This game is NOT in the public domain. It is shareware. It must be paid for almost like any other software you buy. “Almost,” because you you’re only paying about a quarter of what similar “off-the-shelf” games cost. That’s not a bad deal! You will be encouraging this way of doing things with your registration fee.
CrossWise was developed on a stock Mac Plus with a meg of RAM. It won’t run on a machine with the old 64K ROMs (anything before the 512KE). It should run fine on most configurations of Plusses and SEs. I don’t know about Mac IIs. I solicit feedback about machine compatibility, even if you don’t register the product. If there ever comes a day when I can afford a Mac II, I’ll be able to guarantee compatibility. Color would also be nice.
CrossWise is certified to be free of viruses when it leaves my computer. If you get a contaminated copy, PLEASE tell me where you got it! (If you got it through a shareware distributor, they’ll want to know, too.) The last thing in the world I need is a reputation for infected software. I’ll replace any such copies of CrossWise free of charge, regardless where you got it, if you’ll send the bad copy to me.
I’ve tried to make this documentation tell everything necessary to play CrossWise. Even so, I suspect there will be unanswered questions. If so, write or call. My phone number is (813) 840-0704. If you’ll call after about 5:00 PM EST (sorry, no collect calls), I’ll be glad to answer your questions.
Perhaps it doesn’t need to be said, but insofar as it is impossible for me to predict your hardware and software configurations, the state your copy of CrossWise was in when you got it, and under what conditions you’re trying to run it, there's no way I can assume responsibility for the way it acts on your system, or the way it affects your system. Therefore, I make absolutely no warranty to that effect. If you are a registered user and subsequently become dissatisfied with the product, I will refund your registration fee, provided you request it within 30 days of the time you submitted it.
A. Installing CrossWise
You install CrossWise like just about every other Macintosh application you’ve ever used. Just click on its icon and drag it from one disk to wherever you want it on another disk. One more thing, and this is IMPORTANT, the dictionaries, CWDict and CWUserDict, must be in the system folder of your startup disk. (NOTE: You might not have received CWUserDict with CrossWise. That’s ok. CrossWise creates CWUserDict when it starts up if it needs to. On the other hand, CWDict is really necessary if you want to look up words. If you somehow didn’t get a copy, let me know when you send in your registration fee. I’ll send it to you along the the latest CrossWise version.)
NOTE TO ADVANCED USERS: If you have ResEdit AND KNOW HOW TO USE IT, you can set CrossWise up to read the dictionaries in other locations than the system folder. The default PARTIAL paths are found in ‘STR ‘ resources 136 (for CWDict) and 137 (for CWUserDict). (Remember to precede the partial path with a colon.) If you don’t understand what I‘ve just written, please don’t try to change anything.
B. Starting CrossWise
Start CrossWise from the Finder like any other Macintosh application: either double-click the “crossed-arrows” icon or select it and then choose “Open” from the File menu. If you’re using one of the several Finder substitutes on the market, you’ll have to consult your manual.
It takes a few seconds for CrossWise to load its dictionaries. While it’s doing so, you’ll see an advisory telling you that CrossWise is, indeed, copyrighted—NOT in the public domain—the current registration fee, and where to send it.
When the advisory disappears, the main CrossWise window will appear. Occupying most of the upper-right portion of it is the playing board. This is a 12 X 12 grid with smaller versions of the crossed-arrows icon on some of the squares. Directly below it is the tile tray. It should have seven “tiles”— rectangles with letters—in it, with some room on either side for rearranging them. In the upper-left of the window are the player name fields and the score fields. These will be filled in with a gray pattern until players are named. Beneath the player name fields is the CrossWise logo. To its bottom, left is the timer. If the copy you received has retained the default settings, it will read “3:00.” If not, don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you how to change it later, if you want to. To the right are three buttons. The top one looks like an abacus. It’s used to score plays. Below it is the “pass” button. It looks like a pointing hand. Below it is a button resembling an open dictionary graced with the ubiquitous crossed-arrows symbol. That’s the “look-up” button. You’ll be using that one to look up words in the dictionary.
