Contents
	Guessit! Help Contents © Bruce Jaeger 1994 All Rights Reserved
How to Play GUESSIT!

Overview

Version History

Your Contribution

Files Necessary for Operation

Editing or Adding Word Lists

Rules for words

Format of GUESSIT! word lists

Levels of Difficulty


How to Play GUESSIT!

Overview

Press individual letters from the list at the top left of the window, if you think the secret word has that letter in it.  Too many wrong guesses, and you could lose!

If you have more than one GUESSIT! word list, you can select from among them by pulling down the Main menu and choosing Select New Word List.


OLD STUFF:

First, choose a level of difficulty by pulling down the Options menu and selecting Difficulty.

Select a game from the other choices in the Options menu: DENTIST, HANGMAN, BRIDGE BUSTER or TAXMAN.

Press "Start Game" to start game.


Files Necessary for Operation

GUESSIT!.EXE

This is the game program itself.

HANGWORD.TXT

This is a file of words used by the GUESSIT! program.  You may edit, replace this file or add word lists of your own; see Editing or Adding Word Lists.

This file--and other word files--must be located in the same directory as GUESSIT!.EXE.

VBRUN300.DLL

This is the "Runtime" file required by all programs written with Visual Basic.  To save download time, this file is not included in this package if you downloaded it from a BBS; you can find it on the same bulletin board you downloaded GUESSIT! from.

VBRUN300.DLL must be copied to your WINDOWS directory.

GUESSIT!.HLP

This help file. GUESSIT.HLP must be located in the same directory as GUESSIT!.EXE.


Editing or Adding Word Lists

You may edit, replace this file or add word lists of your own, using any text editor that is capable of saving files as standard text files.  (Windows Write works fine.  Just make sure you save the file as type Text File).   GUESSIT! word files must be located in the same directory as GUESSIT!.EXE.

Rules for words:

*	No more than one word on a line (unless it's intentional, like "RED OAK").

*	Words (including spaces) must be less than 17 characters long.

*	Words can contain no punctuation marks other than a dash ("-").

Format of GUESSIT! word lists:

Here's a sample of what must begin every GUESSIT! word list.  The file is birds.txt, and contains the names of birds.

MLC GUESSIT! Word List

'

' (lines preceded by ' are comments)

'

Name=Bird Names

'	This is the name that appears in the

'	Choose Word List box

'

Difficulty=2

' 1=Easiest   2=Standard   3=Harder   4=Hardest

' This is the start-up difficulty--you can also

' change the level of difficulty when the game

' is running

'

Language=English

' add any special characters (languages other than English)

SpecialVowels=

SpecialConsonants=

'

'

---Begin word list here---------------------

Bald Eagle

Hawk

Robin

Dove

Chicken

Starling

Pigeon

Blackbird

Crow

Blue Jay

Hummingbird

The first line of any GUESSIT! word list must contain the words MLC GUESSIT! Word List.  When GUESSIT! starts, it checks the first line of all .TXT files in the directory that GUESSIT! is located in.  Files that do not have a first line of MLC GUESSIT! Word List are considered to be "normal" text files of some sort or another, and GUESSSIT! ignores them.

You can add  lots of comments to your word lists; any line beginning with an appostrophe ( ' ) are considered comments, and are ignored by GUESSIT!.  Blank lines are also ignored.

The line beginning with Name= is used to add a descriptive name to your word list, since it's difficult to include any meaningful information in DOS file names.  The name you add after the = sign is the one that appears in the list select box that appears whenever you start GUESSIT!, or when you choose Select New Word List from the Main menu.

The line beginning with Difficulty= is used to set a different level of difficulty, if you don't want this list of words to start up with the default Standard difficulty.  Put a number 1, 2, 3 or 4 after the = sign.  (1=Easiest   2=Standard   3=Harder   4=Hardest)

The line beginning with Language= is used to add a descriptive name of the language your word list is in.  Whatever you add to the right of the = sign will appear on screen, but won't affect the operation of the game in any way.  The next two special character options will:

SpecialVowels= and SpecialConsonants= are used to add special characters used by different languages to GUESSIT!'s letter choices.  (Because some levels of difficulty "give you" the vowels, or charge extra wrong guesses for vowels, it's important to keep them separate from consonants.)

A sample special character list for German might be:

SpecialVowels=ÄÖÜ

SpecialConsonants=ß

You cannot use foreign or extended characters in your words if you do not include them under SpecialVowels or SpecialConsonants.

The line ---Begin word list here----------------------- is used to tell GUESSIT! that the "setup" part of the word list is over, and that all following entries are words to be chosen by GUESSIT! at random for playing the game.  Again:

*	No more than one word on a line (unless it's intentional, like "RED OAK").

*	Words (including spaces) must be less than 17 characters long.

*	Words can contain no punctuation marks other than a dash ("-").

There is no limit to the number of words that can be in a word list.  GUESSIT! never loads the entire list into memory; it always just reads a random amount into the word list file.


Your Contribution

GUESSIT! is not public domain.  It was written (and copyrighted by) me, Bruce Jaeger, as a fundraising effort for the MInnesota Literacy Council.  If you enjoy it, PLEASE send a tax-deductible $10.00 donation to:

Minnesota Literacy Council

475 N. Cleveland Ave.

Suite 303

St. Paul, MN 55104

This non-profit organization provides free assistance to people who need help in learning to read, and trains people learning English as their second language.

Please do not send technical comments or questions about the program to MLC.  Send them to me; my CompuServe address is 76217,1460.   Or, via US MAIL:

Bruce Jaeger

5500 80th Avenue N.

Brooklyn Park, MN 55443

USA


Version History

Version 1.0

Original release

Version 1.1

Corrects wierd positioning.

Version 1.2

Straightened out some misaligned text, added  "Counting Words" message box.

Version 1.3

Added sound on/off switch, cosmetic changes

Version 1.4

Added word list selection (changing file names to (*.LST in the process; now HANGWORD.LST instead of the old HANGWORD.TXT), allowed words with spaces ("BALD EAGLE"), added sailboat in storm graphic.

Version 1.5

Same as above, with common dialog box added for importing new word lists.

Version 2.0

Major revision under Visual Basic 3.0.  Image boxes used instead of picture boxes (to save resources); foreign language special characters allowed; revised word lists (back to .TXT suffix!) to have each word list ack as an ".INI" file with special character, language info; made letters larger (easier to click on); added this Help file; streamlined word list selection; internal changes.


Levels of Difficulty

Selecting Change Difficulty from the Main menu lets you change "how hard" the game plays.  The choices are:

Easier:

Six wrong guesses are allowed per game.  All vowels are given to you as "hints."  These include those vowels included in the word list under "SpecialVowels"; for example, German words under the Easier level of difficulty would have these letters "given" to you: A,E, I, O, U, Ä, Ö and Ü.

Standard:

Six wrong guesses are allowed per game.

Harder:

Six wrong guesses are allowed per game, but wrong vowel guesses are counted as two wrong guesses. "Special" (foreign language) vowels also count double when you miss.

Hardest:

Only four wrong guesses are allowed per game. Wrong vowel guesses count as two wrong guesses.  Again, "special" (foreign language) vowels also count double when you miss.