Messages

1176

Mobysaurus / API?

« on: February 09, 2008, 06:02 AM »

Does this thing have an API so that I could call it from (say) a Java project I'm involved in somehow?

e.g. to check a spelling, search for a word, search for a synonym, maybe even get a random word back? I'd have a use for all of that.

Thanks,

timns

1177

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: timns' Sudoku

« on: February 09, 2008, 05:51 AM »

I just found and fixed a bug in the printing - sometimes the puzzle came out about the size of a postage stamp. Hopefully this is now fixed and you should get a decent page-sized puzzle to go.

timns

1178

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 09, 2008, 05:50 AM »

You people want the moon on a stick don't you? 

Ok, done and uploaded. You can now print out puzzles to go. Unfortunately it takes up 2 pages but the big puzzles have so many clues it's unavoidable.

timns

1179

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 08, 2008, 09:36 AM »

Oh my, thank you very much for the kind words. 

I want people to be able to enjoy the game, so it's worth it to me to try and help out - certainly with the easy-ish stuff anyway.

Over the weekend I'll extend the data in the game so you get more variation of people and different items and topics - look out for guest appearances from certain noble DC members 

timns

1180

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 08, 2008, 07:05 AM »

Hmm...I can tell you the "New Player" menu item is superfluous! I'll delete that next time I do a build of the game.

Click on "Create new player" and, er, create a new player. Set your settings how you would like them, then exit the game.

Now, when you go back in - do you get your new settings?

I just tried that and it worked.

timns

1181

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 08, 2008, 01:19 AM »

Thank you for the further comments - I will take a look since some of those items would annoy me if I were playing. However, a couple of things should actually work already - for instance the saving of screen size/position etc - that's written to the registry and re-loaded next time. Is there any chance you have your registry protected?

timns

1182

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Deductoid puzzle game

« on: February 08, 2008, 01:10 AM »

You're totally right about the similarity between Deductoid and Sherlock of course.

But the world needs a few variants on the same theme eh? Otherwise we'd all still be only playing one version of Tetris, Breakout, Doom, writing in WordStar, Bill Gates would be poor... and I for one would be out of a day job since I work on software which looks and works in a very similar fashion as other vendors' in the same industry. Only ours is better 

I actually wrote my game from scratch based around yet another similar game from the old C-64 days, originally just to see if I could, since I program for a hobby as well during the working day as to pay for my Trotanoy. Then a few friends played it and made suggestions which clearly steered me in a better direction. I believe the phrase is "standing on the shoulders of giants"

Interesting what you say about cryptic crosswords - I do them too. Next project might be a cryptic crossword generator. In Delphi of course! 

Thanks for your comments.

timns

1183

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Deductoid puzzle game

« on: February 07, 2008, 07:54 AM »

Ok ladies and blokes, I just uploaded a new build of Deductoid which zooms those hard-to-see horizontal clues for those Iron Men (and Bronze Ladies  ) who play in 9x9 and 10x10 mode.

This was a neat suggestion from Mr TPReal, who is clearly an Iron Man himself. Thank you. Plus you get to see my lovely fast smoothed bitmap zoom er... thing.

timns

1184

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: timns' Sudoku

« on: February 07, 2008, 07:01 AM »

Great hopping horny toads! I hadn't seen those before. I'll take a look at what it might entail, this weekend.

Thanks for the suggestion.

1185

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Sudoku puzzles - and lots of 'em

« on: February 07, 2008, 04:42 AM »

Hello folks.

I just uploaded another free puzzle game at http://timns.dcmembers.com/Sudoku.html to keep http://timns.dcmembe...s.com/Deductoid.html and http://timns.dcmembers.com/CluGrid.html company.

No prizes for guessing what this game is all about. You've heard about it, you've seen it, you've played it out of obligation because it's supposed to make you clever...



I hope you enjoy my version of the game. It's standard stuff but you can print out the puzzles to play elsewhere, which is useful for those of you with a life away from the keyboard.

Discussion is here: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=12196.0

Thanks!

timns

1186

DC Member Programs and Projects / timns' Sudoku

« on: February 07, 2008, 04:40 AM »

Hello folks.

I just uploaded another free puzzle game at http://timns.dcmembers.com/Sudoku.html to keep http://timns.dcmembe...s.com/Deductoid.html and http://timns.dcmembers.com/CluGrid.html company.

