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Crypto-King
Version 1.1
by
Robert Bromley
July 20, 1992
If you would like to make a print-out of this documentation,
I would recommend that you print out the file "CK_printme.doc".
It will make a neater print job. This file is the same, except it
has all of those messy ANSI codes removed.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION ........................................... 1
1.1 What are Cryptograms? ............................ 1
1.2 What is Crypto-King? ............................ 1
1.3 Feature Summary .................................. 1
1.4 Hardware Requirements ............................ 1
1.5 Software Requirements ............................ 1
1.6 Restrictions ..................................... 2
1.7 Copyright ........................................ 2
1.8 Starting Crypto-King ............................ 2
2 SHAREWARE .............................................. 2
3 HOW TO SOLVE A CRYPTOGRAM .............................. 3
4 THE SCREEN LAYOUT ...................................... 3
5 PLAYING CRYPTO-KING .................................... 4
5.1 Using the Keyboard ............................... 4
5.2 Using the Mouse .................................. 6
6 THE TRIED/WON INDICATORS ............................... 6
7 THE MENUS .............................................. 7
7.1 Project Menu ..................................... 7
7.1.1 New Game (F1) .............................. 7
7.1.2 Start This Game Over (F2) .................. 7
7.1.3 Enter Your Own (F3) ........................ 7
7.1.4 Quit <Esc> ................................. 7
7.2 Help Menu ........................................ 8
7.2.1 Frequency Table (F6) ....................... 8
7.2.2 Most Common Letters (F7) ................... 8
7.2.3 Most Common Words (F8) ..................... 8
7.2.4 Patterns (3 Letter) (F9) ................... 8
7.2.5 Patterns (4 Letter) (F10) .................. 8
7.2.6 Gimme a Hint! <Help> ....................... 8
7.2.7 I Give Up. Show Me!! (F5) .................. 8
7.3 About Menu ....................................... 8
7.3.1 The Program ................................. 8
7.3.2 Shareware ................................... 8
8 ALT.DB .................................................
9 THE "SCRAMBLER" PROGRAM ................................ 9
10 INCLUDED FILES ......................................... 9
10.1 Registered Version .............................. 9
10.2 This Version .................................... 9
11 GENERAL ................................................ 10
12 REVISION HISTORY ....................................... 10
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 What are Cryptograms?
Cryptograms are those strange loking groups of gibberish that you
often see in newspapers and magazines, usually on the same page as the
Crossword puzzles. They are essentially scrambled (or coded) messages
that must be de-coded to be understood. This is done by substituting
all occurances of an existing letter with a different letter. If the
correct substitutions are made, the message becomes readable.
1.2 What is Crypto-King?
Crypto-King (CK) is a program that allows you to solve Cryptograms
more easily and more neatly. A coded message is randomly picked from
a database of 100 such messages, and displayed on the screen. You
select a letter you want to replace, and the letter you want to
replace it with, and all letter substitutions are made automatically.
If you decide you have substituted the wrong letter, you don't need
an eraser. Just "give back" the letter, and choose another.
Crypto-King was written in HiSoft BASIC Version 1.05, and compiled
using the HiSoft BASIC Professional compiler.
1.3 Feature Summary
Some of the features of Crypto-King are:
- Fully intuitionized.
- All features may be accessed by either the keyboard or the mouse.
- Help windows to assist you in making the right decisions.
- Enter your own Cryptograms from within the program.
- If things are really tough, CK will provide you with "Hints".
- If things are desperate, CK will give you the solution.
- Two (so far) databases of 100 Cryptograms each.
- A "Scrambler" program that will allow you to easily scramble
quotations, etc., and write them to a file. You can create your
own Cryptogram databases.
- Well-behaved in a multi-tasking environment.
1.4 Hardware Requirements
There are no special hardware requirements for this program.
1.5 Software Requirements
CK assumes the presence of a normal libs: directory. Specifically,
the following libraries are required:
- diskfont.library
- exec.library
- graphics.library
- intuition.library
In addition, the database file "CK.db" must be in the
Current Directory when CK is run.
1.6 Restrictions
As of this version, CK will only load a Cryptogram of a maximum
of 76 characters, on 2 lines of 38 characters each. Try a sample
from the database provided to see how this looks.
1.7 Copyright
Crypto-King is Copyright (1991) by Robert Bromley.
All rights are retained by the author.
This program is Shareware, and may be distributed free of charge.
