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Text File | 1990-06-06 | 19.6 KB | 450 lines

++--------------------------++ || WORDS*WORDS 1.1 || || (C) Copyright 1989 || || Blanchard Software || || All rights reserved || ++--------------------------++ WHAT IS WORDS*WORDS? WORDS*WORDS is a word game for the IBM PC and clones. The program selects a five letter puzzle word, and you must try to identify the word in 18 guesses or less. For each of your guesses the program will tell you how many letters are common to the puzzle word. If you solve the puzzle, the program displays a comment or quotation based on the puzzle word. Some simpler versions of this game allow you to guess arbitrary combinations of letters instead of words. That makes the game childishly simple. WORDS*WORDS uses a dictionary of more than 6000 five letter words to make sure that you guess real five letter words. This makes the game challenging enough for an adult. It places a premium on your ability to make rational deductions and to do logical manipulation of words and letters. This is a challenging puzzle. It requires a good bit of concentration, careful logic and a facility with words and letters. It is not a game for children. GETTING STARTED In the discussion below the symbol <CR> refers to the Carriage Return or Enter key. This is the large key marked with an angled arrow on the IBM keyboard. The function keys are identified with square brackets, as in [F5]. WORDS*WORDS runs on an IBM PC or clone with color or monochrome display. It requires 86k of storage and one floppy drive. The first thing to do is to make a backup copy of the WORDS*WORDS disk. This is standard operating procedure, and I assume you already know how to do this. If you use a hard disk, then choose a directory and copy WORDS*WORDS. All of WORDS*WORDS and it's files must be in the same directory. Then you are ready to run the game. If you are running WORDS*WORDS from floppy disk drive A, then type A:<CR> to make A the current drive. If you are running from a hard disc, then make the hard disc the current drive, and choose the directory that holds WORDS*WORDS. Then type WW<CR> to start the program. The program will display a screen with instructions for the game. The instructions are brief, but they will be adequate for many people to begin the game. After you have read the instructions, press any number or letter key. The next screen shows a registration message while the program loads it's dictionary file. Then press any key again to go on to the game display. The game display shows function key reminders in the upper right corner of the screen. These notes tell you what the function keys do and how to enter a guess. Below the horizontal line on the screen is the "Letter Pool". It initially shows all the letters in the alphabet. When you identify a puzzle word letter, move the letter from the pool to the "Part of Word" display line. Just type the letter or letters and press function key [F7]. When you identify a letter that is not part of the word, move it to the "Eliminated" display line. Just type the letter or letters and press [F9]. You can move individual letters back to the pool with the [F5] key. The [F3] key moves all letters back to the pool. To guess a word, just type the word and press<CR>. The program will check the word against the dictionary. If the letter combination is not in the dictionary, it will display a message on the next line. You can correct the letters and press <CR> again. When you guess a word, the program compares it with the puzzle word and counts the number of common letters. It displays your guess and the number of common letters below the data entry line. All 18 of your guesses and their numbers of matching letters are shown. When you correctly guess the puzzle word, the program displays a message in the area below your guesses. The message may be congratulatory, an explanation of why the word was chosen for the puzzle or some suggestions for game strategy. Most often it is an interesting or humorous quotation based on the puzzle word. If you don't get the puzzle word in 18 guesses, WORDS*WORDS displays a message and shows you the puzzle word. Sometimes it is useful to review your guess strategy at this point. When you are ready to go on to the next puzzle word, press any key. WORDS*WORDS will refresh the screen and randomly select a new puzzle word. You can get out of WORDS*WORDS at any time by pressing the <Esc> key once or twice. RULES The rules are simple. You must guess 5 letter words. WORDS*WORDS will check to be sure they are valid words. Hyphenated words and abbreviations are not allowed. Proper nouns such as names of people and places are allowed. Most trade names are not allowed. STRATEGY Part of the challenge of WORDS*WORDS lies in working out a strategy to use the 18 guesses efficiently. I don't believe there is a neat algorithmic approach that will always solve the puzzle in 18 guesses. However, there are some useful observations and a general approach that works. First you have to be aware of letter frequencies. The letters ETAOINSHRDLU are the most commonly used letters in the English