No prizes for guessing what this game is all about. You've heard about it, you've seen it, you've played it out of obligation because it's supposed to make you clever...

I hope you enjoy my version of the game. It's standard stuff but you can print out the puzzles to play elsewhere, which is useful for those of you with a life away from the keyboard.

Thanks!

timns

1187

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 07, 2008, 04:07 AM »

Right! (Rolls up sleeves and cracks knuckles) let's see what we can do with this:

1. The hints window initially are unreadable for me, as they appear in black foreground on black background. As soon as i e.g. change the Fontsize with rightclick (smaller or larger doesn't matter) the window content refreshes in the new size in correct foreground color - getting visible. can you force a correct intial refresh?

Done!

2. when i change font size in the cluegrid area i get corrupted unreadable text on the left side of the grid. The text above the grid is readable though (see attached screenshot 2). Can't get it back to readable state. Neither with changing the fontsize back again nor with closing the program and start it again.

Ok, this is a problem - your grid area is simply too squashed in the vertical axis for the text to render properly, so what I've done is a couple of things. I've made the grid area a little taller, and I've given you a new menu option on the right click which will allow you to hide the grid at the bottom, making everything bigger and clearer. You'll have to nudge the splitter bar on the right, or resize the window a tiny bit to make the screen refresh - for some reason I can't make it redraw automatically. I'll look into that later.

3. The popup tooltips (e.g. warning of a mistake) are white foreground with white background (unreadable). Not so important, because i can hear the different soundeffects, but if you can solve this too it would be great.

Done!

4. when changing fontsize in clugrid area the unused space in the window gets white background (even with inverted colors selected). I then have to refresh the window (e.g. switching to another application window with alt-tab and back to clugrid again) to get rid of this big white area. (See attached Screenshot 1)

Done!

5. The checkmarks, crosses and question marks in the grid are not affected by the invert color setting and appear black foreground on black background for me. Making them invisible. (see also the attached screenshots).

Actually, they are there, but so small as to be almost invisible. I think my other change will really help, and I also made them a little bit bigger too.

New version uploaded and waiting. I hope this all helps.

1188

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 07, 2008, 03:58 AM »

Thank you thank you thank you!

1189

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Deductoid puzzle game

« on: February 07, 2008, 02:52 AM »

When I (accidentally) scroll with my middle mouse wheel, the program suddenly scrolls through the levels (4x4, 5x5 etc), and my current game is reset!  Even if this depends on where my focus was (and after experimenting I don't think it does) it is disconcertingly unpredictable and annoying.

-suleika (February 06, 2008, 07:06 PM)

Ok, the mouse wheel is now ignored. New version uploaded if you wish to grab it!

1190

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Deductoid puzzle game

« on: February 07, 2008, 01:26 AM »

Took me a while to get it until I realized it was the same as the Einstein game I found a while back...may have even been here that I found it.  Don't remember.  It is, indeed, quite addicting.  However, I find that CluGrid is more likely to make me curse you out for taking away more time from my job, er, I mean free time... 

-steeladept (February 07, 2008, 01:09 AM)

Another one! Well I sure hope my version has something new to offer. And thank you for the kind comments about CluGrid. I *think* that's something no-one has done before except on paper. Please see my comment in the CluGrid discussion - we'll expand that game over time to include a bigger variety of subjects.

1191

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: New Puzzle Game: CluGrid

« on: February 07, 2008, 01:22 AM »

By the way, when I wrote the game I used xml files for the data so as we go along I'll pad out the game with more people, names, events etc. to keep it fresh, and you can just download updated data files.

Anyone got any ideas?

The sort of thing that would be useful might be: "plays different types of game" or "has a favourite soft drink" or "owns a dog that answers to the name ..." or whatever. (Actually I think I'll add that one right now)

timns

1192

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Deductoid puzzle game

« on: February 07, 2008, 01:08 AM »

Right, I'll take a look at disabling the scroll wheel (or maybe try to make it do something more constructive)

The "is not next to clue" only ever involves 2 tiles, but I draw it in that way to hammer home that (in the example) the blonde lady cannot be on *either* side of the surprised smiley, i.e. not-next-to-at-all-in-any-way, if you see what I mean.