If you’ve opened CrossWise as described above, you’ll notice that none of the buttons, tiles, timer, etc., respond to mouse clicks. This is normal. CrossWise is working correctly. IMPORTANT: No game can begin, and nothing will respond, until players are named. I’ll show you how to do that below.
C. The Menus
1. The Apple Menu
The leftmost CrossWise menu, like in almost every other Macintosh program, is the apple menu. Its first three options pertain to CrossWise. The rest are your desk accessories.
(Here, I’d like to make a plug for a couple of desk accessories I’ve developed. One is CrossWiseDA. It’s a scaled-down, solitaire version of CrossWise in DA form. I’ll send it to you for $7.00. The other is called MacBit. It’s a programmer’s aid allowing you to develop and manipulate pattern, cursor, and icon bit images. It’s $15.00. Incidentally, anything I develop has a money-back guarantee. I’m not worried, though. I turn out pretty good stuff.)
The first option is “About CrossWise….” Choosing it brings up the same message you see when you start up the program.
“Rules…” is a list of the essential CrossWise game rules. They will be discussed more thoroughly later in this documentation.
“Help…” tells you a few things about using CrossWise which may not be so obvious.
2. The File Menu
In the “File” menu are seven options:
a. “New” sets up CrossWise for a new game. All player name and score fields are erased, the timer reset, and the playing board cleared. New tiles are selected at random to fill the tile tray.
b. If you are beginning a new game, but want the same players as in the previous game in the same session, choose “New, Same Players.” (By “session,” I mean a period between when you start up CrossWise until when you finally quit it.) This assumes that players have been named in an earlier game in the same session.
c. “Open…” opens up a previously saved CrossWise game file. You will get the standard Macintosh file selection dialog listing all game files on the current directory (folder) and asking you which game you’d like to open. Double-clicking on the game of your choice causes that game to be opened. All areas of the CrossWise window will be filled, as appropriate. Things like players’ names, scores, whose turn it is, whether the current play is a bonus play, words played by each player, and what tiles are in the tray are all stored in the game file. After opening a game file, the game is ready to be resumed where it was left off.
A game file is identified in the Finder by its crossed-arrows symbol on a standard Mac file icon.
d. “Save” saves the current game in a game file. If the game has never been saved before, you will be asked what you want to call its file; otherwise, the file is just updated with the current state of the file. You may save a game at any time and resume it as normal.
e. “Save As…” is like “Save,” but you will always be asked for a file name. If your current game has already been saved, you can use this option to make another copy using a different file name.
f. You can send the entire CrossWise window to the printer using “Print Screen.” This is a good way to make a graphical record of your game. Make sure your printer is on first.
g. “Quit” causes CrossWise to stop and allow the System to return you to the Finder.
3. NOTE: The “Edit” menu is not used by CrossWise. It’s needed by some desk accessories, though, and is only active when a DA window is the top window.
4. The Players Menu
As mentioned above, play cannot begin until players are named. The purpose of the “Players” menu is to let you handle players’ names.
Ordinarily, you will choose the first option, “Get Players…,” to name your players. A dialog will appear with four empty fields. You may enter as many as four players, one per field. To advance the blinking cursor from one field to the next, press your Tab key. Or, you may just click in the desired field. When all players have been named, click in the “Ok” button or press Return. The dialog will disappear and the names will appear in random order in the player name fields. By this method, CrossWise automatically chooses who will go first. The player whose name appears on top will go first; the next down, second; and so on. The player whose turn it is will always have his name field inverted.
After the players have been named initially, you can use “Set Party,” below, to write those names to a “party” file.
NOTE: Once a game’s in progress, it’s possible to change a player’s name or delete the name altogether. To do this, just double-click on its player name field. A dialog will appear with the name in an edit field. Change it, if you want, and press “Ok.” The player name field will be changed accordingly. To delete the name, click the “Delete” button rather than “Ok.” NOTE NOTE (note note?): The last player cannot be deleted. NOTE NOTE NOTE (gad!): There is no way to add a player to a game once it’s begun. Deleted players cannot be reinstated.
