Programmed by C.J.Richardson. The game. Guess Who is a game for 3 to 8 players.
The object of the game is to guess the
names chosen by the computer for the
other players.
You must do this by asking questions
of the other players which can be
answered yes or no.
Some of the questions are provided by
the computer. Sometimes you are allowed
to ask any question you like.
Sometimes the other players have to
give you clues as to the name of
their character. These clues are
provided by the computer.
The winner is the player with the most
points when all the players names have
been revealed.
Secret. Open. ?=Question. !=Clue.
P ? ! ? ! ? ! P ! Player Points ? 1. FRED 0 2. CHRIS 1 ? 3. CAROL 0 ! 4. JOHN 1 5. GILL 0 G 6. PETER 0 A 7. 0 8. 0 ? Player 6. Your go! ! (G)uess a name. (M)iss a go. ! (R)oll the dice. ? P ? ! ? ! ? ! P * The rules. Play commences with player 1 pressing
"R" to roll the dice. The "*" moves
around the play area the correct number
of places.
There are 5 possibilities at this point
1 You are on a square marked "P"
"P" means POINT, your score will
be increased by 1, it is now the
next player's turn.
2 You are on a square marked "A"
"A" means ANY. You may ask any
player a question about their
character as long as the
question can be answered yes
or no.
3 You are on a square marked "G"
"G" means GUESS. You must guess
another players character. To
guess a character you must have
at least 1 point. If you have no
points, you will not be able to
ask the question. If you guess
the character correctly, you
gain 5 points. If you are wrong,
you lose 1 point.
4 You are on a square marked "?"
This means computer question.
You may ask any player one of
the questions that the computer
displays, the question has to
be answered with a simple yes
or no.
5 You are on a square marked "!"
This means player clue.
You may ask any other player
to give you a new clue from
their cluesheet.
The squares for QUESTIONS and CLUES can
be either red or yellow.
If the square is YELLOW it is OPEN.
This means that all players may see the
questions/clue and all players may hear
the answer.
If the square is RED, the question/clue
is SECRET. Only a selected player may
see the question/clue. The answer to a
question must always be either yes or
no.
The program asks you for the player's
names. Enter the names, pressing RETURN
after each.
To finish entering names, press RETURN
without typing a name. You must enter
at least 3 names or the program will
start again.
If you enter 8 names, which is the
maximum, the program will immediately
continue to the next stage.
The program now searches through the
datafiles to assign a character that
has not been used before to each
player.
If there are not enough characters
(this means that you have got through
110 characters!), then the file is
reset so that all the characters are
available again. Press a key, the
program then starts again.
Next you will be asked if you want to
print your character out to paper. If
you answer "Y" to this, each character
will be printed out on a separate sheet
with a prompt between.
In this way each player may remove
their own sheet from the printer,
without anyone else seeing the details.
Using the printout option is advisable,
as you will need to make notes, and
refer to your character a large number
of times during the game.
If you answer "N" to the printout
option, don't worry, you may see your
character on the SCREEN whenever you
want.
The game now starts.
The play area is a series of red yellow
and blue squares around the edge of the
screen.
At the top of the screen is a reminder:
RED is a secret, YELLOW is open. In the
center of the screen are displayed the
player names, their scores and a
reminder of the available options.
The options are:
1 - 8 Display character and clues
G Guess a player's character
name.
M Miss a go.
R Roll the dice.
Only the player given that number (0 to
8) may press to see that character.
The program prompts you and will
generally not allow anything illegal to
happen.
There is one noteable occasion when you
have to be careful!
When you decide to guess a character.
Press G. Then tell the player who
you think they are. The player then
tells you whether you were correct or
not.
If you were correct, press that players
number. You will be awarded 5 points.
If you were incorrect press RETURN. You
will then lose a point. For this reason
you must have at least one point before
you may guess a player's character
name.
You must be careful when viewing your
character on screen. All the other
players must look away from the screen
before you press your number.
The character's name will not be shown
unless you hold "N" at the same time as
holding your number i.e. "1" and "N".
You must also be careful to note
whether questions or clues are open or
secret. If you have to give a secret
clue, everyone but the player asking
for the clue must look away from the
screen before you press the clue number
to reveal. Never reveal your whole clue
sheet!
Basically that's about it, it may seem
complicated at first, but it is worth
persevering because it is really quite
a fun game.
If you want to play with just 2 players
change line 120 of "GessWho" from:
<3 to <2
However, it's not too good with just 2
players.
If you want to add more characters (or
start again), use the program "GessWri"
"GessWri" adds data onto the end of
an existing file called "GessDat", it
uses a file called "GessPtr" for it's
addresses, the file "GessPtr" is a flag
file, this file marks characters when
they have been used. This file must not
be locked.
If using DISC, remember to be VERY
careful that you don't create CAN'T
EXTEND errors. To avoid this, copy the
files onto a blank disc copying GessDat
last.
It is theoretically possible for the
program to be able to use a character
file &FFFF long (about 220 characters).
Basically, the program "GessWri" will
allow you to enter:
1. The character's name.
2. The character's birthdate, place of
birth, date of death.
3. General information about that
person.
4. to 13. Ten clues about the person.
You may then edit any of these fields
until you are happy with them.
To edit a field just press the relevant
field number, then re-type the text.
To quit editing and save the character
to disc press RETURN without entering a
field number.
Once you have comitted data to disc
editing of that data is not easy! So be
careful. To help you if you do err, you
can use the option (T) to test from the
main menu. This will display info about
all the data already on disc to help
with direct editing.
To be honest, I could have written
something to do the job, but it
probably would have been a total waste
of time! I entered 110 characters
without a problem.