WORDBLOCK is based on the same principle as HANGMAN, and the object is to reveal hidden words by good guesswork and careful selection of letters. However, there are five main differences:
1. There are more words to be guessed in WORDBLOCK (there may be up to about 40).
2. The text is intended to be unfamiliar, and takes some working out. For example, it is not simply a well-known word, phrase, film title or name of a celebrity.
3. You not only "buy" letters, and reduce your score, but you can also guess particular letters to increase your score.
4. Sequences of letters, which can include parts of words and more than one word, give much higher scores than individual letters. (The scoring system is explained below).
5. There are penalties for incorrect guesses. The penalties increase if the incorrect guess is part of a sequence rather than a guess at a single letter.
Preparation
The program can be run directly from CD or floppy disk, or you can copy the WORDBLOCK Puzzles folder onto your hard disk. You start the program by double-clicking the WORDBLOCK icon. You will then see a welcoming screen. You select a puzzle to solve by using "Open" in the File menu to select any file from the WORDBLOCK Puzzles folder.
Description of Game
The screen will then fill with red blocks corresponding to the letters to be guessed. Spaces, punctuation marks, numbers and other non-letters will be shown automatically. At the foot of the screen there will be the 26 letters to choose from, and a starting score of 1000 points.
You will wish to "buy" a letter or two to start with. Letters generally cost 100 points, but the vowels (A E I O U) cost 200 points each. Buy a letter by single clicking the mouse over the letter you want at the foot of the screen.
When you want to guess at the letter hidden by a particular red block you click the mouse over the letter at the foot of the screen and hold down, dragging the cursor. The arrow shape changes to a plus sign (+), which you should move over to the red block which you think is hiding the letter you want to guess at. You then release the mouse.
Remember, it is always safe not to release the mouse. If you select a letter and change your mind, you can release the mouse anywhere on the black background without affecting your score in any way. However, once the mouse is released along the row of letters the letter selected is deleted and replaces the red blocks wherever it appears. It is then too late to change your mind!
You get 10 points if the letter hidden by the red block is the letter you have selected. You lose 50 points if the guess is wrong!
A sequence is started whenever you correctly guess the letter under a red block and then make a guess at the next available red block, which is specially highlighted. (It doesn't matter if there are spaces, punctuation marks or letters already guessed in between). You break the sequence by making an incorrect guess, guessing any letter other than the next available or by buying a letter.
For a sequence, the scores for successive letters are 10, 20, 30, 40 and so on. However, the penalties for incorrect guesses on successive letters are 50, 100, 150 , 200 and so on. So if you correctly guessed 3 letters in a row but got the next one wrong you would lose 140 points overall (10 plus 20 plus 30 for the correct letters and a 200 penalty for the incorrect letter).
You start with a score of 1000, but if your score goes below zero you have failed to solve the puzzle. It is wiped out and you need to try another one. The aim is to solve the puzzle, but if you can also get back to your starting score of 1000 or more then you have done particularly well. Good luck!
If this is not very clear then the best way of finding out how WORDBLOCK works is to open Puzzle 1 and experiment. You can open a new puzzle at any time.
Acknowledgements and technical points
The source program was written in FutureBASIC 1.03. The puzzles are in standard text format, but are coded so that they can only be deciphered by the WORDBLOCK program. The coded text was generated by a separate program developed in FutureBasic 1.03 by me. The texts have been developed separately from the main program to allow further puzzles to be added, and are coded to discourage cheating!
If a puzzle file is clicked directly from the desktop in error (- puzzles should only be opened by the program when it has been loaded - ) this should simply load Simple Text or other text reader and show the coded text. The coded text should not be altered (of course), but if it is this will be spotted by WORDBLOCK and it will no longer recognise the file. This ensures that your time is only spent guessing valid WORDBLOCK puzzles.