To make it easier to enter the names of a group of persons who often play together, I’ve introduced the “party” in this version of CrossWise. Parties are kept in special files on your disk. Their icons look something like game file icons, but have four small crossed-arrows symbols instead of one large one. Selecting “Get Party…” from the menu lets you open one of these. When opened, the names are read from the file, arranged randomly, and displayed in the player name fields. You are then ready to begin your game.
“Set Party…” lets you save the players in the current game to a party file. You will prompted to name the file.
5. The Dictionary Menu
The “Dictionary” menu has two options: “Auto-Check Words” and “Edit CWUserDict….”
Normally, you have to ask CrossWise specially to look up a questionable word. (I’ll tell you how to do that later.) If “Auto-Check Words” has a check to the left of it, though, words played will be checked whenever a play is scored, i.e., when the abacus button is clicked. This option is toggled. That means that if it is not checked, selecting it will check it. If it is checked, choosing it will uncheck it.
NOTE: This setting is saved in CrossWise’s resource file. In other words, if the item is checked when you quit the game, it will be checked the next time you start up the game. The opposite is also true.
As mentioned above, CWUserDict is one of CrossWise’s dictionaries. CWDict is the other. Most words you are likely to play will be found in CWDict. When looking for a word, CrossWise first searches CWDict. If it’s not found there, it will then check CWUserDict. If the word cannot be found in either dictionary, you will be given a chance to add the word to CWUserDict. While CWDict is in a compact form and cannot be changed, CWUserDict is saved in a “text only” format and can be edited with any text processor.
Because opening a text processor is usually inconvenient during a game—if you’ve accidently added a misspelled word or some such thing—I’ve provided a way to edit CWUserDict from within CrossWise. The second “Dictionary” menu option, “Edit CWUserDict…” opens the dictionary and displays it as a list of words. To edit a word, just double-click it. A small dialog window will appear with the word highlighted in an edit field. Make any changes you want and click the “Ok” button. Your corrections will then be made in the list. NOTE: Words are stored in CWUserDict in uppercase letters. You needn’t take care to enter them in that way, though. If your changes are in lower case, CrossWise will convert them to upper case for you.
You may also delete a word if you need to. Just double-click the word you want to remove. When the dialog box appears, press the “Delete” button. The word will be removed from the list. WARNING! You won’t get a chance to change your mind. Make sure you really want to get rid of the word BEFORE you press the “Delete” button.
If you need to search for a particular word, just double-click any word. When the dialog comes up, type the word you want to find in the edit field and press the “Find” button. If the word is in CWUserDict, it will be displayed in the list after the dialog box disappears.
NOTE: One option NOT provided is a way to add words. Although you could add words with a text editor, I discourage that. Words should only be added by CrossWise when a played word cannot be found. In the first place, most words you will ever play are in CWDict; adding them to CWUserDict would be a needless duplication. Secondly, insofar as CrossWise keeps both dictionaries resident at all times, you risk running out of memory if too many words are in CWUserDict. (There are built-in safeguards against this when adding them the normal way.) Thirdly, only certain classes of words are likely to be needed in the game. For instance, it would be senseless to add a 13-letter word to CWUserDict. The largest possible playable word is only twelve letters long, and very, very few will approach that length. In fact, when I wrote CWDict, I generally did not include words over eight letters long. As much as I’ve played this game, I only remember playing a word longer than that twice.
6. The Show… Menu
Choosing “Letter Stats” from this menu brings up a window showing all the letters of the alphabet, the values of the corresponding tiles, and the number of those tiles remaining in the tile “pool.” (You can just think of the tile pool as being where all the letters are kept.)
NOTE: A more convenient way to get the same information is to double-click any tile in the CrossWise window. You’ll get a little window telling you the same thing about the single letter you clicked.
“Word Stats” shows the words and number of words played by each player. Selecting the “Print” button sends this information to the printer. Make sure your printer is on before pushing it.