Nominal charges for copy media only are permitted.
1.8 Starting Crypto-King
From the Workbench; just click on the icon.
From the CLI; usage is: [Run] CK
NOTE
Refer to Section 1.5 - "Software Requirements".
2 SHAREWARE
Shareware is (usually) good software at reasonable prices. I hope
you consider Crypto-King to be in this catagory. My previous programs
were released as Freeware, but as I have invested 800 to 1000 hours
in Crypto-King over the last 16 months, I decided to see if anyone
thinks my efforts to be worthwhile.
Therefore, if you think CK is worth it, I am requesting a Shareware
contribution of $12.00.
In return, I will send you a disk with a fully operating version of
Crypto-King (Refer to Section 10 - "INCLUDED FILES"), the Scrambler
program, (Refer to Section 9 - THE "SCRAMBLER" PROGRAM), and my
undying gratitude, (not for the money so much as for knowing I'm not
wasting my time).
The address is:
Robert Bromley
1168 Timber Lane
Victoria, B.C.
CANADA V8Y 1E4
If you don't think CK is worth $12.00, you can send what you think it
is worth. (I just hope it covers the cost of a disk and postage!).
If you can't, or won't, send anything, well, God bless you, and I hope
you enjoy it anyway.
By the way, if anyone sends me a usable database for CK, created with
the Scrambler program or any other means, I will be happy to refund
their Shareware contribution.
3 HOW TO SOLVE A CRYPTOGRAM
This section is purely subjective. I'm sure many people have their
own ideas of the best way to solve Cryptograms, and if you are an
experienced Cryptogram player, feel free to skip this section.
Rule number 1 is to always go for the easy words first.
Rule number 2 is to look for words with recognizable patterns.
The first thing I look for is a 1-letter word. In English, this word
must either be an A or an I (or, very occasionally, an O). In the
majority of cases, it will be an A. (Check the "Most Common Words"
item of the "Help" Menu to confirm this).
If the first word of the Cryptogram is a 3-letter word, you will find
that it is often THE, the most common word in the English language.
Look for a 4-letter word with the pattern X__X. That is, with the
first and last letters the same. There are less than 10 words that
this can be in English, and it will usually be THAT.
(Check the "Patterns (4 Letter)" item of the "Help" Menu).
A 2-letter word beginning with T must be TO.
Look for 2-letter (Digraph) or 3-letter (Trigraph) combinations that
occur frequently in the Cryptogram. Then check the "Frequency Table"
item of the "Help" Menu to find out what the most popular Digraphs and
Trigraphs are in the English language. Some will fit, and some won't.
If you actually study the Help windows, and become familiar with the
patterns, you will find the solutions come much easier.
If you just can't seem to get started, ask for a Hint!
4 THE SCREEN LAYOUT
CK will open on its own screen. At the top is the program Title.
Below the Title is the Available Letters (or Upper) box. This box
displays all the letters of the alphabet which you have not already
selected. Once a letter has been selected to replace a letter in the
Cryptogram, it cannot be used to replace a different letter, (unless
you choose to "give it back" first. Refer to Section 5 - "PLAYING
CRYPTO-KING").
Below that, is the Main (or Lower) box. This is where the scrambled
Cryptogram is displayed. As you make your letter substitutions, the
substituted letters are displayed above the letters they are being
substituted for. Sounds like a lot of substituting, but that is what
the game is all about. And CK will do it all for you automatically.
Either the Upper or Lower box will always have a red border around it.
This identifies the Active box, ie. the box that CK is expecting you
to select something from.
Below the Lower box is the Message box. This box will also tell you
which of the Upper or Lower boxes is the Active box.
The bottom of the screen is where Hints will be displayed,
if they are requested.
5 PLAYING CRYPTO-KING
This section will be much more easily understood if CK is running on
the screen in front of you as you read it.
5.1 Using the Keyboard
OK, so all the necessary files and libraries are where they should be,
and you have started CK. The screen appears, and the Message box
tells you CK is "Finding a crypto-gram . . .". At this point, CK is
searching the Current Directory for a file named "CK.db", which must
be a file containing 100 scrambled Cryptograms and their solutions.
After choosing one of the 100 at random, the Cryptogram is loaded and
displayed, in white, in the Lower box, which will be the Active box
with the red border around it. The Upper box will contain all 26
letters, A to Z. The Message box will now request that you
"Select a letter in the LOWER box to be replaced".
