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Advanced Lingo For Games
by Gary Rosenzweig

Chapter 14 Section 6

Like in many word games, the theme of this game can be changed by simply changing the content, rather than the code. In the case of cryptograms, you can have the nature of the phrases used suggest a theme. In addition, there are a few things that can be done to the code to make the game different.

Phrase Ideas

The types of phrases that can be used are only limited by your imagination. Here are some suggestions:

Adding a Timer

A clever programmer might want to attempt to add a timer to this game. The timer can either limit the amount of time the player has to figure out a phrase, or can subtract from the total amount of points that a player earns by solving a phrase.

This second idea is much like the timer used in the trivia game in Chapter 13, "Trivia Game.". This turns the game from a quiet pastime to a hectic race.

Levels of Difficulty

Instead of having the entire game in one frame, you can have the game in several frames, each one calling on a different pool of phrases. Each of these phrase sets can be more difficult, adding more or less letters depending on which you consider more difficult.

You can also just keep the game in a single frame and order the phases from easiest to hardest.

Allowing Spaces

You may not want to limit the player to just typing the 26 letters of the alphabet. Instead, you may also want to allow them to use the spacebar to clear out a letter. This way, if they think that an "R" equals an "E," and then they realize that "E" is actually some other letter, they can position the text cursor over the "R," and press the spacebar to clear out all of the "R" letters, using an underscore for those once again.

Hints

With some additional programming, you could add a hint feature. Perhaps you could make it so than when the player hits a certain key, like a question mark, the program will look to see which character is correct for that cursor slot, and insert it.

Give Up

In addition to hints, you may want to allow the player to be able to give up. In this case, you should reveal the entire phrase. You can do this by writing a new handler tha simply sets the encoded phrase to the real one and displays it.