“High Scores” displays the high scores, word count, and the names of the high scorers in four categories. These categories are defined by the number of players in a game. What I mean is, if there were three players, for instance, in a game and one of those scored higher than any player ever had in any other three-player game, his name, score, and word count would be saved under the “3 Players” column of the High Scores dialog window. Beneath each column is a “Reset” button. If this is pressed, the name field for that column will become “No Player,” and its high score and word count will be reset to 0 (zero). NOTE: This resetting will only take permanent effect if the “Ok” button is used to dismiss the dialog window. If “Cancel” is pushed, the original information will be restored.
7. The Options Menu
The “Options” menu provides four miscellaneous capabilities:
a. “Remove Active Tiles” removes all active tiles from the board and returns them to the tiles tray. An “active” tile is one which can still be moved. Active tiles are white with black lettering. Once a play is scored, all tiles on the board become black with white lettering. These cannot be moved and are “inactive.” This menu option is a time and effort saver. If you change your mind about a word before you’ve scored it, it’s easier to remove the tiles this way instead of having to drag each one back to the tray individually.
b. If you want to know what your score will be before committing yourself by pressing the score button, you can find out by selecting the “Preview Score…” option. An alert will pop up and tell you 1. what the actual value of your play is, and 2. the total of that value, your previous score, and any bonus points you may have coming.
c. I’m not fond of noisy games, but I realize some people are. CrossWise has two sounds. One is an alarm telling that time has run out on the timer. The other is the audible signal of a bonus play. If “Sound” is checked, these sounds are “on.” (But, see the note, below.) If it’s not, they’re “off.”
Like “Auto-Check Words,” above, this setting is saved when you quit CrossWise.
NOTE: As explained more fully under the next item, the “Sound” setting can be overridden for the timer alarm using the Timer Settings control panel.
d. The “Timer Settings” option brings up the Timer Settings control panel. Here, several choices may be made about the way the timer works. The left column of buttons determines the length of its “countdown.” By default, it’s three minutes. You can change that by clicking any button under the “Minutes” heading.
In the next column are three “checkbox” buttons. The first one, “Timer On” is just X’ed if the timer is running. You can’t change that in the control panel. It can only be turned on and off at the timer, itself. More about that later.
If “AutoPass” is checked, play will automatically pass from the current player to the next player if time runs out. Also, the timer resets, but keeps running after each play if “Auto-Pass” is enabled. You can turn this off and on by clicking it.
Finally, there’s the “Silent Alarm” option. If this button is X’ed, the audible timer alarm will be disabled, regardless the setting of “Sound,” above. Instead of sound, the menu bar will just flash five times when time runs out.
NOTE: At the time “Sound” is turned off, “Silent Alarm” is enabled. In that case, you must again set this option if you want it disabled. The reverse is NOT true.
All settings on the Timer Settings control panel, except “Timer On,” are saved when you quit CrossWise.
D. Playing the Game
1. Before Beginning
One way CrossWise is unlike similar games is that all players draw from the same tile tray. This is almost inevitable, really. Unless you could somehow rig up four monitors to one computer, there’s no way to hide your tiles from other players, anyway. So, after one person plays, the missing tiles are replaced with random letters by CrossWise and those tiles, with the remaining ones from the previous play, are what the next player chooses from to form his words. You’ll be surprised how well this system works.
Before starting a CrossWise game, all players must agree on some things. First, they must settle on a dictionary to be the authority in cases of disputed words. CWDict, while containing most words you’re likely to play, is not exhaustive. If a word is found in it, the word is good. But, just because a word is not found there does not means it’s bad. For that reason, I suggest a regular dictionary be made handy.
Secondly, the players must decide whether to use the timer. I suggest it be used. Unlike other crossword games, you cannot run out of tiles in CrossWise. Many more are provided than can be played. A CrossWise game is over when one of two situations arise:
a. All players agree that further play is impossible, or
b. The number of consecutive passes equals the number of players.
A stubborn person who’s behind may hinder the first decision’s being made. He may also hold up play forever rather than make the final, fatal pass necessary to satisfy the second condition. If the timer is used, there can be no question about whether the game should end.
If all agree that the timer should be used, they should also agree on what the timer settings should be.
