to the random player list, if a player uses the Fill blanks with random players option when they start a game, you may be picked to play in the game. open games in new window: When you click on the green circle to open a game, by default it will open the game in the same browser window that you are using, if you turn this option ON then it will open the games in a new window. Vision impaired enhancements: We have tried to cater for all people on this site, to accommodate the visually impaired, we have added some enhancements to the site to make using the manager easier for these people. IF you are color-blind or partially blind, these enhancements may be beneficial. Update Manager every: This option gives you the choice to update the manager every 20,15,10 and 5 mins. This is to ease the server load on the manager. It will come in handy for those who have lots of games and play them one after the other, from top to bottom, therefore would not need the manager to update as often as 5 mins. Those who only have a few games, might like it to be set at 5 mins to see if games come back straight away. Profile: Your profile can contain information about yourself that you may wish to share with others. When starting a new game, there is an option to look up players profiles to choose a player to play with. You can set up your profile to just show your information and you can choose to allow players to start games with you. If you want to set up a profile, click on this option to set it up. To add or change a section of your profile, click on the change link next to each item. Name: The name you are known as on this site. From: State and country you live in. Age: Your age. Preferred Dictionary: If this is set, when a player begins a game with you, they will be alerted if the dictionary they choose is not your preferred dictionary and will be given the opportunity to change it to your preferred dictionary. Home Page: If you have your own web site, you can add it here. Show Email: If this is set, players browsing your profile will have the opportunity to start a game with you. About Me: Add some additional information about yourself. Activate profile: If this is on, then the profile will show on the profile page. You can now add a photo to your profile. Photos should be images on your own server, send an email to support giving us the link to the image and if it is approved, it will appear on your profile page. Personal Information (used for swap tournaments only: This is only used if you join swap tournaments and need to give out your personal details to receive swaps. Color Scheme: The board color scheme is able to be changed, you can change the colors of the squares to suit your own liking. Click on the link, then choose which square type you wish to change and choose the color you wish to change it to from the color map provided. Change email address: From time to time, players change their email address, use this option to change your email address and move all the history over to a new email address. You will find a more detailed description for this on the support message board. Change Password: You may change your manager password using this option. Add Invite You can add an open invitation for players to start games with you. Once you have entered a screen name you will see this option on the manager menu bar. To add an invite, click on the Add Invite link, then enter a message and click on Add Invite. On the Add invite page, you will see a list of all your current invites listed at the bottom. If you wish to delete an invite, click on the Delete link next to the invite listed. View Completed Games Once games are completed, they are removed from your list of games in the manager. To look at the completed games, click on the View Completed Games link in the manager. This will show you the games you have completed in the last 5 days. After 5 days the games are removed from this section and are put into the Game Archive. You may still view some basic information on the games in the archive. To view the archive, click on the link for Previous Games. The completed game page shows all information for each game such as :- If it was a tournament or league game it will show the star or trophy icon. The names of the players in that game. If you click on the names, you will be taken to the "start a game" page to restart another game. The score. The Date the game ended. How many players. How many turns were taken. The turn average. The rating. At the bottom of the completed game page you have the options to see the Last 10 Games, Last 25 Games, Last 30 Days or Download Complete History (PDF format). Going back to the main Bug Cafe page, next you will find the following options: find a player: Clicking on the link find a player, will take you to a list of players looking for games. On this page you will find a list of players with a quick description and a button to start game with ..., clicking on this will automatically take you to the "start a game" page with their fields filled out ready for you to start a game with them. view player profiles: Clicking on the link view player profiles will take you to the profile page where you will be able to either look up players by the first letter of their name or using the search profiles where u can either search for them by country or by state (USA only). Join a tournament: Clicking on the Join a tournament link you will be taken to the list of tournaments and leagues available to join. Lost your games?: Clicking on the Find them here link, will send you an email with a list of your games. Next on the main Bug Cafe page you will see a box for Organize Tournaments. Create & Organise Tournaments: This link takes you to the home page for tournaments. Create & Organise Leagues: This link takes you to the home page for leagues. Tournaments Tournaments allow you to join into an organized competition with up to 64 other players. Games are played in an elimination format. The players who win the games in their round go forward into the next round, while the losing player is eliminated from the tournament. There are various formats of tournaments available for Tournament organizers to set up. Player Rating: In this mode, games