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LIGHTS OUT v1.0

A logic game that has you click buttons to turn out the...

  • Category Gaming
  • Size 8.4 KB
  • Program by Andy Scheffler

LIGHTS OUT v1.0

A logic game that has you click buttons to turn out the lights.

*** LIGHTS OUT for the Palm Computing Platform

*** v1.0

***

*** By Andy Scheffler ([email protected])

Contents:

0. Freeware Notice

1. How to Play

2. Layout of the screen

3. The Menus

4. Differences from the toy

5. Version History

6. What's planned for the future

7. Technical Notes

8. Philosophy of Lights Out

9. Contacting the Author

****************************************

0. Freeware Notice

****************************************

This program is freeware. No one can charge for it, and it cannot be

distributed without this readme. Although I'm not charging for it, if

you send me an email just to let me know how you like it, I'd

appreciate it.

****************************************

1. How to Play

****************************************

Lights Out is a handheld device made by Tiger Electronics, about the

size of a VHS tape. It has 25 lights/buttons on it which can either

be on or off. The object is to get all of the lights off, hence the

name of the game.

Whenever you hit a button, if that button is off, it turns on. If

that button was on, it turns off. But, the four buttons that are on

the top, bottom, left and right of that button also switch states like

this.

Also, I should mention that you have to do it in a certain number of

moves. Each puzzle has a magic number of moves that is the minimum

number of moves necessary to solve it. If you solve it in this

number, the screen will give a little spiral animation. If you take

anywhere up to 10 extra moves, it will instead flash a number of

buttons equal to the number you were over. Any more than 10 extra

moves, and it flashes a big "X" and you have to start that level over.

There are two modes of play. The main mode is the Puzzle mode. There

are 50 puzzles built into the game. In this mode, when you finish one

puzzle, you advance to the next. The other mode is Random mode. In

this mode, a puzzle is automatically generated at the specified

difficulty. Your progress will be saved if you turn off your Palm

device.

****************************************

2. Layout of the screen

****************************************

The main portion of the screen is made up of the lights. If you tap

one, it will switch states of it and its four neighbors. Along the

right side, there are the following, from top to bottom:

* Number of Moves taken so far in this attempt

* Minimum number of moves necessary to solve this level

* Level number of current puzzle (only in Puzzle Mode)

* Restart button - restarts the current puzzle

* Hint button (only works in Puzzle Mode)

These should be self-explanitory except for the Hint button. The Hint

button only works in Puzzle Mode, and only if you haven't hit any

lights yet. If you hit it, it will flash a light as a hint to start

you off, and then it will make the move for you. You can do this up

to twice on each level, and only on the first 25.

****************************************

3. The Menus

****************************************

Game Menu

---------

Select...: Select a new puzzle

In Puzzle mode, you can select any puzzle you have already completed.

In Random mode, you can select the difficulty of a new puzzle. Keep

in mind that when you select a new level, your current puzzle will be

lost.

Restart: Restart the current puzzle

Same as pressing the restart button, restarts the puzzle to what it

was when you first got it.

Reset: Reset progress in Puzzle mode

After a confirmation, this will reset you back to Puzzle #1 in Puzzle

Mode.

Mode Menu

---------

Puzzle: Selects Puzzle Mode

Selects the Puzzle Mode. You will lose your current Puzzle.

Random: Selects Random Mode

Selects the Random Mode. You will lose your current Puzzle.

Help Menu

---------

Hint: Same as pressing the hint button.

Solve: Solve the current puzzle.

The last resort of the truly frustrated. This button will display

the solution on top of the current puzzle. To solve it, hit all

of the buttons marked with an "x" in any order.

About: Display version info.

****************************************

4. Differences from the toy

****************************************

1) There is no third mode (yet). This was an Edit mode. I originally

tried to program this, but decided to release a first version to

find any bugs before adding it.

2) There is a solve feature.

3) Random puzzles can be selected at any level at any time. In the

toy, you can only select a random level of difficulty no harder

that the current level you are on in the Puzzle mode.

4) Random puzzles of difficulty 14 and 15 took too long to figure out.

I left them out after it ended up taking too long for the program

to find a 14 or 15 difficulty puzzle that didn't have another,

shorter, solution.

5) Progress in current puzzle is saved when pilot it turned off. The

toy only saves progress from puzzle to puzzle.

6) Easier interface.

****************************************

5. Version History

****************************************

v1.0 Jan 19, 1998

-------------------

Everything.

****************************************

6. What's planned for the future

****************************************

* Edit Mode

* Better random puzzle selection process

****************************************

7. Technical Notes

****************************************

* Lights Out stores its data entirely in the Preferences, using up almost all

of its entitled share.

* The solve feature uses an iterative algorithm that finds the best possible

solution after trying all possibilities. It's O(1), because it always tries

everything. It never should take any noticable amount of time.

* This was compiled using the GCC cross compiler and Palm's Header Files. It

was compiled with OS 2 in mind... it works in OS 3, but has not been tested

in OS 1.

****************************************

8. Philosophy of Lights Out

****************************************

As you may have inferred from the solve feature, in any given puzzle

in Lights Out, it does not matter in which order you press the

buttons, only which buttons you press. In most cases, if you press a

certain pattern of buttons, the easiest solution is to press all of

those buttons again. This isn't always the case, which is why the 14

and 15 difficulty puzzles took too long to figure. It had to find a

puzzle which didn't have a shorter solution. I'm curious to know how

the handheld figures this out...

This was the first Lights Out toy. There are two sequels, Lights Out

Cube, where the lights are on a cube, and the switching effects wrap

around the cube, and Lights Out Deluxe, with a 6x6 grid and a whole

lot of other options. The same solution algorithm can be applied to

LOD in most of its modes, but not the cube. I'm still trying to

figure it out.

****************************************

9. Contacting the Author

****************************************

My email is [email protected] and I appreciate any sort of bug-reports,

compliments, suggestions etc.

You can find the most recent version at:

http://www.hamusutaa.com/pilot/lightsout.html

****************************************

This document, as well as the source code for Lights Out, was edited in

GNU Emacs.

v1.0 1/19/98

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