2. Naming Players
As mentioned above, the first thing to do when you want to start a CrossWise game is name the players. Once they’ve been named, the player whose name appears in the top player name field goes first.
3. Using the Timer
To start the timer, simply click on it. To pause it, click it again. To reset it, double-click it. If the timer was running, double-clicking it will reset it and pause it; otherwise, it will reset it and restart it.
4. Moving tiles
Tiles are moved by clicking on them and dragging, very much the way you move a Macintosh window. When you get the tile where you want it, either on the playing board or in the tray, release the mouse button. The tile will fall into place.
5. Forming Words
Play proceeds by moving tiles from the tile tray to the playing board and arranging them into words. With the exception of the first play of the game, any tile placed on the board must be connected to a previously placed tile in order for the play to be valid. If there are spaces between tiles, or if the tiles are not arranged in a single horizontal or vertical line, an error alert will appear when you attempt to score the play.
The first tile of the game may be placed anywhere on the board.
6. Scoring Plays
When a player if finished placing his tiles, he should press the abacus (top) button to score his play. If “Auto-Check Words” is checked in the “Dictionary” menu, CrossWise will check all words formed by the player’s tiles at this time. If it encounters a word it doesn’t know, an alert will appear saying that the word could not be found in the dictionary . The player will have the choice of either adding the word to CWUserDict or cancelling the play. IMPORTANT: All players should agree before a word is added to the dictionary. If it is agreed that the word should be added, the “Add” button should be pressed. If so, the word is added and scoring proceeds on the play. If the “Cancel” button is selected, no scoring takes place. This constitutes a lost challenge. The player should remove his tiles from the board and press the pointing hand “pass” button to give up his turn.
If “Auto-Check Words” is not checked, no automatic word checking is done. Plays will be scored regardless a word’s validity.
When a play is successfully scored, the score is shown in the score field to the right of the player’s name and the next player’s name field in sequence is selected to indicate whose turn it is.
If a player plays all seven tiles in the tray in one play, 500 points will be added to his score.
7. Looking Up Words
Even if “Auto-Check Words” is not selected, a word may be checked using CrossWise’s “look-up” button. To do this, the word in question must first be selected. To select a word, hold down the Option key and drag the pointer across the word’s tiles. A moving dashed-lined rectangle will outline the selected word. Once the word is selected, press the bottom, “look-up” button. A window will appear with a message saying whether the word was found in one of the dictionaries. If the word was not found, you will be given the chance to add it.
NOTE: The movement of the dashed selection rectangle might not be very smooth if you have certain INITs in your system folder. I first noticed it using SuperSpool™ (a marvelous product! If you don’t have it, you should.). I want you to know that this is NOT a problem with CrossWise. In fact, it's not really a problem at all. Everything will work just fine. If it bothers you too much, just take the offending INIT out of the System Folder for the time you are playing CrossWise. (You'll have to restart your machine for this to work.)
8. The Pass Button
The “pass” button (pointing hand) is used to proceed from one player to the next sequentially without scoring. The player name fields are highlighted as appropriate. If the number of passes equals the number of players, an alert pops up suggesting that the game be ended. THIS IS ONLY A SUGGESTION! CrossWise NEVER automatically ends a game. The choice to end a game always rests with the players.
9. Bonus Plays
Bonus plays are awarded to players from time to time. When these will be given is something CrossWise decides randomly. The player will be signalled at the beginning of his play that the play will be a bonus play. The indications are
1. A visual notice in the place of the CrossWise logo at the bottom-left of the screen. This notice will read “Bonus Play” with “Bonus” over “Play.” Between the two words will be a number. This is the number of extra points that will be awarded when the play is successfully scored. A player can receive 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, or 200 extra points on a bonus play. These values are determined randomly.
2. Moving diagonal lines outlining the “Bonus Play” notice and the buttons.
3. The audible signal mentioned above. Again, this is affected by the “Sound” setting of the “Options” menu.
4. The bonus value is written at the right end of the player’s name field.
Bonus plays proceed just like regular plays. When the play is scored, though, CrossWise adds the bonus value to the player’s score.
