Copyright: Help file copyright AHA! Software Inc. 1995, 1996.


Table of Contents

Just the FAQs

What is Jumble?

Is Jumble a competitive game?

How do you play Jumble?

Who wrote Jumble?

Do I have to register Jumble?

How about some playing tips?

Jumble's Windows

The Main Window

The Options Dialog


Jumble 3.0
What is Jumble?

Jumble is a game in which your task is to decode a "jumbled" quotation or catchphrase.

The phrase is displayed in the Main Window as a set of columns (see illustration below). Some columns are blank, representing the blank spaces between the words of the phrase to be found. Others may have punctuation symbols, which are often helpful in decoding the phrase. Most of the columns, though, offer several choices for the letter which should appear in that column. Your job is to pick the correct letter in each column, reconstructing the phrase.

The letters are arrayed in rows. Most have a light blue background (if you are using the default Windows colors), but one is white. This is the answer line. You win a round of Jumble when you can read off the desired quotation in the answer line.

To move a letter from one of the blue rows into the answer line, click on it with the mouse. (You can also use the keyboard: just press the desired key when the triangular cursor beneath the letter grid is in the correct column.) The letter from the blue row will be exchanged with the one currently in the answer line.


Is Jumble a competitive game?

It's up to you. The Player box at the top left of the game window lets you specify the current player. Just click on the box and enter your initials when it's your turn to play. The game keeps track of the best score attained at each combination of difficulty level and time limit. If you're playing competitively, see how many of those top-score honors you can capture!

It's also fun to turn off the time limit, forget about high scores, and play Jumble in a cooperative mood, with all players working together to find the hidden phrases.


How to play Jumble

A game of Jumble begins when you click the Start Round button (or press Ctrl-S) in the Main Window. Your job now is to decode the hidden phrases in Jumble's letter grid (see What is Jumble? for more details). If you are using a time limit, the points you gain depend mainly on how many phrases you can find within the allotted time.

You decode a phrase by choosing the correct letter in each column of the grid. Each letter you select goes into the white Answer Line. If you can decode the desired answer, you obtain points and move on to the next phase.

Selecting letters can be done with the mouse (simply click on any letter in the grid that is not already on the Answer Line). If you prefer to enter the letters by typing on the keyboard, begin by making sure that the "arrow" cursor below the letter grid is pointed at the column you want to affect, then type the desired letter. The cursor will advance to the next letter, allowing you to type continuously if you have figured out the hidden phrase.

When you're stuck, you can get a hint. You are allowed from 3 to 9 hints depending on the difficulty level you have chosen, but each one you use reduces the points available for the round. To get a hint for the column indicated by the arrow cursor, click the Use Hint button or press either the Equals key or Ctrl-U. You can also get a hint by clicking any column in the phrase grid with the right mouse button. This will select the correct letter in the Answer Line. The letter is drawn on a yellow background rather than the usual white background.

When you have unjumbled the entire phrase, the Answer Line is redrawn on a solid yellow background and your score is updated. If you are using a time limit, the countdown clock halts until you move on to the next phrase. To do that you click the Next Phrase button or press either the Enter key or Ctrl-N.

Play ends when your time limit runs out or when you click the Exit Round button, or press either the Escape key or Ctrl-E.


Who wrote Jumble?

Jumble is a freeware product of AHA! Software Inc.

AHA!'s other products for Windows include two graphical adventure games - Uncle Julius and the Anywhere Machine and Santa's Secret Valley - and the hilarious storytelling game Twisted Tails.

Although AHA! Software grants you the right to use Jumble for your entertainment at no cost, you may not:

Resell Jumble for profit

Modify and redistribute Jumble or its accompanying files

Claim authorship or other rights to Jumble

For more information about our games, more free software, and a bevy of on-line amusements and entertainments, we invite you to visit our Family Games Web Center at http://www.familygames.com/.


Do I have to register Jumble?

