ioccc/1998/dloweneil

To build:

    make all

There is an alternate version available that has a key configuration that will be more familiar to vi(m) users and also allows one to quit. See alternate code below.

Bugs and (Mis)features:

The current status of this entry is:

STATUS: missing or dead link or links - please provide it or them

For more detailed information see 1998/dloweneil in bugs.html.

To use:

    ./pootris [X size of board] [Y size of board]

Pressing a moves the current letter position counterclockwise/anticlockwise (a)round the border of the playing field.

Pressing s moves the current letter one position clockwise around the border of the playing field.

Pressing d drops the current letter onto the board.

Alternate code:

This version has it so that where in addition to a moving you counterclockwise/anticlockwise h does as well; and in addition to s moving clockwise l does as well. Instead of using d to drop the letter you can do j or space. Finally to quit this version you can press q.

Alternate build:

    make alt

Alternate use:

    ./pootris.alt [X size of board] [Y size of board]

Judges' remarks:

Read the authors' remarks below to find out how to play. We believe that your experience may mirror one of our experiences:

Originally, I didn't appreciate the game. Then I actually read the description of the controls. I started playing. I struggled. I spelled my first "poot". I was hooked ...

Author's remarks:

Usage

    ./pootris [X size of board] [Y size of board]

Synopsis

The object of this game is to spell POOT as much as possible. There is no time pressure. You're given one letter at a time (sort of randomly chosen from the set 'P', 'O', and 'T') and you get to move it freely around the border of the playing board, and decide when and where to drop it into the board. Sound easy? Of course, there's a catch...

Controls

Only three controls:

a: moves the current letter one position counterclockwise around the border of the playing field.

s: moves the current letter one position clockwise around the border of the playing field.

d: drops the current letter onto the board.

To quit, send a fatal signal to the process.

Rules of motion

The different letters move in different directions once dropped onto the board:

P moves diagonally, at a 45 degree angle and in a clockwise direction around the board once dropped.

O moves in a straight line perpendicular to the border from which it is dropped.

T moves diagonally, at a 45 degree angle and in a counterclockwise direction around the board once dropped.

The letters bounce off the top and sides of the board. They bounce in a 'natural' way, with the exception that Os will fall straight down if they hit a side wall.

The letters stop when they hit another letter or the bottom of the board.

Rules of spelling

• When you spell POOT on the board, in any direction, the letters comprising the word will disappear, and any letters which may have accumulated above the disappeared letters will 'fall'.

• Letters can be used in multiple spellings of POOT.

• Chain reactions are possible.

Rules of scoring

• You get one (1) point for each letter you drop onto the board.

• You get a bunch of points for spelling POOT. More if you spell it in more than one way simultaneously.

Some of the obfuscations

• Several different coordinate systems are used. There's the "real" X by Y system used for curses, the "inside the box" X by Y system used for moving things around and finding instances of POOT inside the box, and the position of the current letter, which is a single value from 0 to 2 * xsize + 2 * ysize - 1.

• The fact that x%3 is a perfect hash function for x values P, O and T is used.

• Of course, the code is as hideous as possible, and spells poot for fun (It's also exactly 3217 bytes in length, with exactly 1536 counted characters for purposes of this contest..

• Love that modulus operator! Mmmm...

• There are some equations used which are really unnecessarily ugly, which served the dual purposes of compacting the code and making it trickier to understand. I'm thinking of the equations used to convert between coordinate systems when dropping pieces into the game board.

• Simple and silly ones: short, meaningless (and sometimes misleading (see x)) variable names; hard-coded ASCII numeric values used for character constants; using goto for fun and profit; reusing and re-purposing variables in different places.

• The game itself is simple, but still weird and quite difficult.

Some things I wish I could have fit into this, but didn't have the space:

• Seeding the random number generator (doh!).

• Something to detect when the game is over.

• Some kind of scoreboard.

• Sound.

• Some way of quitting gracefully.

Good Luck!