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Loadstar 128 20
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t.word slide
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2022-08-28
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W O R D S L I D E
by Barbara H. Schulak
The hottest things in Hollywood these days are "meetings". No, not
gatherings of big shots around a conference table, but meetings as in "King
Kong meets Tootsie" or "Ninja Turtles meet Citizen Kane". Apparently
they've totally run out of plots and now can only come up with ideas by
mashing two money-making movies together, hoping the public will be fooled
into thinking the blend is as good as its parts.
Well, if Hollywood can do it, so can LOADSTAR 128. Barbara Schulak's
WORD SLIDE is "BLOTTO meets PUZZLE PAGE" and we think it's better than
anything Hollywood has come up with lately -- even "The Scent of an
Unforgiven Crying Game". It combines the tough, word-oriented challenge of
BLOTTO (on LS 128 #19) with the user-friendly style of Barbara's PUZZLE PAGE
series on LOADSTAR 64 -- a series now in its fifth year.
The challenge is similar to BLOTTO's. You have eight rows with eight
letters in each row. You take one letter from each row and make an eight-
letter word with them. If it's the word the computer has selected, you win.
It sounds easy enough on paper, but believe me it's tough. So far I have
found the word only once without using any of the nifty hints that Barbara
has provided.
Speaking of hints, there are two types: anagrams and revelations. If
you don't know the word (and you probably won't) you can press F2 and the
letters of the word are revealed in a box; only they are anagrammed, or
jumbled. This can be a very helpful hint if you are a good anagrammer. A
revelation hint means simply that you position the cursor on the letter
position you want revealed and press F8. That letter is then given to you.
The only problem is that hints cost you points. If you get the word
without any hints at all you get a score of 15. An anagram costs you 5
points and a letter revelation costs you 1. You can't afford to get many
hints if you want a decent score and average. That's right, your average
score per puzzle is kept. If you can average over 12 you are really a good
WORD SLIDER.
You may use a joystick or the CRSR keys for moving the cursor and
sliding the letters. For things like the help screen, hints and exiting,
you'll need to use the F-keys. You may move to a new puzzle without
counting the current puzzle by pressing F3 for New Puzzle. You don't get to
see the answer. You can see the answer to a puzzle by pressing F5 for
Solution, but that puzzle counts as a game played and your average goes down
accordingly. You get 0 points for that puzzle. There are over 120 words in
the game so you can keep playing as long as you want. Only after 110 of the
words are used does the program allow any of them to be used over again.
NOTE: All of the words are normal, almost everyday words, but this puzzle is
too tough for newcomers to the English language. I'd rate it "For age 12 or
older". Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.
I've always liked Barbara's PUZZLE PAGE style and think it translates
well into the 80-column mode. If you like puzzles like this you might
consider looking into LOADSTAR 64. A PUZZLE PAGE consisting of several
types of puzzles is featured on every issue -- 12 times a year. Fender says
check it out.
FT
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