10. Apple Tiles
Sometimes an tile will appear in the tile tray with an apple rather than a letter. These “apple tiles” are something on the order of wildcards. Apple tiles cannot be played. Instead of moving when a player tries to drag one, a window pops up with four buttons in it. In the first three buttons are possible replacement letters for the apple, along with the letters’ values. The fourth button is just another apple. When the player clicks one of these buttons, the apple on the tile becomes the selected letter. If the apple button is selected, the tile remains an apple tile.
When the apple is replaced on a tile, the tile assumes the value of the replacement letter. When played, though, this letter is not subtracted from the pool of letters. For instance, if you choose to change an apple to an “A,” you will get the 10 point value of the letter “A” when the tile is played. But, if there were five “A’s” left in the pool before the play, there will still be five afterward.
11. Double Squares
The playing board has sixteen crossed-arrows symbols evenly spaced across its surface. These are “double squares.” When a letter is placed on one of these, the value of the word comprising it doubles. If a word extends across two such spaces, its value is quadruples. In fact, a word’s value is doubled again for each double square it occupies.
One peculiarity of CrossWise is that double squares do not lose their effect after having been used once. For example, if one player plays the word “WORD” across two double spaces, he will receive 280 points for the play. (“W” = 30; “O” = 10; “R” = 10; “D” = 20. Total value = 70. That figure is doubled twice because the word occupies two double spaces.) If the next player adds an “S” to make “WORDS,” this player gets full credit for ALL double squares the word occupies. Because “S” has a value of 10 points, the resulting score is 320 points.
When a tile is placed on a double square, its letter is “shadowed” to indicate the double square to the following players.
E. Rules
1. Any word (including slang, jargon, cant, argot, nonstandard, archaic, obsolete, etc.) found in any English dictionary may be played, with the following exceptions:
a. Proper names, or any other word requiring capitalization.
b. Any word requiring by any kind of punctuation (abbreviations, contractions, hyphenations, etc.).
c. Any word less than two letters long.
NOTE: Although CWDict uses only American spellings, English spellings are considered acceptable.
2. Combinations of letters used only as prefixes or suffixes ARE NOT considered words in CrossWise.
3. Most words may be made plural by the simple addition of an “S.” For instance, “HALVES” is more than one “HALF”; “HALFS” is more than one of the word “HALF.” Exceptions are words ending with “CH,” “J,” “S,” “SH,” “X,” and “Z.” These generally require the addition of at least “ES.”
4. Any challenges to a player’s word or words must be made before his play is scored. Any player, other than the current player, who loses a challenge must forfeit his next turn. If the current player loses a challenge, he must return his tiles to the tray and pass.
5. With the exception of the first tile of the game, all tiles played must be joined to at least one previously positioned tile, and form a single unbroken line. CrossWise will not score tiles played otherwise.
6. The game is over when all players agree that further play is impossible, or when the number of consecutive passes equals the number of players. (In other words, when all players have passed in succession.) CrossWise will NEVER automatically end a game.
That's CrossWise. I hope you like it. I’ve tried hard to turn out an interesting game. I think I’ve succeeded.
If you received CrossWise from a software distributor, be sure to tell me. Some have special deals on disks for shareware users who pay their registration fees. Generally, I have to let them know who has paid.
PLEASE WRITE! I need feedback on this product. If there's something I can do better, or you have a suggestion about how the game might be improved, let me know. When you write, I need this information:
1. Where did you get your copy of CrossWise?
2. What kind of Macintosh will you be running it on? If you are using unusual hardware or software on it, tell me that.
3. How is CrossWise running on your machine? Does it seem to be doing what it's supposed to? If not, tell me about it. Be as specific as possible. If you are the first to report a legitimate bug in the program, you'll get a free copy of the corrected version. Understand, though, that it's possible that CrossWise may just be incompatible with some hardware configurations. I may not be able to do much about that, though I'll try.
4. How is the game itself? Does it seem to hold the player’s interest? Do you have any ideas about improving it? Are there any extras you’d like to see?
5. Is the documentation adequate? Did I leave unanswered questions?
I thank you for your interest and hope to hear from you soon.
