The game of ??
(Aka. Sherlock, Who owns the zebra (or fish, or whatever...) )

Warning : Like the game, this page is very much preliminary and a work in progress !

History
Game
Game board
Vertical clues
Horizontal clues
Download


History

Once upon a time ...
In the good old DOS days ...
On a computer long dead ...

There was this game.
It was a simple game.
A game of deduction and logic.

It was called Sherlock, and you just had to try it once (or as many times as it took to learn the rules), to get hooked !

And man was I hooked ......... I still am.

You probably know the game :

The Englishman lives in the red house.
The German lives next to the blue house.
The one who smokes Kings has a pet dog.

......

And so on.

Now your task is to deduce who lives in what house, what they drink, smoke, eat etc.

As a programmer I have always wondered how to make a program able to build those clues, and for the last 15 years  (let's say), I have had an entry in my project folder (or directory in the DOS days) named sherlock, to which i returned now and then, normally without any success !

A couple of months ago, I decided to try yet another approach, and this time I had some sort of success !

I now have a version of Sherlock for OS/2 (in very early pre, pre, etc. beta) highly inspired by the DOS version by Everett Kaser.

Try it, and let me know what you think.

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Game
Example of a game.
(Click on image to view)
The idea behind the game is fairly simple, you have a game board, this is a kind of work sheet, where you can remove possibilities as you work your way through the clues.
The clues is separated in two parts : Vertical clues and Horizontal clues, these clues are graphical implementations of expressions like :

The Englishman lives in the red house.
The German lives next to the blue house.
The one who smokes Kings has a pet dog.

etc.

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Game board


Example of gameboard
This is where most of the game happens. 

The game board consists of six rows of six cells. Each row has a theme, faces, numbers, houses etc.

Each cell can contain either one large image, or up to six thumbnails.

When the game starts, most (if not all) cells has six thumbnails.

You remove a thumbnail by right clicking on it, and (in the highly unlikely situation, where you have made an mistake ;o), you can recall the thumbnail by right clicking on the space reserved for it.

You can enlarge the thumbnail by left clicking on it, this will automatically remove any other thumbnails from the cell, and also remove any instances of the enlarged thumbnail from all other cells.

If you restore any thumbnails in an cell containing an enlarged image, the image will revert to thumbnail, without restoring whatever was removed as it was enlarged !

When all images has been enlarged, the game is over, and you have either solved the riddle, or not ;o)

 

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Vertical clues


Example of vertical clues

You find the vertical clues in a panel at the bottom of the window, the panel can scroll horizontally if there are too many clues for them all to be shown at the same time. They are called vertical clues because they describe the relations in a column.

When a clue has played out its use, you can remove it, by right clicking on it. If you has been too hasty dismissing a clue, you can view removed clues, by selecting More clues from the menu.

There are two forms of vertical clues :
 

Clue Example Description
Must As in the expression The inhabitants of the green house has a pet dog, i.e. the green house must be in the same column as the dog.
Must not As in the expression The house of the Englishman is not red, i.e. the red house must not be in the same column as the Englishman.
As you can see, nothing to it, simple and easy ;o)

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Horizontal clues


Example of horizontal clues
You find the horizontal clues in a panel on the right side of the window, the panel can scroll horizontally if there are too many clues for them all to be shown at the same time. They are called horizontal clues because they describe the relations between columns.

When a clue has played out its use, you can remove it, by right clicking on it. If you has been too hasty dismissing a clue, you can view removed clues, by selecting More clues from the menu.

The horizontal clues are presented in a number of rows, and one or more columns, each clue consists of three images side by side.

There are five forms of horizontal clues :
 
Clue Example Description
Neighbor to As in the expression The Englishman is neighbor to the green house, i.e. the Englishman must be in in a column adjacent to the column containing the green house, on either side
Not neighbor to As in the expression The Englishman is not neighbor to the German, i.e. the Englishman must not be in a column adjacent to the column containing the German.
Neighbors to As in the expression The Englishman and the red house is neighbor to the dog, i.e. the Englishman and the red house must be in columns adjacent to the column containing the dog, on either side, they may not occupy the same column !
Not neighbors to As in the expression The Englishman and the red house is not neighbor to the dog, i.e. the Englishman and the red house must not both be in columns adjacent to the column containing the dog, one of may, but not both. This clue has one further hidden information, it tells me that the Englishman and the red house are placed in two separate columns with one column between.
To the left of (or to the right of) As in the expression The Englishman lives to the left of and the blue house, i.e. the Englishman must be in a column somewhere to the left of the column containing the blue house (and thereby must the blue house be placed in a column to the right of the column containing the Englishman).

Confused ?

OK the horizontal clues are somewhat complex, but after some practice, it's not so bad ;o)

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Download

You can download the latest version of the game ? here.

Please observe : This is an early alpha / pre beta release, to keep debugging simple, it only has two game boards !

I'm aware there are some short-comings in the presentation of the game, but right now I'm more interested in problems with the clues and game play !

I'm very interested in your opinion, and any ideas you might have.

Please let me hear from you.

Kim Foder
kim@foder.dk