Help on Find 0 3.0 GUI Version ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: The Game Itself The Rate Main Number Score Basic Game Operations Modifying Constants What each Constant Means Email Me First of all, something very important to note. The window shifts to fit the 'Game Pieces' on your Window. Therefore, it is best to avoid depending on the non-moving locations of the buttons and such. The Game Itself --------------- First, the board is set. After that, nothing happens until you click 'Start'. Then it runs off into oblivion. How do you make sense of this madness? You'll notice that it's color-coded. But how so? What does it mean? -- The Rate -- Well, the Rate ('increment' may be a better name for it) is blue by default (see 'Modifying Constants' section). Therefore, everything else that is blue has a direct relationship with the Rate. The buttons below the Rate are colored blue: When you click "+1", the Rate increases by 1. Clicking "-1" causes the Rate to decrease by 1. When you click\ "/2", the Rate divides by 2. And clicking "*2", of course, doubles the Rate. When you click "(-)", the Rate, rather than decreasing by 1 (like "-1"), reverses itself to negative or positive. You can also click on the keys of your keyboard to get the same effect as clicking on these blue buttons. You don't have to worry about the shift button. Click "+" to increase the Rate by 1, "-" to decrease by 1, "*" to double, "/" to divide. Reversing it is a little more confusing; click "\" to reverse the Rate between positive and negative. It is best to use keystrokes instead of the provided buttons; the buttons move when the numbers get bigger, along with the rest of the window. You'll also notice to the right of those buttons is a long list of underscores, occasionally some other symbol. This is your record, so you can see what you're doing. Each character of the record reflects a move, based on the keys of the keyboard. Underscore represents no move. This can be useful for verifying that you are actually doing something that the program is reading. The Rate is constantly adding 1 to itself, whether you do something or not. Of course, this can be counteracted by subtracting 1, but that's beside the point. This is the magic behind the boomerang effect. To understand this effect, you can see it visually (you may need to read the rest of Game section before you can fully understand what's going on); just let the program run for a few seconds, and then reverse the rate by clicking either "\" on your keyboard or the "(-)" button on the window. Then observe what happens within another few seconds. -- Main number -- To the left of the rate, colored green by default and in bold, is the Main number (used to be called the Visible number). Notice that nothing else is colored green. This is because there is nothing else that directly affects it. Well, almost. The Rate directly affects it, but it has its own color. -------> KEY FACTS REGARDING THE GOAL!! <------- The Main number is always added to the Rate to get the new Main number. Your goal is to get the main number down to zero (0). This must be done by indirectly affecting it through the Rate. For information on affecting the Rate, see "The Rate" subsection above. -- Score -- The score is roughly the number of digits of the number you get when you take the highest number you reach and divide it by the number of itterations. More precisely, it is the log of the high divided by the itterations+1 (+1 is to avoid error when dealing with 0). You'll notice a few buttons that are colored red by default, just like the score. See the next subsection "Basic Game Operations " for details on that matter. -- Basic Game Operations -- In the upper-left hand corner is the 'Start' button, until you click it, then it splits into the 'Pause' and 'Stop' buttons. When you press 'Pause', the game pauses, and the button becomes 'Resume', until you click it again, and it goes back to 'Pause'. 'Stop', well, stops the game. 'Quit' closes the Find 0 window. When it becomes possible to save your game, this button will do so automatically. 'Help Me!' opens this help window, as you probably discovered. So why are these colored red like the Score? It's because they are all directly related to the Game's operation (except for the Help button, which is related to your skill in the game). The ultimate goal is to get as high a score as you can, so these pieces are, in a sense, very closely related to the score. Modifying Constants ------------------- You can modify a few of the features, called 'constants' of the game. If you open up the program (use any text editor), you will see, after the introductory notes, a Constants section. You can modify any of the items between '#### Constants ####' and '#### End of Constants ####'. But be sure to follow the Python assignment rules: variable_name=assignemnt If you want to set it up to be more visually appealing, you can insert spaces; Python doesn't care. variable_name = assignment Also, be sure to leave the variable names EXACTLY as they are. And one more thing: the values are NOT checked for validity. Exceptions will be raised if you use invalid values. -- What each Constant Means -- FONT_SIZE is the size of the text in the game (14, by default). The Title is double this. FONT_FAMILY is the family, "Courier New" by default. Yours has to be a supported Tkinter font, and preferably with fixed width. Be sure to place it between quotes. The colors (MAIN_NUMBER_COLOR, RATE_NUMBER_COLOR, SCORE_NUMBER_COLOR, TITLE_COLOR) can be supported color names (in quotes), or Hexadecimal. Hexadecimal colors can take the forms "#rgb", "#rrggbb", or "#rrrgggbbb". The TITLE_COLOR is the blaring "Find 0" title across the top. The others are self-explanatory. The shared colors are stated in the section "The Game Itself" at the top of this help dialogue. the TIME_BETWEEN_ITTERATIONS is in milliseconds (thousandths of a second), and is the time between each itteration of adding 1 to the rate. Email Me -------- Need more help? You can always send me an Email at dustan@sheltx.com. If you have anything to tell me, please do. Ideas, questions, problems, anything about the game should head right over to me via Email.