Secodash (Secret Code Dashes)

[ShirleyMSmith]

Secodash is a puzzle game that I started in April 2006. It was inspired by an episode of The Amazing Race from March or April 2006. If I remember correctly, the contestants had to combine two sheets of semi-translucent paper to get a clue for the race.

The game makes up playing pieces that are each half of a group of 5 characters - each half character is made up of blue or brown 'dashes' that when combined with it's corresponding brown or blue mate, make up a whole character. The half character pieces are combined by laying the 2 pieces in the same rectangle on the playing board. Messages are divided into 5 character clusters which are made into each pair of playing pieces.

Note: This game plays very easily and well on my faster computer that has a Prescott dual processor running Windows XP Professional. It runs fine on my Pentium 3 processor, HP omnibook 6000 laptop, running Windows 2000 Professional, however the sprites move much more sluggishly or 'dreamily' on the laptop, so I can't 'audition' the sprite pairs as easily on the laptop as on the faster computer.

[ShirleyMSmith]

This is an update to the main program Secodash and the sub program 'Make_New_Message_Files.bas'.

I fixed the new version of the program so that a stack of pieces that are on the same cell will move together as a unit when using the right mouse button. It is now much easier and faster to move the pieces around.

I also added a few other things.

• The program keeps track of which puzzles have been played, so that puzzles are not repeated as frequently.
• The player can now pause a game and then resume the paused game.
• When a game is won, there is now a more gradual announcement, rather than the old abrubt 'Notice' window.
• The player can choose in an option window whether or not to have music play when a puzzle is solved.
• The player can choose in an option window whether or not to have the game board window close if they choose to not play another game after solving a puzzle.
• The program keeps track of what was the last level chosen on exit and starts up with that level on the next start-up

Also there is a Menu choice to 'Show Solution' which I added for debugging purposes, and decided to leave it in for now. I'm thinking of adding a choice to let the player choose what level to have the game start up with, or choose to start up using the last level played.

The program 'Make_New_Message_Files.bas' can be used to create or add new messages for playing Secodash. The program is updated making it much more user friendly now with a GUI interface. Currently you could switch between topics by running this program before playing the game, switching back and forth between different main Message files. The file 'QuotesMessages.txt' was used to create the messages that the game starts out with.