Determine which of the scrambled letters you want to substitute first.
IE., suppose the Lower box had:
L P E J A U - N T W K T Y H K H B O A X H A T Y Q I W
A U J Z H E , H W F O F I L H A T U W H Z A U U .
First, we notice the 1-letter word H, and assume that this should
actually be an A. Therefore:
- Type H on the keyboard (upper or lower case).
- The first occurance of the letter H will become cyan color, to
indicate that this is the chosen letter, and the red border will
shift to the Upper box to indicate that this box is now Active.
The Message box will now read "Select a letter from the UPPER box
to substitute".
- Since we want to substitute an A for the H, type A.
- The letter A will now disappear from the Upper box, and will appear,
in yellow, above all of the 7 occurances of H in the Lower box.
The red border shifts back to the Lower box, and the Message box
again tells you to select from the Lower box.
Next, we notice the combination A X H A, a 4-letter word with the
first and last letters the same. This word is probably THAT. This is
reinforced by the fact that the H already has an A above it. So:
- The Lower box is Active; press A, the letter you want to replace.
- The Upper box is now Active; press T, the letter you want to
substitute for the A. Ts will apear above all of the As.
- The Lower box is Active; press X.
- The Upper box is Active; press H.
Now, we have a 2-letter word beginning with T, which can only be TO.
- The Lower box is Active; press U.
OOPS! Darn! Pressed Y by mistake. No problem. Press the
Cursor Down key. This will de-select the Y, and make the Lower box
Active again.
- The Lower box is Re-Activated; press U.
- The Upper box is Active, press O, to replace all Us with Os.
The Lower box will now show:
T O - A A T H A T
L P E J A U - N T W K T Y H K H B O A X H A T Y Q I W
T O A , A A O A T O O .
A U J Z H E , H W F O F I L H A T U W H Z A U U .
Note that all of the punctuation is in place when the game starts.
There is no guarantee that what we have done so far is all correct,
but some mistakes are immediatly obvious. IE., suppose you thought
the U in the first word might be an I, instead of an O, so you make
the substitution. You would then notice that the last word is shown
as a 3-letter word ending in II. This obviously cannot be, so you
must "give back" all of the Is to the Upper box.
To "give back" a letter, simply press the <Delete> key. The Lower
box will become Active, if it wasn't already, and the Message box
will show; "Select a letter in the LOWER box to give back". In this
example, press I on the keyboard, and all of the Is will disappear
from the Lower box, and the I will reappear in the Upper box, ready
to be used again.
So, looking at what we have solved above, we have a good start at
solving the whole Cryptogram. The next step might be the 3-letter
word following the comma. In this instance, the word is often THE,
AND or BUT. Since the A is already in place, try AND.
If you want some help in solving the Cryptogram, the Help windows are
at your disposal. Pressing the Function keys F6 to F10 will display
these windows. Refer to Section 7.2 - "Help Menu".
If you get stuck at this point, and you cannot find the clue you need
in the Help windows, you can ask for a Hint. CK will provide up to
3 Hints per game (except for Cryptograms manually entered yourself.
Refer to Section 7.1.3 - "Enter Your Own"). To get a Hint, just press
the <Help> key. A requester will pop up, and if you confirm your
desire for a Hint, one will be provided, at the bottom of the screen,
in the form of: Hint #1: L = C
This means that the correct substitution of the Ls in the Lower box
is with Cs. Make sure the Lower box is Active, (by pressing the
Cursor Down key, if necessary), and press L. When the Upper box
becomes Active, press C, and the substitution will be made.
NOTE
If you had previously substituted the Ls for some other letter,
nothing will happen when you press L. You will first have to
"give back" the letter over the Ls, using the <Delete> key.
If, after all of your best efforts, you feel that you are unable to
solve the Cryptogram, but you are curious of the solution, you can
then use the F5 Function key. This will pop a requester asking you if
you are Giving Up. Press "N" to Continue the game. If you press "Y"
you will be shown the solution, and the game will be counted as
Not Won, (a polite way of saying "Lost").
You now have four options:
1. Press F1 to Start a New Game.
2. Press F2 to Start the Current Game Over.
3. Press F3 to Enter a Cryptogram of your own.
4. Press <Escape> to Quit Crypto-King.
5.2 Using the Mouse
Crypto-King may also be played entirely with the mouse.
