Contents
Contents for Word Boxing Help

Introduction

Welcome To Word Boxing.

Word Boxing is a simple word game where your goal is to guess what word you are presented with by selecting letters that may be in the word. Guessing correct letters weakens your opponent. Incorrect guesses weaken you. Who wins is the challenge you face...

How To ...

Play the game

Change Difficulty

Change Word File

Score

Record Score

REGISTER


Game description
Playing the game

The Platform

The platform in Word Boxing plays an important role. The base of the platform consists of one empty box per letter in the target word.  In this way it provides a valuable clue as to what the target word may be.

A Round of the Game

A round of the game begins when the 'New Word' button is selected.

The round ends when you either guess all the letters in the word or you run out of guesses.

Making Guesses

To make a guess simply select a letter button with the mouse or type the letter on the keyboard. Each letter can only be picked once per round. If the letter you pick is in the target word it will appear in the platform and you score a hit. Otherwise a miss will be indicated by a hit scored against you and a reduction in your strength.


Scoring during the game
How to Score

Scoring is simple. Each time you correctly guess a letter, you score a hit. For each incorrect guess a hit is scored against you. You win the round if you guess the target word. You lose when your strength hits Zero.

When you select your first letter the game begins and the timer starts. The timer will stop when you either guess the word correctly or run out of guesses. Your average time per round is calculated based on only those rounds that you have won.

Selecting "Score Table" from the "Game" menu will display the best Word Boxing score and time achieved to date.


Recording scores during the game
Recording Scores

So you think you have got a pretty good score. Well once this has been done if you have the most wins or best average time you may record it. To do this select "Score Table" from the "Game" menu. If your wins or time are better than any yet recorded then you will be prompted to enter your name.

You must have at least 5 wins before you can hold the best time average.

NOTE: The score table can be cleared by quitting the game and then deleting the file WDBOXING.DAT. You will then have to re-enter your registration password though.


Changing game difficulty
Setting Game Difficulty

Game difficulty can be changed by selecting one of the three difficulty settings from the "Game" menu.

SETTING	LOSE WHEN	WORD SET

MERCIFUL	8 Letters Incorrect	Easy

DEMANDING	6 Letters Incorrect	Easy

MERCILESS	5 Letters Incorrect	Hard

The Easy word set gives you more guesses and a similar theme to the words. It consists of living things (animals,insects,birds,fish). The Hard word set consists of unrelated words including some that are a little more obscure.

When the difficulty level is changed current wins and times are reset to their start values.


Registering the game
REGISTER

Word Boxing is a shareware program and as such must be registered.

If you enjoy playing this game please REGISTER. The cost is a mere $10 (come on, anyone can afford this and we need SOME registrations).

Upon registration you will be sent a registration password to remove UNREGISTERED from the title bar of the game and to enable the use of USER GENERATED word sets. This means you can create your own word sets where you determine the topic and level of difficulty. Create a set of Movie Titles, Famous People, Sports or create sets of the words the kids have to learn at school this week. Put some of that time they spend on the computer to good use.

To register please post the following :

* Your Name

* Your Postal Address

* Your EMAIL address if you have one (will speed reply)

* $10 Australian as Cash, Cheque or Money Order.

Post to:

MR JOHN WIESE

PO BOX 319

COMO, WESTERN AUSTRALIA, 6152

PLEASE PRINT ALL INFORMATION CLEARLY.

If we get enough registrations and expressions of interest the game may be extended with options such as:

-  A definition option to display the meaning of unsolved words.

-  Other game scenarios. This game has been designed around a generic win/lose interface which means other scenarios can be used. Next it may be a Western Shoot-out, Soccer or maybe you have a suggestion.

Well that's the future, lets just see how Word Boxing goes for now...


Word File
Word File Option

NOTE:  This option is only available to REGISTERED users.

By default Word Boxing uses a word file called: wdboxing.dat

The Word File menu option can be used to change this file to a user generated file provided it is in a suitable format (see below). This gives the user the option of generating custom word sets.

Word File Format

A word file consists of a set of EASY words followed by a set of HARD words. The two word sets must be separated by one line which contains 5 asterixes (*****).

User generated word files must conform to the following:

*  ONE word per line.

*  All words must be in UPPERCASE.

*  The maximum length of any word is 9 characters.

*  The word file must not contain any BLANK lines.

*  A minimum of 5 and a maximum of 250 EASY words.

*  A minimum of 5 and a maximum of 250 HARD words.

*  Hard and easy words are separated by one line which contains 5 asterixes (*****).

*  The file must be saved as a MS-DOS Text file.

An example word file follows:

THIS

IS

AN

EASY

EXAMPLE

*****

HARD

WORDS

IN

THIS

SECTION

I recommend Microsoft Word for generating Word Boxing word files as it is easy to use, easy to check there are no spaces or empty lines in the file, and it can save files as type: MS-DOS Text

The Microsoft Windows NOTEPAD program is just as effective and saves text files that are suitable for use by Word Boxing. (Beware spaces at the end of words though).

Microsoft Word and Microsoft Windows Notepad are copyrighted products of MICROSOFT CORPORATION. All other trademarks and service marks that appear in any Word Boxing documentation or materials are the property of their respective owners.