Hangman Gold 3.0 Readme

Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/roshinlal/hangman.html
Yahoo! Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hangmangold

About the Game
Features of Hangman Gold
How to Play
Multiplayer Game
Multiple Views
Creating & Using Categories
Disclaimer & Distribution

About the Game

Hangman Gold is a computerized version of the classic word game of the same name. The game was originally named Hangman but with version 3.0 the name has been changed to Hangman Gold.

Features of Hangman Gold

Thousands of words in many different categories
Mix and play with words from different categories
Clean interface, very easy to use
Can be played with keyboard alone
Different views : Standard, Compact & Minimal
2-person Multiplayer over LAN or Internet
Easy to add new categories and words to the game
Download new categories off the net
Edit categories to suit your needs
Specify minimum word lengths
Play with time limits
Can handle files of upto 2GB size
Game is completely FREE

How to Play

The interface of Hangman Gold is very intuitive, you can just start up and go! Start a new game by selecting New game option from Game menu. Now you can select the categories with which you want to play, choose as many as you like. Once a game has started you can use the keyboard or mouse to play. The game will display statistics such as the number of words attempted and percentage of words you got correct.

Big category files might take some time to load.

Multiplayer Game

I believe Hangman Gold is the first Multiplayer Hangman game ever! The game offers a challenging multiplayer play as follows:

The turns alternate between the two players at start of every new word.
A player can keep on guessing letters as long as he gets them right, at each wrong guess, the turn passes to the other player.
If time check is enabled, a seperate clock is maintained for each player (sort of like chess).
The player who finishes a word correctly gains a point, if the man gets hanged, the player who had the last turn looses a point.

Starting a multiplayer game

Choose Multiplayer from the Game menu.
You'll be asked whether you want to host or join a game. One person will have to host the game while the other person joins the game.
The person who hosts the game will be Player 1 and all game options are decided by the host.
The other person can connect to the host by entering either the Host Name or the IP Address of the host.
In order to find the name of your computer, go to Control Panel, choose Network and look for the Name field under Identification tab.
Once Player 2 supplies the Host name or IP address and selects Connect, Hangman will establish a connection and you're ready to play.
Now Player 1 can set different setting such as Time Check, Minimum Word Length etc and start a new game by choosing New from Game menu and specifying the categories.

Some tips

You can only start a Multiplayer Game before any Category files has been loaded. Also the only way to continue after a Multiplayer Game is by exiting and restarting.
The status bar will show who has the current turn.
To play two player game on a single computer, run two sessions of Hangman Gold and set up one as Host and use the Host name of your computer in the second session to join to the host.

Multiple Views

Hangman Gold supports three different views - Standard, Compact and Minimal. The last two are great for saving screen real estate. You can play Hangman while working on Word Processor, Spread Sheet etc or even while browsing the net.

While in Compact or Minimal view, a new menu item Next appears which has an equivalent function as that of the Next button. Moreover you can go on to the next word by clicking on the display text.

Creating and Using Categories

To add a category to the game just copy the category file to the Categories folder in the directory where you installed Hangman Gold. (C:\Program Files\Hangman Gold\Categories is the default).

Creating category files

A Hangman Gold category file should have the following structure:

The file should be plain text
The file should have extension .hc
The initial lines(header) has the following format:
1. The first line should contain the word HANGMANGOLD
2. The second line should contain the title of the category
3. The third line should contain the name of the author
4. The fourth line should contain the version number of the category file
5. The fifth line should contain the date of creation of the category
6. The sixth line should contain a sample word
7. The seventh line can contain any comments
8. The eighth line contains the total number of playable words in the category
The lines nine and ten are reserved for future use
The eleventh line onwards contains the words in the category, they should be:
1. Sorted
2. Maximum of 128 characters per line
3. Can contain spaces, special symbols like , ' : ; etc and any other printable characters
Total file size can be up to 2GB

Distributing category files

Anyone can create new categories for Hangman Gold and distribute it in any public medium, but the files should not be packaged with Hangman Gold. For example a person can create a new category and put it up on his home page but he should not bundle Hangman Gold and the new category file together (for example in one ZIP file) and distribute it. You are free to distribute the category through the Hangman Gold Yahoo! Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hangmangold.

Disclaimer & Distribution

Hangman Gold is provided "AS IS". The author or the other people whose names are mentioned in this document are in no way responsible for any damages arising from the use of Hangman Gold software and makes no warranty or representation, either express or implied, including but not limited to, any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Hangman Gold is FREEWARE, i.e. you can copy and use the program at will provided no extra cost is charged for its distribution and usage except for the nominal cost of distribution media, packaging, postage etc.

The category files provided with Hangman Gold are copyrighted by its individual authors. The author has no responsibility over them.

You may freely redistribute the Hangman Gold installation package, on the conditions:

[a] that the whole package is redistributed, AND,
[b] that NO alteration is made to the package, or to any of the files in it, AND,
[c] that no charge (other than charges for disk duplication and handling) be made for any redistribution.

Bulletin boards and CD-ROM producers may freely distribute this package, subject to the above conditions.

Use of this product for any period of time constitutes your acceptance of this agreement and subjects you to its contents.

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