No. Jumble is freeware. You do not have to register it or pay for it. However, we would like to hear from you. If you have problems running Jumble on your computer, let us know and we will try to help. If you have a reaction to Jumble, negative or positive, that you would like to share, we would be pleased to hear from you. Contact us at the following Internet email address:

ssv@islandnet.com


Jumble playing tips

The main secret to developing your skill at Jumble is learning to become alert to those clues in the formation of words and phrases that are not affected by the jumbling process. Some things to watch out for are:

Small words: a one-letter word can only be "a", "I", or - rarely - "O". Two letter words are usually prepositions such as "in", "on" or "by", and are often easy to solve. The commonest three letter words are "and", "the" and "but". If you can sort out the small words in a phrase, it is usually much easier to guess what the longer words around them must be.

Punctuation: Apostrophes, commas, question marks and so on are often vital clues. For instance, a four-letter word with an apostrophe before the final letter is quite likely to be "can't", "won't", "isn't" or "don't", so you can save time by checking those possibilities immediately.

Capitalization: A capital letter in the middle of a phrase often indicates a name. Several capitals in a row may indicate an acronym. Recognizing (or shrewdly guessing) the type of a word, often helps you to arrive at the solution much more quickly than would otherwise be possible.

Common suffixes: If one the letters available for the end of a word is G, look for IN in the previous two places: if both are available, the chances are good that the word does in fact end in ING. Use the same kind of logic to spot words ending in ED, NESS, MENT, and so on.

The Use Hint button: Each click on the Use Hint button costs you points, so you dont want to overdo it. Part of the art of Jumble, though, is guessing - or deducing - which letters in the mystery phrase would be of most value to know, that is, which letters will give you the best clues about the word in which they occur. Judicious use of hints to determine those well-chosen letters will lead to higher overall scores by letting you solve phrases much more quickly than would otherwise be possible.


The Main Window
Jumble's Main Window

This section covers all the controls and displays in the Main Window except the letter grid itself, which is described in How to play Jumble.

The window's title bar tells you which phrasebook you are currently using. Because the "Default" phrasebook is loaded each time you launch Jumble, the title bar initially reads "Jumble: Default Phrasebook".

Click on the title graphic at the top center of the display to bring up Jumble's About Box. This will tell you which version of the game you're running, along with other vital and interesting information.

To the left and right of the title graphic are the current player and top scorer boxes. The current player box shows the initials of the person now playing the game. Click the box to get a chance to enter you own initials here. If you break the scoring record for the current combination of difficulty level and time limit, your initials will appear thereafter in the top scorer box (at least until some new hotshot comes along). Clicking the top scorer box gives you the opportunity to erase the high-score record.

Below the letter grid are four readouts labeled Hints, Score, Time left and Best previous score. (Exception: If you are playing with the "no time limit" option, only the Hints readout is displayed.)

The Hints readout shows the number of hints still available for the current phrase. See How to play Jumble and Playing Tips for more information on hints and how to use them.

The Score readout shows the points you've accumulated during the current round.

The Time left readout shows the number of minutes and seconds remaining before you run out of time.

The Best previous score shows the highest score recorded for the current combination of difficulty level and time limit. You have to get the Score readout to exceed this value to have your initials appear in the top scorer box.

Finally, at the bottom of the screen are six buttons. You can operate them from the keyboard by pressing the Ctrl key in combination with the first letter of the button name.

The Start round button (Ctrl-S) starts the timer (if you are using a time limit) and displays the first scrambled phrase for you to solve. Play will now continue until you run out of time or click the Exit round button.

The Next phrase button (Enter, or Ctrl-N) displays a new phrase for you to unscramble. Use this button to move on after solving the previous phrase, or to skip a phrase that's giving you a hard time.

The Options button (Ctrl-O) invokes the Options Dialog, where you can set the difficulty level and time limit, choose a font for the letter grid, pick a different phrasebook, and more. (Most options are disabled during actual play: you would normally wait until the end of a round before using this button.)

