Several years ago a colleague of mine showed me some word games she was using in the classroom. (All English teachers love word games.) Until then, I thought I was familiar with all such games."What're these?" I said.
"You don't know what droplines are?" I studied the paper. They looked sort of like Wheel of Fortune grids, sort of like crossword puzzles. "Oh, yes, of course," I said, "droplines."
She rolled her eyes. "Here, I'll show you how they work." Within minutes, I was hooked. Not only do they have great potential as a tool for helping kids memorize famous quotes, but droplines are addictively fun. I don't know why it took me so long to realize they are the ideal computer game, but they are, and, if you type in Droplines, you'll have what I believe is the first computerized version of this game.
The program runs in 80-column mode, although it has a unique double-width output you'll read about below so make sure you've got your 40/80 Display key pressed down. Editor's Note: If you're using this program on a C-128 that doesn't display the image correctly in 80-column mode, don't worry. Just load a puzzle and once it completes the loading process, press the back arrow key (_). The screen should then look fine.
If you want to try solving a dropline right away, run Drop Quiz also. It will create a few puzzles, which I've encoded so you can't figure them out while you're typing them.
When you load and run the main program, it will look for a "puzzles" file and will present you with the main menu, which has three options: Load a puzzle, Create one, or Quit. Select L for load.
Playing the game is almost foolproof, if you know how droplines work. Here's the skinny. A dropline is a puzzle that asks you to figure out a quotation (a sentence of any kind). You're given a grid with blanks (filled-in spaces) indicating the spaces between the words. Note: The end of each line does not indicate the end of a word, only the blanks do.
The quotes read from left to right across the grid over a series of four or five rows. All the letters you need to solve the puzzle are given in scrambled order below each column. So, when you're trying to figure out what letter might go in any given space, you'll read across the grid to find out how many letters are in the word, and below the grid to find out which ones might fit.
In the sample printed here the first square is a space, the next one a blank. This puzzle must start with a one-letter word. The choices found below column 1 are Q, I, or S. Obviously, Q and S aren't one-letter words, so it must be I. The next word is a four-letter word (a comma follows); but what can it be? It starts with either an R, C, W, or E. If we look at the next three columns of letters, we can see many possibilities: rope, cope, Rome, came are all there.
Not ready to hazard a guess? Then glance at the next word; it's a one-letter jobbie also (must be I again). Let's read what we've got: I I Hmm, this is getting interesting.
Don't get it yet? Don't dismay. Drop-lines can be quite challenging, but at least they're more fun to work on the computer. For starters, you can cursor nicely over the blanks, skipping punctuation, and jump from space to space. Plus, you can't type an errant letter (that is, one that is not available as a choice in whatever column you're on). When you do pick a letter, the corresponding letter from below the grid will darken to indicate you've used it once.
If you try to use it again in a different space in that column, you won't be able to. The titlebar will remind you of your options:
F1 Check your answer.
F3 Solve the puzzle ("I give up").
F5 Print it. Note: Line 6040 sends the printer codes to make my Star NX-10C change its spacing. If your printer gives you trouble, REM out this line or adjust it according to your printer manual.
F7 Get a hint (it fills in the correct answer for the space the cursor is on).
ESCape Go back to the main menu.
Back-arrow The double-width option mentioned above. A little-used feature of the video chip that runs the 80-column screen is its ability to double pixel width. This chip also allows you to change your screen's memory very easily. Putting these two features together gives you the ability to work all your puzzles in a scrolling, double-width screen. You can toggle back and forth between the two simply by pressing the back-arrow key. You'll definitely want to try this out.
You can also create quotes for use in future puzzles. Just choose Create from the main menu. Create mode uses a simple input statement, so don't expect any luxuries here; just type and press return. You can type up to 150 characters so don't worry when you get to the end of the line. Also, punctuation is allowed. The program allows up to 500 quotes, so grab a copy of "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" and add quotes any time you play. If you plan on solving many of these yourself, type enough so you won't recognize them. Or better yet, call in someone else to type some in for you. Just tell them to finish each one with a return.
You don't have to be an English teacher to enjoy Droplines, but using the program will definitely make you more quote-wise, and "A word to the wise is sufficient." You can quote me on that.