are set up in the format of highest ranked player VS Lowest ranked player, second highest VS second lowest. Randomly Selected: In this format, the games are set up randomly, any two players could be paired together to play(please note that the Tournament Organizer has no control over who plays who. Swiss Pairing: This mode is a little more complicated to understand. It works on a similar system set up for chess tournaments. It is best to explain this by example. In a 8 player tournament round: 1 Vs 5 2 vs 6 3 vs 7 4 vs 8 Swiss pairing platinum: This is the same set up as the standard swiss pairing except that when there is only 4 players left in the competition, these 4 players play in a round robin competition. The winner of the competition is the player who wins the most games or scores the best rating during the tournament. The rating is calculated based on only the games played in the round robin section of the tournament. This is unrelated to your overall site rating. Joining a tournament You can find a listing of open tournaments by clicking on the Join a Tournament link on this sites homepage. You will see a list of the open tournaments with details about the limitations of the tournament and other related information: Name: The name of the tournament. Rating Limit: Tournaments can be set up to only allow players of a certain rating to join. Make sure your rating is within the limits set for the tournament. Tournament run by: The tournament organizer. Theme: Some tournaments may have a theme. (explained in more detail below). Dictionary in use: This shows the dictionary used in all the games of the tournament. Be sure to check this before entering a tournament Forfeit After: This shows how long you have to play a turn before you are forfeited from the tournament. A day is defined as 24 hours after the last turn was played. A tournament that has a 2 day limit gives you 48 hours to play your turn before being forfeited. If you know you are going to be longer than the limit to take your turn. You should inform the Tournament Organizer prior to going over the time limit. Some tournaments have an automatic lock out, which means if you do set over the time limit, you are locked out of the tournament, giving you no chance to play another turn. Organizers can still grant you an extension if this happens. It is up to the organizer to decide if a game should be extended or forfeited. Once you have decided on the tournament to join, click on the tournament name to go to the tournament registration. To register, enter a Screen Name (this does not have to be your real name) and your email address (be sure to check that this is correct). Before entering you will need to click on the Terms & Conditions and tick to agree before entering. You may also contact the organizer from this page if you have any questions about the tournament. Your questions will go straight to the organizers manager into their Message Center. Creating a tournament If you are feeling adventurous and would like to run your own tournament, you may set your tournament up by clicking on Create. Please remember that this site is a family site and as such, the tournaments created should be in keeping with this. To set up your tournament, enter your manager email and password. You will then be taken to the tournament set up page. As you set up tournaments, the more tournaments you have completed will give you access to more personalization tools. Tournament Title: Choose a name that reflects the subject of the tournament, if your tournament is not subject based, you may just wish to choose a unique name for the tournament. Tournament Theme: Here you will find a drop down menu with a number of themes you can use for your tournament (miscellaneous, swap, TV/Movie, mini and so on). My Screen Name: Choose a Screen Name to be known as in your tournament. Password: You must choose a password so you can sign in to set up the tournament games and do other organizing functions. Number of players: Choose the number of players to have in the tournament, as you organize more tournaments, you will be given access to start games with more players. New tournament organizers can only create 2 x 8 player tourneys, once they are complete you can create 2 x 16 players until complete, then so on until you reach 64 players. With each step you will get more tools to use. Lower rating limit: Set the lowest rating a player can have to join this tournament. You may wish to leave this to no limit. Upper rating limit: Set the highest rating a player can have to join this tournament. You may wish to leave this to no limit. Turn must be played within: Choose the number of days you wish each turn to be played within before forfeiting the game. Match creation based on: Choose the style of play you wish for this tournament. Language: You can choose to create a tournament in 3 languages. English, Spanish and Dutch. Dictionary: If the games are set to be played in English, choose the dictionary you wish to be used in the tournaments. Games in other languages only can use the dictionary designed for that language. Lock games after time to play exceeded: When setting the number of days a player has to play before forfeiting, play may be made after the time listed under normal circumstances, however if the game is locked using this option, then once the time limit has been exceeded, they will not be able to play their turn to get around the potential forfeit (The organizer can unlock the game to allow play to continue if needed). Add to open tournament page: The open tournament page shows a list of all the tournaments with vacancies still available. Under most circumstances you would want your tournament listed on this page, however, if you wish the tournament to be a private tournament, uncheck this option and it will not show on the open tournament page. Organizing Your Tournament There is a bit of work to do in order to organize your tournament, not everything has been automated, so it is good practice to sign into the organize area to check up on the progress of your tournaments. You can do this by clicking the Organise link in the top menu and then filling in the fields with the details of your tournament number and password