Hangman

[MJE]

     Well, the strategy I mentioned before is always statistically the best to follow in Hangman - but, to be a bit different, I will offer L and R this time.
     I think it's most unlikely that a title that long would be a single word. Not giving word breaks makes the game harder, of course.

Regards, Michael.

[Moonraker]

Yes, maybe Daisy doesn't realise there are no gaps. I don't think there's a title with one word that long?

[MJE]

Yes, maybe Daisy doesn't realise there are no gaps.

     Well, if she'd typed a space, wouldn't it appear? After all, the words in my posts don't get squashed together into one long word.

Regards, Michael.

[Fiona1986]

You can't make longer spaces. I just tried. I did 5 lines with single spaces between, then 5 spaces, then 5 lines with single spaces. It came out as 10 lines with single spacing.

[Anita Bensoussane]

The game is more of a challenge without gaps between the words anyway - not necessarily a bad thing?

[Maureen1954]

The Mystery of the Secret Room

[Daisy]

Sorry folks - been out all evening. The spaces were there before I submitted it!
_ _ _/_ _ _ _ _ _ _/_ _/_ _ _ _ L _ _ _ _/_ _ R _

[Maureen1954]

Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm

[MJE]

You can't make longer spaces. I just tried. I did 5 lines with single spaces between, then 5 spaces, then 5 lines with single spaces. It came out as 10 lines with single spacing.

     Oh, I see - yes. I was thinking of single spaces, and somehow didn't take account of multiple spaces.
     I've come across that - there seems to be a lot of rubbish software that does that. I would like to avoid software that does that, but it's so rife nowadays that it's not always possible. I think any decent software should render exactly what one types exactly as they typed it, and not "process" it in ways like that.
     If it helps anyone, "Option-space" on a Macintosh, and "Alt-0160" on a Windows computer may produce a hard space that will remain - that's how I indent my paragraphs in this forum - unfortunately the forum software is that type that doesn't respect what one types - but I can't guarantee that *other* software that reads what you type will respect the exact form of what you type. Also, the hard-space H.T.M.L. code " " sometimes works in representing a space that will remain and can be used multiple times - but by no means always. (It doesn't in this forum.)
     (* SIGH! *) This problem never seemed to come up when software was MS-DOS based, back when I started on computers. Most of the software I, at least, used scrupulously respected and observed the exact way you typed text. It's one of the biggest headaches in computers nowadays.
     For the purposes of this game, I'd suggest using dashes to represent multiple spaces for still-unguessed letters; if the problem-setter wants to indicate separate words, then a single space can represent gaps between words, and it never needs to be a multiple space.

Regards, Michael.

[MJE]

     Oh - I just worked out that it was "Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm" before noticing that Maureen had already got it. I suspect that, with a limited number of titles available, it's often going to be easy to work out the answer before many letters have been guessed. Clearly my "L" and "R" alone were enough to enable someone to single out the title.
     It appears that using underline characters instead of dashes for empty spaces works well - in some software, underline characters merge into a continuous line so that it's difficult to see how many there are. But if that doesn't happen, it's probably better to use underline characters to indicate unguessed letters, because sometimes a dash occurs as actual punctuation in a title, so maybe, on second thoughts, that's best avoided for blank letters.
     Daisy, if you've had spaces - even single spaces - just disappearing, that *is* odd. I thought software respected single spaces, if not multiple ones - maybe the state of things is worse than I thought.

Regards, Michael.

[Daisy]

Correct Maureen. Over to you for the next.

Michael, thank you for your explanation.... I had left spaces when I typed the original, but as Fiona said, it doesn't translate to the screen as it should!
Actually, indicating the spaces in whatever way, does make it easier to guess a title. In the original Hangman game, which many of us must have played at school, when usually only one random word was chosen, it was harder to make a guess before a number of letters had been successfully placed.

[MJE]

Correct Maureen. Over to you for the next.

Michael, thank you for your explanation.... I had left spaces when I typed the original, but as Fiona said, it doesn't translate to the screen as it should!

     Does make me wonder what software and/or configuration you're using, Daisy. If I were a software producer and those I employed produced software which did that, it simply would not be acceptable. It's especially worrying if software not only collapses multiple spaces (which is already totally unacceptable in my view) but also obscures single spaces, and thus mashes words together. And of course I would avoid using such software on my own computer if there were any alternatives possible.

Actually, indicating the spaces in whatever way, does make it easier to guess a title. In the original Hangman game, which many of us must have played at school, when usually only one random word was chosen, it was harder to make a guess before a number of letters had been successfully placed.

     In the American puzzle magazine "Games", there is a page of "Hangman" puzzles each month designed to be played alone (despite its title, it is really a puzzle magazine more than a games one) - and they are genuinely hard to do. I suspect they tend to choose words which are not necessarily little-known, but which have highly unusual patterns of letters.
     However, if this game is going to stick to titles of Blyton novels, I suspect most of the puzzles will be solved by someone after only two or three letters have been solved - especially if word-breaks are indicated, which it has been rightly pointed out makes it *much* easier (not just a bit). If it's necessary to make things a bit harder, could I suggest broadening the phrases used to be any phrase or quotation from, or relating to, an Enid Blyton book, or just to Enid Blyton's life in some sense? It could even be just any Blyton fact or opinion that anyone setting a puzzle cares to compose. This would give more variability and unpredictability: remember, the original Hangman game can include any word at all, with no limitations of topic or anything - or, in some cases, it can include phrases too. (I once played one, from that "Games" magazine, which featured movie titles, and said up-front it did - but I was very severely handicapped there because I know little about movies, and there are lots of movie titles I don't know or recognize; but even so I managed to guess some of them before I was "hanged".)

Regards, Michael.

[Maureen1954]

Thank you Daisy

_ _ _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ / _ _ _

[MJE]

     Starting with E and T may *always* be the optimal move to begin with, but it would get boring - so I'll submit something a bit more odd: W and G.

Regards, Michael.

[Maureen1954]

_ _ _ / _ _ _ / W _ _ / W _ _ _ _ _ / _ / _ _ G