Loadstar 128 22/q22.d81/t.fletcho

Text File | 2022-08-28 | 6KB | 145 lines

                               F L E T C H O

                              by Fender Tucker


 THE CHALLENGE
 -------------

    This is the crowning culmination of the "O" Trilogy which began with
BLOTTO on LS 128 #19 and was followed by MONDO CRYPTO on LS 128 #21.  All
of the games involved five-letter words and the wonderful ability of the
computer to present word puzzles for our entertainment and mental
exercise.

    A FLETCHO is a mini-crossword of six five-letter words in a
configuration like this:

       A W A R E
       P   S   A
       P O S E S
       L   E   E
       E X T O L

The horizontal words are AWARE, POSES and EXTOL, and the vertical words are
APPLE, ASSET and EASEL.  There are fifty such FLETCHOs in the program.

    A FLETCHO will be scrambled a little and you are challenged to get it
back in its original form.  At the lowest level, the Neophyte Level, the
FLETCHO will be scrambled by having one horizontal word "rolled" then one
vertical word "rolled".  A word is rolled by having the letters moved right
or left, or up or down, with wraparound.  For instance,

    E X T O L   becomes   L E X T O   when rolled right.

    A                  P
    P                  P
    P      becomes     L      when rolled up.
    L                  E
    E                  A

    At the middle level, the Adept Level, a horizontal word will be rolled,
then a vertical, then another horizontal and then another vertical. At the
top level, the Exalted Mojo Level, there will be three horizontal rolls
alternated with three vertical rolls.

    You may roll any of the rows left or right and any of the columns up or
down.  The Neophyte Level requires at least two rolls, the Adept Level
requires at least four, and the Exalted Mojo Level requires six.  You roll
a row or column by using the joystick in Port #2 or the CRSR keys to move a
white cursor and pressing the FIREBUTTON or RETURN.

    At the Main Menu you choose your Level, see your STATS, see some Help
Screens or quit the program.  You enter your name before going to the Main
Menu so you will be working with your score file only.  FLETCHO is not a
competition against others; you are trying to beat your own scores, which
are based upon the average time it takes you to solve a FLETCHO.  The
number of moves, or rolls, is also counted but the time is the important
thing.

    Since you are working with averages, you must solve at least five
FLETCHOs before you can compare your per-FLETCHO average to previous
averages.  After the first five, you get the option of going to the STATS
screen after every solution.  You don't have to go, but you have the
option.  You may just want to go on to another FLETCHO, only updating your
STATS when you have a fast streak.

NOTE: Your scores file is automatically updated when you go to the STATS
screen so please leave the disk in the drive.

    You can press W during the game to see the unrolled FLETCHO -- your
goal.  Sometimes, especially at the higher levels, it's hard to tell what
words you're trying to make.  However, this hint will cost you a whopping
full minute of time, a major penalty when you're trying to lower your
average.


 THE STRATEGY
 ------------

    Obviously, the best thing to do is to "undo" what was done to scramble
the FLETCHO in exactly the reverse order.  This will give you the minimum
number of moves but you may have to use valuable time to think about it
before moving.  You may prefer to move quickly, not worrying about how many
moves it takes.  After all, the standing is based upon time, not the number
of moves.  However, by making the wrong moves at first, the FLETCHO will
become even more scrambled and turn into a Rubik's Cube of a problem.  But
then, it's kind of fun solving this special cube.


 THE TRUTH
 ---------

     It may occur to you that this game is a perfect candidate for
"dictionary 9400" which I used in the other games of the "O" Trilogy.  Why
not let the computer create FLETCHOs?  Well, I had a version of this
program completely done that would do exactly that.  If you didn't mind
waiting a minute or two the program would supply you with a FLETCHO
different from the forty that I have hardcoded into the version of FLETCHO
on this issue.  It used a complicated routine that called our dictionary
SYS many, many times in a tree-like algorithm.

NOTE: For details on our dictionary routine see Zero Page on LS 128 #19.
Our dictionary is a list of 3400+ five-letter words that can be searched at
ML speeds.  It also contains four-letter words but they aren't used in
FLETCHO.

     The only problem was that after creating a varying number of FLETCHOs
the program would crash horribly.  Variables that had been properly
DIMensioned were all of a sudden DIMensioned to 0.  At least I would get a
"bad subscript error" no matter what the subscript was.  I would check a
variable and get an answer of -0.  Minus zero?  Apparently the variables in
memory were getting corrupted.

    Try as I may, I could not fix this bug.  I had protected the dictionary
ML and data as well as I knew how but somehow the many, many string
variables that were created in the algorithm were corrupting array
variables instead of just causing some garbage collection.  The problem
could be in the ML or in the BASIC but since it works fine for a few
words...  My guess is that there is a subtle bug in the ML that causes
variables to be stored where they aren't supposed to be.


 THE SHEEPISH PROPOSITION
 ------------------------

    I admit defeat.  But maybe YOU would like to have a chance to solve
this debilitating problem for me?  If so, write me and I'll send you the
BASIC source code of that version of FLETCHO plus the source code (in PAL)
of the ML.  If you can fix it, you'll have my gratitude, a reward in the
form of a years' subscription to LOADSTAR 128, and credit in the program
which will eventually be republished -- sort of like VIDEO CRAPS is on this
issue.

    The version of FLETCHO on this issue works fine with the forty FLETCHOs
that I supplied it with, but there's something about a program that
"creates" puzzles that's more aesthetically pleasing.  It's a shame not to
use the power of the C-128 to its fullest, isn't it?

FT

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