Changed from the original model
for this JScript™ game are
the following features:
In order to provide you with a way to lose gracefully, a new
Give Up ! button
lets you see the answer immediately (but the game is still over).
purely cosmetic: various changes to fonts and images
sequencing help: If you guess a letter when no game is in progress, you get
told what you have to do (instead
of the click just silently doing nothing).
bugs: fix typos (corruption?) and duplication in the built-in Dictionary
If you click a letter that you have already guessed, a pop-up
Alert() tells you of "your mistake" and
clarifies that it doesn't count as a move against you.
Multiple Dictionary support so anyone can play the game and
still have fun.
(My kids were less than impressed by words like: chattel, dopest,
unctuous, garrote, jamoke, psionic, and many other words
that I have never heard of!)
Spaces are allowed in Dictionary "words"
so that phrases can be used. A "space" displays as
a fat dot on the gameboard, signifying that it is
a separation character
that does not need to be guessed.
I created an
Any Vowel button which provides a convenient short-hand
way to guess each of the vowels (AEIOU plus Y) in order. If this action
results in you getting 3 or more distinct letters that you
didn't have before, a pop-up Alert() tells you of what
a good idea it was use try out this nifty hack.
mixed case: Allow upper case in the Dictionary (as well as lower case),
do case insensitive matching when a letter is guessed, but
display the appropriate case on the gameboard.
There is a special reward for a perfect game - when you
figure out the word without any wrong guesses.
My kids had the idea for this one!
I changed all the references to internal files so that the game can
be zipped up and reconstructed without having to muck with the
source in any way.
Ideas for improvements...
I should invent a
Gim'me a Clue button which helps you with the current
word or phrase. Ideas for heuristics: if it's an uncommon word,
a dictionary meaning might be appropriate.
For Geography places, clues could be
categorizations like country Vs city or what continent it's on, etc.
For Kid's names, whether it's a boy or a
girl and/or whether it's a first name or a last name
might work. The point of this would be (a) a button which
is an HREF link, but the target of which changes dynamically,
and (b) some practice at using scripting languages to
provide dynamic heuristics.
I could come up with a completely different set of images
which present a more pleasant sequence - any sort of progression
towards a goal - like a doggie going up the steps to
the top, etc.
It sure would be nice if the gameboard didn't come out blank
when the browser prints this web page. I have no idea
why this is the case.
I've thought of having a Play It Again
button because sometimes a game ends and I wanna backup
because I can't believe that I couldn't have seen that that was
the answer.
If you are interested in
grabbing this game
for your own use off-line, remember that it's
JScript™ and [therefore?] doesn't work with Netscape.
Of course, if you figure out how to change this so that it
does work with Netscape - I'm all ears!
Afterall,
JScript™ is supposed to be Javascript compatible...
If you do anything other than
just use this source privately, you might want to give credit
to the original model
that this source was based on
(and did I mention that yours truly
also had a hand in it?).
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