CyberMind v1.1

Welcome to CyberMind! A game designed to satisfy both mind and vision. It is a clone of the popular puzzle game, and gives you the opportunity to play the game in different difficulty levels.

CyberMind was made for two particular reasons. First, we wanted to contribute to the world a different type of game. A visual attraction to the eye, something beyond the "rectangular window world", something that moves and reacts in a different way, something that Kai Krause has taught us. The second reason was to make a program that solves the popular mind bending game and helps people learn more on combination solving. CyberMind can give you a hint to solve the actual puzzle.

Interface: explanation of the interface in general
Commands & Keys: command buttons and their functions
Windows: windows that appear in the game
How to Play: things you should know
Tactics: strategies to win
The Design: the design of the program images
Freeware - Contact: how to register and contact us
License: license agreement

Interface

CyberMind's user interface is not at all familiar. The game does not even have a title bar or a border. It uses true color images, and therefore a display adapter with the capability of 65,536 or true color resolution is required to view the beauty of CyberMind. The optimal display resolution is 800x600 pixels, but in greater resolution, CyberMind looks a lot better.

Moving windows

To move windows simply click on their surface (not on a "hot" area) and while holding the mouse, move it around. This will move the window along with its contents. You may experience some delay in redrawing the image in some slow graphic adapters, but this is ok although CyberMind is greatly optimized in image display.

Clicking on buttons

Several buttons are placed in CyberMind's windows. Moving the mouse pointer over a button, usually makes this button lit! Some buttons do not react to this movement such the selection of the combination in the Options Window. When a button is lit, click it with your mouse, just once, to activate it.

Window positions are maintained throughout executions of the program, and the general interface will remain as left the last time you used the game.

Commands and Keys

To the right of the main program window, you can find a cluster of buttons arranged in a circular order.

In the center is the Evaluate button and around it are the following buttons, starting from 12:00 o'clock and turning clockwise:

New, Options, Hint, High, About, Help, Exit

The are also two buttons on the top-left corner of the cluster. These are used to toggle the viewing of the Timer and the Combinations windows.

Shortcut Keys
F1	Help
F2	New
F3	New, Hint and Evaluate all in one click
F5	Options
F6	Hint
F7	High
F11	Timer Window On/Of
F12	Combinations Window On/Off
Space	Evaluate
Enter or Space	instead of choosing Ok in several Dialog Boxes
Esc	instead of choosing Cancel is the Options Dialog Box

The Windows

The Main Window

This is the main window of the game. You can see the most important components in the image.

The Options Window

Options

The Options window contains the settings for the current game. After making changes, pressing Ok will start a new game using the options you selected. Pressing Cancel will abort the changes and return you to your current game.

Settings:

Spaces: 4 or 5
Choose between four or five spaces that the combination will have.

Colors: 6, 8 or 10
Choose the number of colors that can be used to build up a combination.

Doubles: Yes or No
Yes, means that a combination can contain a color two (or more!!!) times. This makes solving a lot more difficult.
No, means that every color is used exactly once in a combination. Try this if you are a novice player.

Combinations:

To give you a hint about the difficulty of each setting, here is a table of the combinations that are possible using the above settings:

	No double colors		Double or more colors
	4 spaces	5 spaces	4 spaces	5 spaces
6 colors	360	720	1,296	7,776
8 colors	1,680	6,720	4,096	32,768
10 colors	5,040	30,240	10,000	100,000

The High Score Table

High Scores

This is the High Score table window. Arranged in rows and columns are the best scores achieved. Every score is given as two numbers separated by a slash (/). The first is the number of attempts you made and the second is the number or seconds it took you to find the correct combination.

The number of attempts is the most important one. This means that fewer attempts make a new high score. When the number of attempts is the same as a previous score, less time is better.

Reset Scores

The Reset Scores button, clears all high score entries. To clear only one high score entry just double click on it.

The Timer Window

Timer

This is the Timer Window. On the left-hand side you can see the number of seconds elapsed since the start of this game, while in the right-hand box, the best score for this game setup is shown - if there is one.

In the image above you can see for example, that we started this game 11 seconds ago and the best score on this level so far is "5 attempts in 165 seconds".

The Combinations Window

In the combinations window, you can see the number of combinations left, after the past attempts in the game. While you try to solve the problem, CyberMind tries also to solve it, making it possible to give a hint, every time you request it.

If you see for example, that there are 259 combinations left, this means at during play, the combinations you built and the results you got have eliminated certain combinations, and now the only possible solutions are 259. Pressing hint at this time will select one of those possible solutions and display it in the current row of the main window. If you see a 1, it means that CyberMind is now able to determine the one and only solution. So think clearly and find it alone, because using hints does not count in High Scores!

How To Play

CyberMind is a quite simple game to play; yet, it requires strength in mind, in order to find the secret combination. After starting a new game, a combination is placed in computer's memory. Using the colored spheres in the left area of the main window, enter your combination starting from the lowest row and press the Evaluation button.

CyberMind will reply with a number of white and red pegs right next to your combination.

A Red Peg means that one of the colors is right and is in the right place.
A White Peg means that you have found a color but it is not in the right place.

Then the game goes on, until you find the combination or make use of all the 12 attempts you have.

Note: Combinations are placed from bottom to up, and you cannot place a colored sphere in a wrong row (e.g. not the row you should play).

See also: Placing Colors to find out which way you should use the interface and Tactics to learn how to win

Placing Colors

Colors can be placed either by dragging and dropping from anywhere in the main window, or by right-clicking a color. Right-click places automatically the color you selected in the first available place in the current combination (from Left to Right).

You can drag a previously used sphere from another combination. Not only from the left-side area which contains all colors.

