zingo playtest rules From: ThnkTank@cris.com (a brain club) Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000 Hi! This is the rules document, presented as part of our request for 'playtest' help. If it weren't for continually adding new features to the server program, we wouldn't need the help, except for the fact that we could sure use some scores to 'initialize' the ladder. There is an accompanying "zingo playtest request" article. But first, the decision process for picking the newgroups. rec.puzzles; certainly on topic there; each game is a puzzle. rec.games.pbm: certainly not the usual pbm game; but certainly pbm. rec.games.abstract: the complete word list is supplied so there is no question that all the information required is there; 'abstract' (as in English, not in rga!)? I think so. The meaning of the words is immaterial; organi- zation of the letters into partic- ular 5-letter groups is somewhat arbitrary. Indeed, we already have games setup where the 5-letter 'words' are strictly random letter combos; for every WG5S game, there is a cor- responding LL5S game. Would they be of more interest on rga? alt.prisons: We posted a query to alt.prisons as to whether it would be the right place to ask/allow prisoners to sign up; we've PBMed versus prisoners before, and got tromped once by George in Death & Sorrow. (You out there, George?) We got no yeah nor nay, but did get an inquiry that has resulted in one playtester starting a set. We're sympathetic to the plight of prison- ers, however deserving of more or less pun- ishment than what they're getting. So. Please give these simple rules a look over, and maybe give a set of zingo a try; respond to the playtest request article, please. Eleaticus a brain club game club by email rules document. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (c) Think Tank Eleatic, 1994, 1996; ThankTank@cris.com Revision Date: 06/13/96 The Single-Word, 5-letter word, secret word games ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ In these games, there is a secret word that you must discover by the application of test words - one at a time per secret word - that themselves would be legal secret words. Each time you apply a test word, you are told the count of letters that appear in both the secret word and the test word. When the result is a '5', you have found the secret word - even though the test word is just an anagram of the secret word; stare, stear, rates, etc are equivalent. Your score on a secret word is the number of test words you used to get a '5'. Secret: horse; test: songs; result: 2. There will be a multiple of eight secret words in every set provided. Your score on each set will be the sum of the individual secret word scores. As of the date of this revision, sets will be of eight words each, and each set score will be the sum of the eight individual scores. These set scores will position you on a 'ladder' that will be the eventual basis for ratings like those of the United States Chess Federation, and will provide the basis eventually for ladder challenge play, a standard form of club competi- tion in which you may challenge the players very close to your position on the ladder, and take their place if you beat them. ZINGO: 5-letter words; zero duplicate letters allowed. The word 'zingo' contains no duplicate letters. Formal sets of secret words will have a title that begins with WG5S.ZD. WG=word game; 5S=5-letter words, a single word per 'game'; ZD=zero dupli- cates. GINGO: 5-letter words; one duplicate letter ALLOWED but NOT required; all the words that are legal in zingo are also legal in gingo, but in gingo even more are legal. The word 'gingo' contains one letter duplicated, the 'G'. Formal sets of secret words will hve a title that begins with WG5S.SD. SD=single duplicate allowed. GONGO: 5-letter words; two letters duplicated are allowable, but not required; all words that are legal in gingo are legal in gongo. The word 'gongo' contains two duplicated letters, the 'G's and the 'O's. Formal sets of secret words will have a title that begins with WG5S.DD. DD=double duplicate allowed. Further, however, words with tripled letters are also allowed; in fact, every word in the official word list is legal in GONGO. The informal names of the games, then, SHOW you what is allowed as a legal word. The formal names TELL you what is legal. The Official Word List ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Only words in the provided word list are allowable secret or test words. The secret words are randomly chosen by the brain club computer, you chose the test words! The list of 4204 words includes some words not likely to be used in normal conversation or writing, but everyone is on the same foot. Perhaps one is mis-spelled? We don't know that. But everyone is on the same foot. Our programs do not count illegal words against your score. And do not count a test word twice if you accidently try to use it more than once on the same secret word. This means that you may mail the same test words to us more than once to make sure we get them and the only problem will be that the brain club program has to process it twice, and mail the results to you twice. The word list comes in two forms. In one, the words are in alphabetical order. In the other, a file that is twice as large, the words are in order of the five letters of the word after those letters have been alphabetized themselves: awash => aahsw; baker => abekr; etc. Two approaches to playing WG5S games: In both, you start with high-frequency letters. Eleaticus - who is not eligible for any prizes if brain club WG5S games get that far - only played zingo in the past and always started with words like (train/louse) and (snail/route). Any of those four words would be the first test word, and the second would usually be the other word in the pair; in which case the third test word would likely be a truly possible combination of the letters in the first two tests. For example: train 2 louse 2 baler ? 'baler' has two letters (a, r) from train and two (l, e) from louse. When testing the computer program in various ways, Eleaticus decided to try a different method even on zingo: start with a very high frequency word, and on the second word start with actual possibilities. The second word in the train/louse, snail/route technique is not a possible secret word after anything but a zero result for the first test word. Eleaticus' two zingo results during testing were 66 and 71 with this second method. Using email to play ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ When you get an email response from brain club showing you the results of your latest (and previous) tests, there is very little you have to do to make the next tries. You do not have to edit-out anything you don't want to mess with. That includes both special characters your reader inserts to tell you what it is quoting from brain club's email, and any and all lines you don't really need in your response. Just (1) replace a certain * with the 'private name' (a password, in effect) that you have already given us. This is on a line that includes: "[]NAME: * ". (2) for each of the secret words in the set on which you wish to make a new test, replace an * with the new test word on the line that (for game 7) includes: "[]GAME 7: * ". (3) if something did go haywire with the computer program, and a []GAME line does not appear in the brain club email to you, just add it yourself if you want to make a new test on that word. (4) Rule (B) may require a little editing. Rules: (A) Only one set of secret words in each email you send us. (B) The Subject: line will always include the 'public name' you have given us, with or without the 'Re:' mailers insert in fromt of the subject as it came to you from brain club. If your reader/mailer inserts something else, get rid of it, but tell us what it is so we can remove that as a problem for both of us. (C) The []NAME: line must be present; it works as a password. (D) The []BEGIN: line must be present; it tells the computer what set of secret words and rules to use. (E) The []END: line must be present. Actually, the program does not always require it, but there may well be places in the computer programming that will mess up if it isn't there. (F) If you want the NEXT response to you to go to a different email address, change the * on the []ADDRESS: * line to the new address. We do not mail responses to the incoming From: address; our game mail will always go to the address on record. If you want an immediate change of address, that means you first send us the address change without a new test word, then you send us new test words. But remember, you can always try the same test words twice without penalty. At present, every game email you send us will result in brain club showing you all the pre- vious tests on every word not yet found. Good hunting! Thanks for playing zingo, gingo, gongo! Up