PocketMotus V1.1 Users' help
PocketMotus is just an implementation of the well known TV game. The
aim is to discover a word chosen by the computer. You are allowed at most a
fixed number of attempts (you can set this, but 5 is the minimum). To
help you, the first and the last letters of the word are given at the beginning of the
game. Each time you submit a suggestion, it will be checked against the chosen word. For
each letter of the suggestion, there are 3 possible situations:
- The letter in your suggestion matches the letter at the same place in the solution. In
this case, it will be displayed with a green background.
- The letter in your suggestion does not match the letter at the same place in the
solution, but exists in another place in the solution. In this case, it will be displayed
with a red background.
- And the last case, the letter does not appear in the solution, and then no letter will
be displayed. A dot will then be displayed on the standard white
background.
The game proposes several options:
- You can choose to enable or disable a time limit for each turn. This means that if you do not submit any suggestion past this delay,
you will lose your turn.
- The limit is configurable but cannot be set below 10 seconds. By default, this limit
is set to 30 seconds.
- The words your are proposed are found in a database called the dictionary.
PocketMotus is language independent, this means that you can select a
dictionary containing words in any language, and it will work. So, it is
possible to have several dictionaries and switch between them when you want
just by selecting the one you want to play with.
- You can also choose to enable or disable the dictionary lookup when submitting your
suggestion. If lookup is enabled, then your suggestion is first searched in the
dictionary. If it exists, then the position of each letter of your suggestion will be
checked to provide you information about your play. But if your suggestion does not exist
in the dictionary, I mean if your suggestion cannot be considered as a valid word, then
you lose your turn. If this feature is disabled, then no check is performed, and then your
suggestion will be treated in the regular way, even if it represents a word that does not
exist. Of course, disabling this feature makes the game easier !
PocketMotus is freeware. This means that you do not have anything to
pay to use it. Its sources are also provided, so you can have a look at them and reuse
some ideas in the code. The sources are distributed as an eMbedded Visual C++ Project
and were developed with Microsoft eMbedded Tools.
This program is provided without any warranties. This means that I won't be responsible
in any case of whatever happens if you use it. I also have no obligation to change, fix,
upgrade or whatever PocketMotus. This program is gracefully provided to
who wants and need it, in any case I remain the author, with the right to do whatever I
want with it.
Just click on the "Start new game" menu entry of the "Game"
menu. The game
configuration is then set according the the currently selected options. A word is then chosen by the computer and
it's your turn to find which one it is.
Clicking on the "Abort game" menu entry of the "Game"
menu will ask you
confirmation and if accepted, simply stop the current game and reveal you the
solution.
Just press the "Exit" menu entry of the "Game"
menu. This will abort the current game and free all the resources allocated by
the program. Please, note that the status of the current running game if there
was one is not saved !
There are 2 ways to get helped during the game, available by the "Cheat"
menu:
- Asking for a soft hint by pressing the "Soft hint"
menu entry. This will suggest you a letter of the word without telling
you where to place it. Please, note that this hint may be a letter
you already found (but neither the first or last ones, because they are
given as soon as the game begins, so...) since you began the current game. In other words, the
letter you will get is not sure to be a letter you already discovered. More,
if you ask several time for such a hint, may be you will be provided several
times the same hint, I mean the same letter in the word.
- Asking for a hard hint by pressing the "Hard hint"
menu entry. This will suggest you a letter of the word and its place in
this word. The place is given considering that case 1 is the first
letter of the word. This means that locations in words are labeled from 1
to the word's length. The same restriction as for soft hints also
apply to hard hint about the fact that several hint requests can lead to the
same hint several times and that the hint may be something you already knew
(except the first and last letters).
Five aspects of the game are configurable and this can be done by pressing
the "Options" menu entry of the "Game" menu.
- Choosing the dictionary database: The name of the current dictionary used
for games is displayed at the top left part of the options window. By
pressing the "Change" button you can change it, selecting a new
dictionary file among those displayed in the popped requester. If the
file appears not to be a valid dictionary file or if it cannot be opened,
you will be warned, and the current dictionary will remain unchanged. Words to find during the game will be searched in this list of words.
Dictionaries used by PocketMotus have the same structure than those used
by my other program IDic. BUT, they must contain only
words 6 characters long. No checks are done yet on this restriction. So if you have
installed both IDic and PocketMotus, don't think yet to
share the dictionaries and save space: you must keep both dictionaries. Anyway,
dictionaries are not so big ;-) Dictionaries provided by default with PocketMotus
are called:
- french6pmotus.bin: for the French database
- english6pmotus.bin: for the English database
As you can imagine, "6" is to mean 6 characters long words ;-)
- Enabling / disabling time
limit: Self explanatory, isn't it ? This is a check button: when pushed the time limit is
activated, when released the time limit is disabled.
- Setting the amount of time for time limit: You can select the amount of
time allowed before your turn is over by entering a numeral value in the
associated field. Only integers values are accepted. If you ask for
something below 10 second, the program will warn you at confirmation-time
and will put it automatically at 10 seconds. This limit is right arbitrary,
but let's recognize that a turn less than 10 seconds long is not really
playable, isn't it ? Please, note that even if the time limit is disabled,
you are allowed to set the amount of time, so that when you whish to enable
it, this amount is already set and you don't have to enter it anymore.
- Enabling /disabling
dictionary lookup: The way it works is exactly as the previous check button. To
get an explanation about the lookup feature, please report to the beginning
of the doc where I already explained this...
- Setting the number of turns for a game: By entering a numeral value in
this field, you can select the numbers of tries you're allowed for a game
before you lose if you didn't find the word. The minimum default is set to
5, as in the original game. This is also a cheesy limit, but trying to guess
a word of 6 letters in less that 5 turns... isn't it a bit lucky ?
This is the "most difficult" part for the end user. Indeed you'll
need a part of another program I wrote: Mérimée 2.0. Mérimée
is my full spelling checker-corrector package. Basically, you
should first install Mérimée 2.0, then get a text list of
words sorted (alphabetically, by ASCII code) and containing exactly 6 letters.
Then you should use the "build" program to create the
database. The last step would consist in dumping this database in binary format
by using the "dump" program with the -b option. This
would generate a binary dictionary suitable for using with PocketMotus.
So, you just have now to transfer it onto your Pocket PC and that's it.
BUT... it's now easier...
I now included a batch file (.bat) that will carry this out
automatically. I also included the pre-compiled binaries from Mérimée
2.0 needed to create dictionaries in the present package, so that it is
not even required to install Mérimée anymore. This
batch file is pretty basic, I know but it should carry out this task without
getting you too annoyed... In the distribution, go to the folder called "DictionaryCreator".
Here is a file called "mkdic.bat". Basically, you just need to
run this file (either under a DOS session, either by creating a shortcut under
the Windows Explorer) with 2 arguments:
- the first one is the name of your text file containing all the words (6
letters long) you want to include in your dictionary
- the second one is the name you want for your dictionary
For more information about the text file containing your words and the full
procedure, please consult the file "Doc.txt" that is in that
folder, and you will know everything about it.
- Bug fixes if any needed...
I will stay open to any suggestion, bug report, congratulation, fund donations
;-) So
if you want to reach me, you can try my email address: fpessaux@cs.stevens-tech.edu.
I hope this little piece of software will be useful and you will enjoy it !... Cheers,
-- François