or from the Tournament and League link in your manager. When you first sign into your tournament organize area, you will see a web address that can be used to tell others about your tournament, this address will take players to the registration section of the tournament. The organize area has been divided into three major sections. Player Controls: In this section you will find a list of the players who have joined the tournament. Delete Player: Up until the first game is created in a tournament, you can delete a player from the tournament by clicking on the X next to the players name, once a game has been started, no players can be deleted form the tournament. Flag: The flag indicates what country the player is from, this is 99% accurate, there is occasions when it is not correct but for the most part it is a good indication of where the player is from. Player Name: This is the players Screen Name for the tournament, clicking on the name should open your email program to send them an email if you wish to contact them. Rating: the number next to the players name is their rating at the time they signed up, this is the rating that will be used for the entire tournament, even if their actual rating changes. Active Status: This shows if the player is an active or non-active player in the tournament. When a player is eliminated from a tournament, they become non-active when the round has been completed. If for some reason, the wrong player has been made non-active, you may reactivate the player by clicking on the active status. Same applies if a player is still active when they should not be. Please remember that at the end of a round, the eliminated players will be made non-active, so there is no need to do this yourself. Email Address: All though emails do change when players use the "change my email address" from their manager they may sometimes contact you to change it in the tournament for them. To change the email address, enter in their new email address in the box provided and click update. Tournament Controls: Current time: This shows the current day and time (GMT). Grant Extension: This option is a drop down menu with all players games listed so you can grant someone an extension, also has an All Games option for special occasions where you may want to grant all games an extension. Choose the one you want and then click on the Grant Extension link. Extensions Granted: This drop down menu will show those games that you have given an extension to. When the extension is over, you just need to click on the Remove Extension link. Import Ban list from: This option is for organizers, for what ever reason, do not want certain players in their tournaments. This must be done before players join. There are two options you can choose, you can choose to import the official Bug Cafe ban list, or you can import your own custom ban list. To import the Bug Cafe list simply type in bugcafe and click the import button. If you are interested in importing your own list, please contact support for full info on how to do this. If you have the Lock option on, these games will show as locked in the player controls but where the players are concerned they can continue to play. The message section allows you to enter additional notes to the tournament, these notes will be displayed on the Open Tournament page. Notes should include any special rules or features of your tournament. You may also cancel your tournament from this section. Game Controls: This is where all the games and rounds are set up. The page will tell you what needs to be done by way of links to be clicked on. The links will either be Create Games, Proceed or Finalize. Create Games: If your tournament has been set up and is ready to go, you will see a link to create games, you will also see this link when each round is ready to be set up. To set up a game, click on the link. You will see a list of all the games that need to be set up. Click on each game and set the game up as you would a regular game. All the information needed is already filled in for you, so under most circumstances there is no need to alter any of the games setup. Once the game has been set up, you will be returned to the create game page to set up the next game. Proceed: When a round is complete, you will be prompted to Proceed to the next round. To proceed, click on the link provided. You will be shown a list of the games that were played in the round and the results for the game. The player who won the games will have a check mark next to their name. You can change who proceeds to the next round by unchecking one box and checking another box. This is usually unnecessary, but has been put their to allow you some room for experimentation with tournaments. In the case of a tied game, the player who had the highest score before the score deductions were made is considered the winner. Once the tournament has been proceeded, A prompt on the game control page to Create games will be shown. Finalize: Once a tournament has been completed, you must finalize it to finish the tournament off. Once a tournament has been finalized, the winner will be shown on the results page. The game control page will show you a list of all the results in the tournament. It shows the game name and current score. The status of the game will also show. The status will be In Progress if the game has not yet been finished. Completed, if the game is finished, or Forfeit if one of the players was forfeited from the game before the game was completed. If a game is still in progress, the number of tiles still remaining to be played will be shown in green text. The number of tiles does not include those tiles in the players racks. The page also shows two ways of looking at how long ago a turn was taken in each game. The simple way shows like it does in the manager using Today,Yesterday or X days ago to show how long ago the play was made. The more complex way is shown in a time stamp format, showing you exactly what time the play was made, please note that all times are in GMT time. The current GMT time is shown at the top of the page. Up to three links are also shown next to the game name. Forfeit: To forfeit a player from a game, click on the forfeit link next to the