I originally drew it as 2 tiles, but it confused people by making them think that maybe she could be on the other side of him, i.e. she's only-not-on-the-left.

I hope that makes sense! Plus 3 tiles fits in neatly with the other clues!

I must update the pdf - the first version I wrote did not have that clue. Someone who played suggested I add it, and having looked at Sherlock I imagine that's surely where the suggestion came from. My original inspiration was from a game I used to play on the Commodore 64 (showing my age here) called something like Cerebro.

timns

1193

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 06, 2008, 10:45 AM »

Whee! Thank you very kindly JoTo.

Now, if you can take a download of CluGrid once again, you will see a new menu item when you right-click in the clue area: "Invert colors"

I hope it makes the game much more playable for you.

timns

1194

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 06, 2008, 09:36 AM »

JoTo,

I will certainly re-visit the CluGrid code and see what I can do with the colours. The only minority I consider you to be is that of someone who gave me feedback 

There is the "zoom" feature in Deductoid, and in fact Mr TPReal asked if I could make the clues zoomable as well as the tiles, which I shall do very soon - would that help at all?

Your other immediate option is to replace the .bmp files in the "Tiles" folder with clearer images. (Damn, I'm foresighted sometimes) with maybe some clearer clipart or big bold numbers or letters. You simply dump the images into the folders named "Row1" thru "Row10" and the game will pick them up next time you run. Make sure the ones you want appear first in the folder and you should be good to go. Don't worry about the image size too much either - there's a real-time smooth resizer in there what I once wrote.

Anyway, I have a couple of spare tile sets here, which are mainly big coloured letters. I really hope it helps - we can't have you going back to some inferior DOS game now can we? 

timns

1195

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: New Puzzle Game: CluGrid

« on: February 06, 2008, 12:57 AM »

It's always the same with me - I blame the coffee. About every six months or so I cast around for a nice little puzzle game to play over my lunchtime latte. I usually find something, but for some reason I end up wanting to have a go at something similar myself (which explains why my next upload will be a Sudoku generator  )

I don't know if it's a good place to start, but I begin by writing the easy bit - something to create a puzzle in its solved state. After that I find that it's not too bad to code up a solver which looks backward - find how to get to the original puzzle from the solution by removing information one piece at a time, while retaining a path to the final answer.

And after THAT of course, it's not too bad to write the clue generator which tells the solver what to do.

And after THAT comes the hardest part of all... thinking of a stupid name and a stupid splash screen 

1196

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / New Puzzle Game: CluGrid

« on: February 05, 2008, 02:31 PM »

Hello again folks,

Puzzle game number two uploaded and awaiting your brain cells:



The link's here: http://timns.dcmembers.com/CluGrid.html

I hope you enjoy playing. Thanks,

timns

1197

DC Member Programs and Projects / CluGrid Discussion

« on: February 05, 2008, 02:27 PM »

Evening all. I just uploaded another free puzzle game called http://timns.dcmembers.com/CluGrid.html to keep http://timns.dcmembe...s.com/Deductoid.html company. This one's shamelessly based on those puzzle books you buy at the airport to feel intelligent while you wait to hear about the latest flight delays.

I was quite proud of writing this: the puzzles, text, objects and clues are all generated algorithmically and you get 999,999 variants at each size.

I hope you all enjoy it - there's a help page if you get stuck or it blows up.

Or ask me here... 

1198

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Deductoid puzzle game

« on: January 27, 2008, 03:16 PM »

The zoom suggestion is a good one, I should certainly do that.

In terms of removing clues - I will take a look. It may be a bit tricky to achieve but is worth a try. I'm away this week but as soon as I get home I'll fire up and see.

Lastly: I really appreciate your feedback!

1199

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Deductoid puzzle game

« on: January 24, 2008, 05:25 AM »

Ok, the right click bug is fixed - I just uploaded the new build which you can get from the updated link on my page:

http://timns.dcmembe...ductoid_1_4_6_27.EXE

Well-spotted there!

1200

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Deductoid puzzle game

« on: January 24, 2008, 04:40 AM »

Some interesting points folks, thank you for the discussion.

Mr Real, by gum, you're right about that bug - I found the location of my lion, and sure enough I can make him appear again in the other columns by right-clicking in the space where he was. At the very least I'll get that one fixed, and I'll see what it would take to implement your other suggestion - I'd hate to be accused of being too severe