Refer to Section 5.1 - "Using the Keyboard", for hints on game play.
This section will discuss only the mechanics of using the mouse
instead of the keyboard.
First of all, the mouse selections must be fairly accurate to ensure
that the correct letter is being selected. For this reason, CK comes
equiped with a custom mouse pointer, which resembles a large red
squarish "O". If the pointer surrounds the letter you want to select,
you will have the right one. I have also found that if you have a
mouse accelerator installed, it takes awhile to get used to making
accurate selections. Turning down, or de-activating the accelerator
may help. Or, there is always the keyboard.
Using the mouse is very intuitive.
When the Lower box is Active:
Clicking on a white, previously unselected letter in the Cryptogram
will select it, turn it a cyan color to show it is selected, and make
the Upper box Active.
Clicking on one of the yellow letters (part of the solution), will
"give back" that letter to the Upper box. The Lower box remains
Active.
When the Upper box is Active:
Clicking on a letter in the Upper box will cause that letter to be
substituted for all occurances of the previously selected letter
(now a cyan color), in the Lower box, and make the Lower box Active.
Clicking in the Lower box will de-select the chosen (cyan) letter in
the Lower box, and make the Lower box Active.
That's pretty much all there is to it.
Refer to Section 7 - "THE MENUS", for descriptions of getting Hints,
Giving Up, Starting Over, etc.
6 THE TRIED/WON INDICATORS
CK keeps track of the number of games Tried, and Won. The score is
updated after a New Game is started. When you start your second game,
the Tried: indicator appears in the lower-left corner, showing
Tried: 1. If the first Cryptogram was solved correctly, the Won:
indicator in the lower-right corner will also show 1, otherwise 0.
A game is not counted as Tried until you have selected 6 or more
letters from the Upper box. This gives you the opportunity to
"sample" a game before trying it. Selecting New Game after removing
only 5 letters from the Upper box will start the new game without
counting that game as either Tried or Lost. If you remove 4 letters,
then select Start Game Over, the game will count as Tried after 2
more letters are removed from the Upper box.
A game is counted as Won if the Congratulatory message appears in the
Upper box. This indicates that your solution of the Cryptogram is
the correct one. Naturally, the game is not counted as Won if the
solution is there as a result of the Help Menu item, "I Give Up!!"
Any game which you enter manually, using F3 or the Project Menu, is
not counted as Tried, Won, or Lost.
7 THE MENUS
This section describes the operation of the Menus. The keyboard
equivalents, where applicable, are also shown.
7.1 Project Menu
7.1.1 New Game (F1)
A requester will appear asking if you really want to start a New Game.
This will cause CK to re-search the Current Directory for the file
"CK.db", and randomly pick another Cryptogram to display. The Tried
and Won indicators are updated.
7.1.2 Start This Game Over (F2)
A requester will appear aking if you really want to re-start.
Re-starts the current game from the beginning. If 6 or more letters
have been selected from the Upper box, the game is counted as Lost.
7.1.3 Enter Your Own (F3)
You may see a Cryptogram in a newspaper or magazine, or have one you
created yourself, that you want to play on CK. A window will open
with 2 string requesters. Type in the Cryptogram, and it will be
displayed as a regular game. Pressing <Esc>, or entering nothing in
both requesters will abort this function. If you enter text and
change your mind, Alternate-X will clear the requester. Bear in mind
that the Cryptogram can be no longer than 76 characters (38 characters
on each of 2 lines).
Since CK cannot possibly know the correct solution to these manually
entered Cryptograms, it cannot know if the game has been Won.
Therefore, these games are not counted as Tried, Won, or Lost, and
you will not be advised if the game is completed.
7.1.4 Quit <Esc>
This does pretty much as you might expect. A requester will ask for
confirmation before shutting down Crypto-King.
7.2 Help Menu
7.2.1 Frequency Table (F6)
This opens a window displaying the following information:
- The most common 2, 3, and 4-letter words in the English language.
- The most common digraphs and trigraphs (2 or 3-letter combinations).
- Possible double-letter combinations.
7.2.2 Most Common Letters (F7)
This opens a window displaying the following information:
- The most frequently used letters, in decreasing order of usage.
- The most frequently used letters which start a word, in order.
- The most frequently used letters which end a word, in order.
7.2.3 Most Common Words (F8)
This opens a window displaying the most common 100 or so words in
the English language, in decreasing order of common usage.