game name. You will need to select the players name that needs to be forfeited from a drop box. Be sure to choose the right one! Once the forfeit has been done, the game will show the status of Forfeit. Delete: If, for some reason you need to delete a game, you can do at any time, if you do delete a game, you may be asked to set the game up again, depending on the reasons why the game was deleted. Unlock: If the tournament was started with locking turned on and a player has gone over the time limit, an Unlock link will show. If instead of forfeiting the player, you wish to let the player proceed in the game, click on Unlock to allow them access to play their turn. Tournament Results Tournament results are available for anyone to look at. To look at the results of a tournament, click on the Results link. The games in progress show in alphabetical order. Choose the letter that the tournament name starts with and find the tournament name in the list provided. The completed games show the last 25 based on when they were last updated (usually this will be when they were finalised, but not always). In order to see all the results for a specific letter, there is a link at the bottom to show them all. Click on the tournament you are looking for and this will give you a complete listing of all the games that were in the tournament and the scores from the tournament. If the tournament has been finished, the winner will be shown at the bottom of the page. Also from this page you can click on the Contact Tournament Organiser, fill in the fields for your name, email, subject and fill in the details of why you want to contact the tournament organizer, this will then show up in their Message Center in their manager and when they reply the message will show in your Message Center. Leagues League games are a different type of tournament. In a regular tournament players are knocked out after they lose a game. In league games, all players play the same amount of games to determine a winner. The games are set up as either 8 or 16 player round robin games. Everyone plays everyone, the games are divided into rounds, 7 rounds for 8 player league and 15 rounds for 16 player leagues. Joining a League You can find a listing of open leagues by clicking on the Join a League link on this sites homepage. You will see a list of the open leagues with details about the limitations of the league and other related information: Name: The name of the league. Rating Limit: Leagues can be set up to only allow players of a certain rating to join. Make sure your rating is within the limits set for the league. League run by: The organizer of the league. Theme: Normal League or Mini League. Forfeit After: This shows how long you have to play a turn before you are forfeited from the league. A day is defined as 24 hours after the last turn was played. A league that has a 2 day limit gives you 48 hours to play your turn before being forfeited. If you know you are going to be longer than the limit to take your turn. You should inform the League Organizer prior to going over the time limit. All leagues have an automatic lock out, which means if you do set over the time limit, you are locked out of the league, giving you no chance to play another turn. Organizers can still grant you an extension if this happens. It is up to the organizer to decide if a game should be extended or forfeited. Dictionary in use: This shows the dictionary used in all the games of the league. Be sure to check this before entering a league. Once you have decided on the league to join, click on the league name to go to the league registration. To register, enter a Screen Name (this does not have to be your real name) and your email address (be sure to check that this is correct). Before entering you will need to click on the Terms & Conditions and tick to agree before entering. You may also contact the organizer from this page if you have any questions about the league. Your questions will go straight to the organizers manager into their Message Center. League Approval To be a league organiser you must be approved by the Bug Cafe staff. To Apply, use the email Bug Cafe link in the support section. Please do not apply for more than one email address, you may only organise leagues under the one email. In order to be approved you must fit the following criteria: Have Bug Eyes Have completed at least 4 64 player tournaments Have not abandoned any of your tournaments Have run your tournaments without any major problems Creating a League Start by clicking on the Create link. Fill in your manager email and password in the fields provided. Then click on the go to step 2 and as long as you have been approved you will be taken to step 2. Fill in the following fields: League Title: Choose a name that reflects the subject of the league, if your league is not subject based, you may just wish to choose a unique name for the league. Please remember that this site is a family site and as such, the leagues created should be in keeping with this. Password:You must choose a password so you can sign in to set up the league games and do other organizing functions. Lower Rating: Set the lowest rating a player can have to join this league. Upper Rating: Set the highest rating a player can have to join this league. Timeout: All leagues are created as LOCKED. This means that as soon as a player goes over their timeout period, the game is locked and they cannot play their turn unless the league organizer unlocks or decides to forfeit, in which case you will be forfeited from that round only, not the whole league. Dictionary: Choose the dictionary you wish to be used in the League. Mini Games: Leagues can be played as mini games with 40 tiles or normal games with 100 tiles. Players: Choose either an 8 player or 16 player league. Create as private league: Tick the box if you would like to make your league a private league where you invite who you want to join. Becomes available: This option is so that you can choose what time your league goes on to the find a tournament page. This should help those in places other than USA from missing out on joining leagues. Once all fields are filled in, you can click the go to step 3. Your league has now been created