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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top
Known
problems
This is
problems I know of, which
has so far not been solved !
- 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).
- 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 !
- 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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the top
Links of
interest
- Everett
Kaser the author of the original Sherlock for
DOS.
- OS2Worldwhere
this page is hosted, and where you can find a lot of interesting
information about OS/2 and eCS, and can meet interesting people who are
willing to help with any problem you might have with your installation.
- My other software
projects
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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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