Checking Color Existence

If during play you are sure that one of the colors exists in the secret combination, or another color does not exist, then you can click on the balls in the left-hand side of the main window while holding down the [Ctrl] key. This will place a small "X" mark on the ball. Doing this twice will place a small "O" mark on the ball. Repeating that again will remove the small mark from the ball.

Tactics

There are two main variations on this game. In the Options window, you will find the Doubles Yes/No setting. If you select Doubles, means that a combination may contain one color two or more times. For example:

Red-Red-Blue-Red-Yellow

If you play without Doubles, then the combination may contain each color only once.

In the following examples colors will be substituted by numbers.

Playing without Doubles

Start with a combination with many colors (e.g. 1-2-3-4). After some play check for combinations that have many colors in common but different results. For example if :

1-2-3-4 gives you 0 reds 3 whites
2-3-4-5 gives you 0 reds 2 whites
3-4-1-6 gives you 1 red 2 whites

Rows 1 and 2: by replacing 1 with 5, you have one color less, so 1 exists but 5 doesn't.
Rows 1 and 3: by replacing 2 with 6, we have no change in the number of colors found.
So if 2 exists then 6 exists too, if 2 doesn't 6 doesn't either.

Finding differences like these, will make you a great player. So, practice!

After finding out which colors exist, then you should find the exact position of them. The previous combinations will help you. Where did you get red pegs? Where did you get whites? Why? All these questions must be answered in order to reveal the secret combination.

Playing with Doubles

Try to start like without Doubles. First, you should find out which colors are being used. Later, you will be sure that if a double (or triple or whatever) exists that will be one of the colors in use.

The previous results will help you with this task.

A helpful "strategy" is to try a comb with only one color. This will show you how many times this color is used. This is a very bad practice however, but in your first steps it may prove worth trying.

Playing safe

Remember not to make mistakes like placing a color in a position that it is impossible to be as in the next example:

1-2-3-4 gives you 0 reds and 1 white.

You decide to keep color 2, and add colors 5, 6 and 7. Don't place 2 in the second position because 2 is not there, that's for sure (check why). So try this:

5-6-2-7 and assume that it gives you 0 reds and 2 whites.

You can't be sure that 2 exists, but if it does, it is certainly not in the second or in the third position.

This way you simply go on forward trying not to make a mistake that will give you information you don't need.

The Design

The design of this game, took a long time, longer than coding, but we think it is worth it. CyberMind claims to be the most beautiful program in your hard disk, the most awkward and most impressive one.

We have used Adobe Photoshop v4.0 for all image manipulation. The plastic 3D look of the main window is a result of the use of Lighting effects and many other built-in filters. Kai's "Spheroid designer", from the collection of Kai Power Tools v3.0 plugins, has been used to make the colored spheres, and Alien Skin's "Glow" and "Drop Shadow" have been very helpful in creating text.

The shape of main window is perhaps a bit weird. We wanted the window to be a container for our stuff, little colored balls and buttons. We didn't fit all these things in a rectangular window, because they didn't fit. Of course we could make a rectangular window, and pretend that this suits our needs and place a menu and all things straight in rank and file like soldiers. But this is easy and certainly not attractive nor challenging.

Here is a quote that precisely describes what we think and explains the whole philosophy behind CyberMind:

"When I see Windows 95 imposing these structural guidelines, down to how things work, where they're placed, how the buttons look... that to me is fascism. It certainly is not a good thing"
Kai Krause Metatools

Microsoft Windows ©1981-1996 Microsoft Corporation
Adobe Photoshop ©1989-1996 Adobe Systems Inc.
Kai Power Tools © MetaTools Inc.
Alien Skin Filters ©1994-1995 Alien Skin Software LLC

Freeware - Contact Us

CyberMind is FREE! You can use it, show it to people and distribute it freely to your friends, as long as you do not modify the program or the accompanying documents, neither charge any money for them.

Visit our web site at http://www.cylog.org/

License Agreement

License

CyLog Software grants you a nonexclusive license to use the accompanying copyrighted software program (the Software), which includes any associated software components, and any online or electronic documentation, subject to the terms and restrictions set forth in this License Agreement. By installing, copying, or otherwise using the Software, you agree to be bound by the terms of this License Agreement. You are not permitted to lease, rent, distribute or sublicense the Software or to use the Software in a time-sharing arrangement or in any other unauthorized manner. Further, no license is granted to you in the human readable code of the Software (source code). Except as provided below, this License Agreement does not grant you any rights to patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, or any other rights in respect to the Software.

Restrictions

Modification, reverse engineering, reverse compiling, or disassembly of the Software is expressly prohibited, except and only to the extent that such activity is expressly permitted by applicable law.

No Warranty

The software and documentation are provided on an "as is" basis and all risk as to the quality and performance of the software is with you. Because the software is licensed free of charge, CyLog Software makes no warranties, express, implied or statutory, as to any matter whatsoever. In particular, any and all warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement of third parties rights are expressly excluded. Further, CyLog Software makes no representations or warranties that the software and documentation provided are free of errors or viruses or that the software and documentation are suitable for your intended use.

Limitation of Liability

In no event shall the author or CyLog Software be liable to you or any other party for any incidental, special or consequential damages, loss of data or data being rendered inaccurate, loss of profits or revenue, or interruption of business in any way arising out of or related to the use or inability to use the software and/or documentation, regardless of the form of action, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), strict product liability or otherwise, even if any representative of the author or CyLog Software has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This disclaimer of liability for damages will not be affected by any failure of the sole and exclusive remedies hereunder.

Should you have any questions concerning this License Agreement, or if you desire to contact CyLog Software for any reason, please contact us by using our on-line contact form at: http://www.cylog.org/contact-us.do

CyberMind is copyrighted and protected by the international copyright laws