and you can click on the Organize link. Organizing your League At the top of the page there will be a link for you to give out to players so they can join the league. Under this is the Log out link. Status: Set Up: This will stay on this option until your league is full. In Progress: This option will show when the league is full and ready to begin. Complete: This option will show when the league is complete. You will then need to click on update to finish the league, failure to do this will result in no longer being able to run any more leagues. Registered Players: Player Name: This is the players Screen Name for the league, clicking on the name should open your email program to send them an email if you wish to contact them. Email Address: Players do not have a way to change their email address in a league, they must contact you to have the email address changed in a league. To change the email address, enter in their new email address in the box provided and click update. Delete Player: click on the Delete if you wish to delete a person from your league, just remember when you put someone else in, you will need to click on the Update button. But this can only be done before the games start. (DO NOT delete a player after games have begun!). If someone asks to be let out half way through, you will have to start their games and forfeit them. Ladder: Click the Update Ladder to add the players to the ladder (more on the ladder later). Description: The message section allows you to enter a description for your league, these notes will be displayed on the Open Tournament page. Notes should include any special rules or features of your leagues. Import Ban list from: This option is for organizers, for what ever reason, do not want certain players in their leagues. This must be done before players join. There are two options you can choose, you can choose to import the official Bug Cafe ban list, or you can import your own custom ban list. To import the Bug Cafe list simply type in Bug Cafe and click the import button. If you are interested in importing your own list, please contact support for full info on how to do this. Under the Description box you will see two links. The first one is Delete League, gives you the option to delete your league. The second is Reset League, if you have problems with the league then you can use this option. Once the league is full, you will see a list of all the games to be played. How you go about setting these up is up to you, you may create as many as you like, in whatever order you wish. It is suggested that you create the games one round at a time, creating more games than that may be too many games for some players and will unfairly have them forfeited from the game. Game creation works the same way as they do on tournaments, click on the game name to create the game. You may delete or forfeit a game by clicking on the links provided. IF a player goes over their time limit, an UNLOCK link will appear, if you wish to allow the player to continue to play the game, click this to open the game up so they can continue. Under the game creation is the league ladder, the ladder is updated by clicking on the link provided, the organiser will remind you to do this if you have not updated the ladder in a 4 day period, or it will automatically update the ladder after 10 days without updating the ladder. There is no need to update the ladder multiple times a day, or even every day, but it should be updated a couple of times a week at least. The ladder is made up of the following information: Name Wins Loses Draws Forfeits Index Points Points are scored as follows: Win = 4 points Loss = 1 point Draw = 2 points Forfeit = 0 points The person with the most points after all games have been completed is the winner. In the case where more than 1 player has the highest number of points at the end, the winner is determined by each players INDEX. A players index is calculated by the percentage of the score they scored in each game. A player who has scored 1000 total points during the league and has had 700 points scored against them in the league would have an index of 59. (1000/(1000+700))* 100 (rounded to the nearest whole number). League Results Click on the Result link from the top menu to see all results from all leagues. There are two links one for Games In Progress and one for Completed Games Donating Your donations help keep Bug Cafe running, All money goes towards paying for the servers used to run Bug Cafe. Perks for donating are as follows: Unlimited turns Set of bug Eyes Access to the Bug Cafe Descrambler Individual turn emails Chance to organize leagues (but there are other criteria's that have to be reached as well for leagues) Enhanced board Eventually leagues will be Bug Eyes only There are three ways to get to the donating area: Donation Button: This button is in your manager side bar. Support Bug Cafe: You will find this option in the support section or at the end of every game turn you take. You first need to sign in with your manager email and password. Once in there just follow the following directions: Enter email address this donation is from: If you are donating for yourself then there is no need to change this field, but if you are donating for someone else, you need to put in their manager email, make sure they are registered for the manager. Select a donation amount: This option is a drop down menu with the following amounts: $5 for 1 month of Bug Eyes $10.50 for 3 months of Bug Eyes $18 for 6 months of Bug Eyes $30 for 1 year of Bug Eyes You also have a choice to donate another amount. Once you have chosen the amount, click on the Make a Donation. This will then take you to the Pay Pal site, so you will then need to follow their directions. Sorry but we do not except checks. If you wish to pay by Money Order, you will find a Post office box address in this section. International players should contact their local post office to find out the best methods of sending money to USA. Money donated goes towards the cost of the server and is not used for any other purpose. We would like to thank all those players that support Bug Cafe, it is gratefully appreciated.

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