W(h)atsOn,
In the shadow of Sherlock
for OS/2 & eCS.

(Aka. Sherlock, Who owns the zebra (or fish, or whatever...) )

History
Game
News
Known problems
Links
Download 
How to enter the registration
Acknowledgments


History

Once upon a time ...
In the good old DOS days ...
On a computer long dead ...

There was this game.
It was a simple game.
A game of deduction and logic.

It was called Sherlock, and you just had to try it once (or as many times as it took to learn the rules), to get hooked !

And man was I hooked ......... I still am.

You probably know the game :

The Englishman lives in the red house.
The German lives next to the blue house.
The one who smokes Kings has a pet dog.

......

And so on.

Now your task is to deduce who lives in what house, what they drink, smoke, eat etc.

As a programmer I have always wondered how to make a program able to build those clues, and for the last 15 years  (let's say), I have had an entry in my project folder (or directory in the DOS days) named Sherlock, to which i returned now and then, normally without any success !

A couple of months ago, I decided to try yet another approach, and this time I had some sort of success !

I now have a beta version of Sherlock for OS/2, called WhatsOn, in the shadow of Sherlock,  highly inspired by the DOS version by Everett Kaser.

Try it, and let me know what you think.

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Game


Example of a game.
(Click on image to view)
The idea behind the game is fairly simple, you have a game board, this is a kind of work sheet, where you can remove possibilities as you work your way through the clues.
The clues is separated in two parts : Vertical clues and Horizontal clues, these clues are graphical implementations of expressions like :

The Englishman lives in the red house.
The German lives next to the blue house.
The one who smokes Kings has a pet dog.

etc.

For a more thorough description, please see the on line help in the game.

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News

Version 1.0, released 01-Mar-2006
  • Menu item for going to the WhatsOn homepage has been added to the help menu.
  • More superfluous clues has been removed.
  • Improved error handling while loading graphics.
  • Improved error handling when saving and loading settings and saved games.
  • Splash- / nag- screen has been implemented in unregistered version.
  • Register has been activated in the help menu.
  • About has been activated in the help menu.
  • The program icon has been changed from the Sibyl default icon to an icon depicting the shadow of Sherlock Holmes.
  • An error creating an unused area just below the menu bar has been corrected.
  • At the top of the two clue panels, there could be some "noise" lines, this has been removed.
  • The balance between the different clue types has been changed somewhat.
  • Some superfluous clues has been removed.
  • Game statistics has been added, you find them in the menu under Help.
  • Some nonsense clues has been removed.
  • If the game window was resized, while the game was paused, the game board and clues was shown.
  • A new menu item, Timeout, has been added to the options menu. This allows you to set a max time for the game, when this time has been reached the game stops. Default is no timeout.
  • A new menu item, Hint, has been added to the Game menu. This can give you a hint, how to solve the game. But be aware, this will not necessary be a true hint, as the hint are based on a comparison of the game board (as it is), and (all) clues. So if you have introduced an error this may render the hint invalid, but it may also tell you something is wrong !
  • A small error creating a lot more clues than necessary, has been corrected. There will still be superfluous clues, but hopefully not as many as before.

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Known problems

This is problems I know of, which has so far not been solved !

  1. On some computers, you can get an error "Invalid bitmap" when resizing the board. When this happens, you will have to reboot your computer, as this breaks something in the workplace, making it impossible to close or move any window ! If you encounter this problem, please send me information about your video system (resolution, number of colors, video card, drivers etc).
  2. I'm not sure, but there may be problems playing this game with less than 24 bit colors on your screen, I know there are problems with 16 colors !
  3. There are a major memory leak somewhere, on my computer I get memory troubles after about 700 games (No, I didn't play 700 games in a row, it was a simulation to test some other problems ;o).

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Links of interest
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Download

You can download the version 1.0 of WhatsOn here, this is the unregistered version,

If you have downloaded the shareware version, and would like to register for the full version (without the nag-screens), you can register on line at : BMT micro for $15.

When you register your copy, you'll get a mail sent to you, containing a temporary registration code, and within 30 days, I'll send you the final registration code.

I'm very interested in your opinion, and any ideas you might have.

Please let me hear from you.

Kim Foder
kim@foder.dk

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How to enter the registration

To register go to the help menu and click on 'Register', here you can enter name and registration number. For the temporary registration code, your name is not required, but when you receive your full registration, you will find a registration- name and code to enter exactly as written in your registration mail.

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Acknowledgments

You are visitor # since 2005-May-30.

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