The Exit round button (Escape, or Ctrl-E) terminates the current round of play. If you are playing under a time limit, use this button to leave the round early. If you aren't using a time limit, the Exit round button is the only way to end the round.

The Use hint button (Equals, or Ctrl-U) displays the correct letter in the column currently indicated by the triangular cursor under the letter grid, and advances the cursor to the next column.

The Help button (F1, or Ctrl-H) displays the contents page of this help file.


The Options Dialog

The Options Dialog is where you set options for playing Jumble. You can:

Set the difficulty level

Set the time limit

Choose a font for the Jumble display

Pick a different phrasebook

Edit a phrasebook

Create, rename or delete a phrasebook

Only the font option is available during a round of Jumble. To use the other options, call up the Options Dialog between rounds.


Set difficulty level
Difficulty levels

The Difficulty Level in Jumble controls the number of rows in the letter grid in the Jumble Window. At the Easy level, there are only three rows (including the Answer Line). Each higher level adds another row, so that at the Expert level there are six rows of letters in the grid, which creates a much more challenging game. Another effect of raising the difficulty level is to reduce the number of hints available to you for each phrase, from a maximum of nine (Easy) down to three (Expert).

The scoreboard keeps separate records for each combination of time limit and difficulty level.


Setting the time limit
Time limits

The time limits available for a round of Jumble range from 2 to 8 minutes in 2-minute increments. You can also choose to have no time limit at all. You set your time limit options using the Time limit radio buttons in the Main Window. Choosing None as your time limit option lets you play a round of Jumble for as long as you like, without having to worry about beating the clock, but it does not allow you to get onto the high-score table, where separate records are kept for each combination of time limit and difficulty level.


Select a font for the letter grid
Choosing a font

You can select any font on your system between 8 and 18 points for use in the Jumble letter grid, though Jumble will use a smaller size if necessary to accommodate a long phrase. If you specify bold when selecting the font, Jumble will apply that styling if size permits; italics, underlining and other style options will be ignored, however.


Pick a new phrasebook
Selecting a phrasebook

The Phrases box at the bottom of the Options Dialog provides a drop-down list of the phrasebooks available to you. Jumble is distributed with two standard phrasebooks that you can use, modify or extend as desired, but you can also add your own. The default phrasebook includes just over a hundred proverbs and catch-phrases, mostly very well-known. The other supplied phrasebook has the titles of Beatles songs, more than two hundred of them.

The current phrasebook is the one that will be used in the next round of Jumble. It is also the one to which the neighboring Edit Phrases button will apply.


Editing phrases

The Edit Phrases dialog lets you add, delete and modify phrases.

To add a new phrase: Type the new phrase into the edit box and click the Add button (or press Enter).

To modify a phrase: Select the phrase you want to change, click the Modify button, and enter the new version when prompted. The Modify button is only available when exactly one list item is selected (don't press the Shift or Ctrl keys while selecting the phrase to modify).

To delete one or more phrases: Select the phrase or phrases you want to delete, click the Delete button, and OK the confirmation dialog.

When you have finished editing your phrases, click the Save Changes button to return to the Options dialog. To abandon the editing changes you have made, click the Cancel Changes button instead.


Phrasebook operations

The Phrasebook Operations button in the Phrases box at the bottom of the Options Dialog invokes the Phrasebooks Dialog. Here you can create a new, blank phrasebook, or rename or delete an existing one.

To create a new phrasebook: Click the Create button, and enter a name for the new phrasebook when prompted. The phrasebook will be immediately available for use.

To rename a phrasebook: Select the phrasebook you want to rename, click the Rename button, and enter the new name when prompted.

To delete a phrasebook: Select the phrasebook you want to delete, click the Delete button, and OK the confirmation dialog. Deleting the phrasebook as such merely removes the phrasebook name from Jumble's database. The confirmation dialog contains a checkbox where you can indicate that Jumble should also delete the underlying data file containing the phrases in the phrasebook.