7.2.4 Patterns (3 Letter) (F9)
This opens a window displaying common 3-letter words which contain
2 letters the same. They are shown in the form similar to: X_X
This indicates the first and last letters of this word are the same,
while the letter indicated by the underscore is a different letter.
It also shows possible combinations of words containing apostrophes.
This is very helpful, since there are not many of these combinations.
7.2.5 Patterns (4 Letter) (F10)
As above, except showing 4-letter words with patterns.
7.2.6 Gimme a Hine <Help>
There are 3 "Hints" available per game. A requester will inform you
how many Hints you have remaining, and ask if you want another.
Hints are shown at the bottom of the screen.
Refer to Section 5.1 - "Using the Keyboard".
7.2.7 I Give Up. Show Me!! (F5)
A requester will ask if you really want to Give Up. If you confirm
by either pressing "Y" on the keyboard, or clicking on "Give Up",
the solution will be displayed in the Lower box, and the game will be
counted as Lost.
7.3 About Menu
7.3.1 The Program
The usual "About" stuff.
7.3.2 Shareware
Recaps some of the information in Section 2.
8 ALT.DB
The file "Alt.db" (Alternate), included in this package, is a 100
Cryptogram database, just like "CK.db", except that the Cryptograms
are all different. If you want to try some new Cryptograms, just
rename CK.db as something else, and rename Alt.db as CK.db.
That's it. The next time CK is Run, it will search the new database.
9 THE "SCRAMBLER" PROGRAM
I have written a companion program for Crypto-King called Scrambler.
To Run it, click on the icon or, from the CLI enter: [Run] Scrambler
A window opens with an explanatory message. Press any key.
Scrambler is a very simple utility program to assist anyone who may
want to create additional databases for CK. When Run, it merely asks
you to input 1 or 2 lines of unscrambled text. It then scrambles that
text into a Cryptogram, and with your concurrence, writes both
versions to the sequential file "RAM:CKtemp.db". You may then rename
the file, if you wish, and copy it to the same directory as CK.
When you want to use this new database, just rename "CK.db" as
something else, rename the new one as "CK.db", and you're all set.
If "CK.db" is more than 400 lines long, the lines over 400 will never
be accessed. If less than 400 lines long, an error will be generated
sooner or later.
10 INCLUDED FILES
10.1 Registered Version
Registered users of Crypto-King will receive a disk containing
the following files:
- CK (+ icon) ; the program, (without the initial Shareware window).
- CK.db and Alt.db (+ icons) ; two 100 Cryptogram databases.
If more are created, they will be included.
- Scrambler (+ icon) ; the database creator.
- CK.doc (+ icon) ; this file.
- CK_printme.doc (+ icon) ; this file in a form which prints
more neatly.
10.2 This Version
This Distribution Version of Crypto-King is identical to the
Registered Version, with the following exceptions:
- There is only 1 database included (CK.db), containing 6 Cryptograms.
- This version will not search a database larger than 6 Cryptograms,
and has the opening Shareware message.
- The Scrambler program has been omitted.
11 GENERAL
If you enjoy solving Cryptograms, as I do, I hope you enjoy this
program. If you have any comments, suggestions, or criticisms,
I would be more than happy to hear them.
Also, if I have missed any English words in the Help windows
"Patterns (3 Letter)" or "Patterns (4 Letter)", please let me know
so that I can include them in future versions.
If anyone is still puzzling over the sample Cryptogram above,
the solution is:
CRYPTO-KING IS A GAME THAT IS FUN TO PLAY, AND EDUCATIONAL TOO.
12 REVISION HISTORY
Version 0.1: Internal
- Basic program. Works pretty well.
Version 0.2: Internal
- Added Help windows. Program now sometimes crashes when a
Help window is called. Too often.
- Highlight the selected letter in the Lower box.
- Bug fixes.
Version 0.3: Internal
- Re-wrote structure to change the way Cryptograms are handled
in memory. Program is no longer crashing.
Version 0.4: Internal
- Added the custom pointer.
- Added "Gimme a Hint".
- Many more bug fixes.
Version 0.5: Internal
- Added the Tried: and Won: indicators.
- Added the option to play from the keyboard.
- Improved the routine for picking a random Cryptogram.
Version 1.0: First Release, December 1991
Version 1.1: 72300 bytes Released July, 1992
- Fixed a problem that could cause the Cryptogram to stop
loading if the RMB was pressed.