Category : A Collection of Games for DOS and Windows
Archive   : BOGGLED.ZIP
Filename : BOGGLED.DOC

BOGGLED
Version 1.0

Written by Chas Mastrandrea
(c) 1991 CHASM Software
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INTRODUCTION
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BOGGLED is my rendition of the classic Parker Brothers game Boggle (tm). It
was written because of my insatiable addiction to the game, and because I had
some 'spare' time at work to undertake such an endeavor. It was primarily
written for myself, to see if I could accomplish such a task, but I realized
that others might enjoy it as well, so I decided to release it into the public
domain.


REQUIREMENTS
------------
BOGGLED requires an EGA graphics card and color monitor. Quick eyes and a
healthy vocabulary are recommended, but are not required.


PLAYERS
-------
BOGGLED is a two-player game; you against the computer. There's nothing more
challenging than being pitted against the ultimate opponent. The computer has
a "vocabulary" of 32,000 words, sufficient enough for the task at hand.
However, it doesn't 'know' any words longer than 8 letters, so if you can come
up with longer words, they're all yours.


GAME PLAY
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The object of the game is to find as many words as possible within an
arrangement of 16 randomly selected tiles (Note: the tiles, or cubes, are
identical in letter distribution to the original Boggle(tm) game.) In order to
construct a word, you must select tiles that are consecutively adjacent to one
another in any of the eight directions (up, down, right, left, and the four
diagonals.) Each word must have 3 or more letters, and each tile (not letter)
can only be used once per word. For example, if our board looked like this:

D O T K
P L S O
L R H E
M A S W

The word POST would be valid, since the P is adjacent to an O, the O adjacent
to an S, and S adjacent to a T. However, POSTS is not valid since it uses the
same S tile twice. The word TOLL is valid because it gets its two L's from two
different tiles. The word SHOOT is not valid since the two O's are not
adjacent. Any word found in a standard dictionary is valid, including plurals
and the various tenses of words. In the original Boggle(tm) game, your
opponents are people, not computers, and so the validity of a word is sometimes
up for debate. Here however, the computer doesn't care what words you enter.

You have 3 minutes to find as many words as possible. A timer shows the
remaining time in a round. Whenever you find a word, type it in and press
return (or enter.) The word will be added to your list of words shown in white
letters on the left half of the screen. If you make a mistake while typing a
word, just backspace to correct the error. During this time the computer will
be searching for words as well. This is a time-consuming task, and during this
time entering words may appear somewhat sluggish, but the type-ahead buffer
should keep track of your keystrokes for you. Also, depending on the speed of
your CPU's processor, the computer might not be able to complete its searching
algorithm within the 3 minutes. Similarly, depending on the speed of your own
processor, you might not be able to finish searching within the 3 minutes.
During the searching you can press the ESCape key to end the round and force
the computer to stop searching. In any case, at the end of the round, the
computer's list of words is displayed on the right half of the screen in yellow
letters. Words that are duplicated in the two lists appear in gray to signify
this. If the computer has found more words than can fit in the window, use the
spacebar to 'page' through its humiliating list. Then press ESCape to return
to the main menu.

In the original game, the winner is determined by whoever has the most
points. Points are calculated based on word lengths. Points are not bothered
with in this version since the computer will more than likely blow you away.
If anyone has any insights on a method for a more fair competition, please let
me know.


INSTALLATION
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No installation is necessary for the game. As long as the files BOGGLED.EXE,
BOGGLED1.GFX, BOGGLED2.GFX, BOGGLED.DCT and EGAVGA.BGI are in your current
directory, you're in business. You can run the game from floppy disk, but a
hard drive is recommended since it's much faster. Just type BOGGLED to load the
program.


CREDITS
-------
Me, me, me. I wrote the code and designed the graphics in an on-and-off
process of a couple of weeks. I suppose I should thank Borland for providing
such a great programming environment with their C++ package. And thanks to
Parker Brothers for the original game. And most importantly, thanks to our
government for cutting back on our nation's defense programs, specifically the
SDI program, which freed up alot of spare time for me at work, and thus enabled
me to write this game. (And no, I'm not really happy about the cutbacks, but
I try to find the positive in whatever negatives come my way.)


IN CLOSING
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That's it. Hope you enjoy the game. If you have any questions, comments,
criticisms, etc... you can write to me at the address below. Just remember that
this is not a commercial or shareware product, so I'm not really responsible
for cranking out any revisions or bug-fixes. But then again, there shouldn't
be a need for any revisions or bug-fixes :^)

Chas Mastrandrea
9810 Tara Ct.
Burke, VA 22015