language, arranged in order of decreasing frequency. All words include at least one vowel, and all of the vowels are in this list. (But Y is sometimes used as a vowel). Words made up entirely of the most common letters are useful. Examples are DEATH and LIONS. Words made up mostly of the less common letters are also useful. Once you have identified some included or excluded letters, it pays to review your other guesses. You may be able to use the eliminated letters to make new words, related to your other guesses. This can help resolve individual letters in the other guesses. A pool of excluded letters is very useful. Solving a puzzle is considerably easier once you have some excluded letters to work with. It usually pays to start the puzzle by finding one or two words that have no letters in common with the puzzle word. Be aware of letter frequencies in formulating these early guesses. Then you must do the logic carefully. Suppose you have guessed LIGHT and found it has only one letter match, LIGHT 1. Then you guess RIGHT and find that it has one letter in common with the puzzle word, RIGHT 1. All you can deduce here is either L and R are both part of the word, or neither L nor R are part of the word. Not much help. Letter frequencies can help you make probabilistic inferences, but a pool of excluded letters is most useful. Suppose you had already excluded the letters F and M. Then you could guess FIGHT or MIGHT and interpret the result with certainty. MIGHT 0, L is part of word. MIGHT 1, L is not part of word. With more excluded letters, you can make better guesses that eliminate two or three letters at a time. Some of the puzzle words have repeated letters. If the puzzle word has two X's and your guess has a single X, you will get only one match (assuming no other letters match). If you guess a word with two X's, then WORDS*WORDS will tell you there are two matches. It is up to you to figure out when there is a repeated letter, and it isn't difficult. If there is still a letter missing after you have accounted for all of the common letters and most of the uncommon letters, then you should suspect a repeated letter. For example, if you have identified ACRY and you have eliminated almost all of the other letters, then you might suspect that the puzzle word has a double R (CARRY). Usually you don't have to eliminate all of the other letters before deciding that there is a repeated letter. There are three reasons why a word is difficult to solve in WORDS*WORDS. These observations should suggest some strategies for the game. Reason number three is that the word may have several anagrams. Even when you have identified all of the letters it may take several guesses to get the right word. WORDS*WORDS does not exploit this possibility in most of the puzzle word sets. When a word has several anagrams, one of the more common words is usually the correct word. Unusual or obscure words are used only in the most difficult word sets. Reason number two is that the word may have one or two double letters or a triple letter. If you are not aware of this possibility, you may use up too many guesses trying to identify the missing letter. It is usually possible to identify three or four included letters and to exclude most of the remaining letters of the alphabet in 10 to 12 guesses. Letters can usually be eliminated three or four at a time once you have a small group of included and excluded letters to work with. The most important factor in determining puzzle word difficulty is the puzzle word letter frequencies. We do exploit this factor in choosing words for the WORDS*WORDS puzzle. Puzzle words that are made mostly of the infrequently used letters are generally easier to solve. There is a good chance that some of your early guesses will turn out to have zero letters in common with the puzzle word. This gives you a known set of excluded letters that are a powerful tool in selecting subsequent guess words. Puzzle words that contain the most frequently used letters are more difficult. It is less likely that you will find words with no common letters. Therefore, you won't get the bonus of a set of excluded letters, and you will have to exclude letters one or two at a time. Consider an example. The word ANISE is made up entirely of high frequency letters. If you select a 5 letter word at random, you have about one chance in twenty of picking a word that has no letters in common with ANISE. The actual count is 323 words out of 6200 words in the WORDS*WORDS dictionary. Thus if ANISE was the puzzle word, most random early guesses would have one or two letter matches. But if you guessed one or two low frequency letter words you would quickly find a zero letter match word. Words which have the vowel U, such as PLUCK or JUMPY, are useful. I am sure you can find others. The word PLUCK is mostly low frequency letters. There are 2347 five letter words that have no letters in common with PLUCK. So there is about a 40% chance of zero letter matches with a randomly selected puzzle word. Well, forewarned is forearmed. Your word arsenal should include a few words made mostly of low frequency letters and a few words made entirely of high frequency letters. This will help you in sorting out the possibilities. The WORDS*WORDS puzzle sets are salted with a few special cases just to keep you on your toes. The more difficult word sets also include a few obscure words. You could come across a word or two that you don't recognize even when you have all the letters. I picked a few of these words because of their novelty. None of the obscure words are scientific or technical words. The word set included with WORDS*WORDS 1.1 includes three words with a double letter and one word with a triple letter. These words may give you some problems. Otherwise you should be able to solve all of the words in 18 guesses or less by straightforward logic. An experienced player with a good arsenal of guess words can solve all of the puzzles in 15 guesses or less. Each of the puzzle words typically takes about 15 to 20 minutes to solve. The program selects words at random from a list included with WORDS*WORDS. The list includes enough words for more than 10 hours of play. However, if you play the game long enough, you will begin to remember the words. By that time, of course, you will have registered and gotten Volume 2.0 of WORDS*WORDS with more than 200 new puzzle words. REGISTRATION Shareware effectively gives you "free home trial" of new software. If you don't like the program or don't plan to use the program, then there is no obligation to pay for it. If you play WORDS*WORDS, then you should register your copy with the program author and pay the fifteen dollar registration fee. The author receives no payment from shareware libraries or bulletin boards that distribute copies of the program. Send your $15.00 check payable to Walter Blanchard, along with any comments, suggestions or complaints to Walter Blanchard Blanchard Software P.O. Box 1650 Norristown Pa. 19401 I will send you Volume 2.0 of WORDS*WORDS with more than 200 new puzzle words and commentary. I will keep you informed of program improvements or new word sets. APPENDIX - ERROR MESSAGES Comments file is not correct. Has file been renamed or contents altered? The program has detected an error in reading the comments file. Restore NOTES(1).WSL from your backup copy. ENCODING ERROR ????? This error can only come from a defective copy of the program. Restore your copy from your backup or get replacement from your source. ERROR. Cannot find WORDS(1).WSL file. WORDS*WORDS checks the current drive and directory for it's support files. The file is not present. You may have to reset the drive, change the directory or copy files from backup disk. ERROR. Cannot open NOTES(1).WSL file. WORDS*WORDS checks the current drive and directory for it's support files. The file is not present. You may have to reset the drive, change the directory or copy files from backup disk. ERROR. Cannot open WORDFIL.UNF file. WORDS*WORDS checks the current drive and directory for it's support files. The file is not present or is present but not readable. You may have to reset the drive, change the directory or copy files from backup disk. ERROR in reading the NOTES(1).WSL file The file is present on the disk, but WORDS*WORDS find something wrong in the file. Restore the file from backup. ERROR in reading the WORDFIL.UNF file The file is present on the disk, but WORDS*WORDS finds something wrong in the file. Restore the file from backup. ERROR in reading the WORDS(1).WSL file The file is present on the disk, but WORDS*WORDS find something wrong in the file. Restore the file from backup. Not a valid word. Please try again. Your guess word is not in the dictionary. Check spelling. Try again. This does not count as a guess. Unable to select a puzzle word. The program cannot successfully make a random selection of a puzzle word. Most likely cause is that the word file WORDS(1).WSL has been corrupted. Restore the file from your backup copy. If error persists, restore WW.EXE also. If error continues, you have a defective copy of the program. WORDS*WORDS abnormal termination. The program has terminated operation and returned control to DOS. You may now take steps to correct the error condition. 5 letter limit for puzzle word. Some letters dropped. You used [F5] function key to post too many letters to the "Part of Word" display line resulting in more than five letters on the line. Clear with [F3] and post letters again. REGISTRATION FORM I have enclosed a check payable to Walter Blanchard for the WORDS*WORDS fifteen dollar registration fee. Please send Volume 2.0 of the program. Name: ________________________________________________ Company:________________________________________________ Street: ________________________________________________ City: ________________________________________________ State: __________________________ ZIP _____________ Telephone: __________________ (Optional) I run WORDS*WORDS on an: [ ] IBM PC [ ] IBM XT [ ] IBM AT [ ] OTHER (please specify): Hard disk? (Y/N): Monitor? [ ] Monochrome [ ] Color Printer: Where did you get your copy of WORDS*WORDS? Suggestions/Comments/Complaints: Mail to: Walter Blanchard Blanchard Software P.O. Box 1650 Norristown Pa. 19401