ASSIGNMENTS (more detailed description):
WARNING #1: Many specific directions to you are included below.  You will lose points for not following these directions.  Print them out and check them before and after each item.
WARNING#2: 4 of the games on your diskette (Moida3, Farmtown, Depth 3, and Morph 5) have NOT been assigned any points. DO NOT DO THEM!! (unless you're really bored or something).
WEEK A:
  1. E-mail and Web Assignment: a. Purchase the Possibilities Workbook (it has a number on the cover), b. Go to the computer lab of your choice (I prefer Mendocino Hall 2007), c. While there, view the syllabus (http://www.csus.edu/indiv/d/doolittle/syllabus.htm), d. Get a SacLink account (they’ll show you), and e. E-mail me (psych49@csus.edu) a message containing your name, SS#, SacLink account # (sac followed by 5 digits <This is a must!>), your section id (P49S1, P49S2, P49S3, or P49S4) and Possibilities Workbook #.  I will then create a diskette for you and put it in an evelope which you can retrieve from the student pickup box in the Psych Dept Office (Amador 350). Because snags are common, do this assignment RIGHT AWAY!  ALL e-mail from me to you will go to your saclink account. To use an off-campus e-mail account, modify your saclink “forwarding” settings (they'll show you how) to get my messages forwarded to you.  You can send your homework in from anywhere.
WEEK B:
1. Cave of the Troll: This assignment is a computer game which you will play on a Windows-type computer, which may belong to you, a friend, or the university.    This game is a text-based, role-playing, science-simulation game (whew!); which is to say, you enter an imaginary world represented by words on a computer screen and type verb-object commands (GET BROOM) in order to make things happen. By typing commands, you bumble around in this imaginary world until you have accomplished the things I programmed into the computer. The goal of this exercise and the other text adventure games, is for you to make sufficient and varied MISTAKES! This may sound strange, but what I want you to do is to just TRY THINGS and see what happens. This goal means that you can relax about being "efficient" and concentrate on being "innovative." In Cave of the Troll, for example, after you READ SIGN, you will learn that you are supposed to GET some coins (DIME, etc.) and DROP them at the entrance. After you GO SOUTH and other directions, you will see some coins as well as a BROOM, and later, a KEY, which you can USE if you want. Copy the map in the space provided in the Possibilities workbook (you'll do this for all the adventures). The text adventures I have for you are ordered in terms of difficulty; and, you may find that you don’t make a lot of mistakes in the early ones. Be of good cheer; the later ones will give you lots of opportunities to make mistakes and be innovative – you may even have some that you spend hours on and don’t finish and that’s okay – it’s the mistakes that count – the things you try that don’t work. Thomas Edison once said, "I failed my way to success." I want him to be your model. When the late Noble laureate Linus Pauling was asked how he managed to have so many good ideas, he said, "I just have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones." Be a Pauling!
Here are the instructions for using the diskette I gave you: 1.Put your diskette in the drive it fits in. This will probably be the A: drive. From Windows: Click on Start (lower left corner), the click Run.  In the Run window, type A:MENU  (DON'T BROWSE!) and click OK. The MENU program should present you a screen with a large number of programs to choose from. You will be choosing alternative A, entitled CAVE OF THE TROLL. You choose TROLL with a single key press by pushing the letter A. NOTE: You should not, repeat NOT, push the ENTER or RETURN key after you push A - the program should run just from one key press.
When you are done with TROLL (you READ SIGN after you DROP PENNY as I recall), the program should return you to MENU and you can choose QUIT (alternative Q) from the menu.You should now be back in Windows. Now, double click on NOTEPAD, a program in the ACCESSORIES folder. In NOTEPAD, pull down the File menu to OPEN. In the lower right hand corner the drive menu is probably set to C (the hard drive). Change it to A (the drive where your progress is stored). In the upper left window, you should see TROLDATA.TXT, which is the record of your progress in the CAVE OF THE TROLL game (yes, every word you typed!) and REPORT.TXT, which is a record of your overall progress through the diskette. Double click on TROLDATA.TXT and it should appear on the screen in the main NOTEPAD window. You can now print it by pulling the File menu down to PRINT. That should give you a nice printout of your progress in CAVE OF THE TROLL. NOTE: if you are printing on a laser printer you may have to adjust to margins to get all of your work to show on paper.

2. MOIDA1: (moida in da foist) Choose this game from the menu and you will be presented with a series of 10 deductive reasoning puzzles. Please read and study syllabus, homework descriptions, and the Deductive Reasoning chapter of the Possibilities workbook before starting. I’ve put a little quiz at the start of MOIDA1 to test how well you’ve studied this material. Unfortunately, question 10 (points for DR exam is out of date) -- Answer this question TRUE (though it isn't) to humor the program.  Note: #11 is TRUE also.  After the beginning stuff, you will be faced with 10 logical puzzles to solve. Keep records of your play in the Possibilities workbook matrices. I recommend that you do not start this assignment unless you have plenty of time because it does not allow you to (SAVE GAME and RESTORE GAME the way the text adventures do). You must solve at least 9 out of the 10 in a set.  The results of this activity contribute information to REPORT.TXT and MOIDDATA.TXT which you can e-mail to me when you have succeeded. Again, make a paper copy.

To send me an e-mail of your work, bring up REPORT.TXT into NOTEPAD, as usual. Then from the Edit pull-down menu choose Select All, which will highlight the entire document. Then, from Edit, select Copy. This will place a copy of the document onto the computer’s clipboard (RAM memory). Now, go into your favorite e-mail program and compose a message to the homework address:  psych49@csus.edu     On the Subject line, type first P49S1, P49S2, P49S3, or P49S4 depending on your section number. Then after a space, type the name of the package being sent, e.g., WEEKB HOMEWORK. Then hit the spacebar again and type your name. (Note:This must be absolutely correct in order for my e-mail filter to work properly. Improperly addressed homework will be discarded and must be re-submitted, so be compulsive about this. DO NOT send me an e-mail message asking if I received it -  just watch the gradesheet and see if you received credit.)  When the cursor is in the body of the e-mail message, pull down the Edit menu and select Paste. This action will paste a copy of REPORT.TXT (or whatever you have on the clipboard) onto the e-mail message. Now, in your e-mail message (just below REPORT.TXT), type the words: APPROACH TO CAVE OF THE TROLL. Follow this with a description of 1. how you approached this kind of problem initially, and, 2. how you approach it now. You will do this for ALL (repeat ALL) homework assignments. This process is called metacognition and will help you if you do it conscientiously. Now, go back to NOTEPAD and OPEN and COPY TROLDATA.TXT. PASTE this into your e-mail program. Follow this with your APPROACH TO MOIDA1 and MOIDDATA.TXT (when they're done).  Finally, e-mail me this long document of the entire WEEKB HOMEWORK. You've been given more time than necessary for this assignment because these e-mail procedures (COPY and PASTE, etc) may be new to you (if you have an attachment to attachments, break it). Keep a copy of your approaches.

 Here's what a sample looks like:

Report for ","DEBRA LYNN 4392","04:27:32","03-01-1998"
" Task       #required #so-far    status"
" Cave of the Troll 1 1 Been there, done that! aoe"
" Moida1----------- 9 10 Finished! akes"
[Editor's note:I removed some of this to save space. Include the whole page in yours.]
" 24DE04 266 289 752 6898"

APPROACH TO THE CAVE OF THE TROLL
Was concerned originally about the layout of the rooms, felt that they were of the upmost importance. But later I found I could methodically go down, then east or west, and cover each level and then go down anotherlevel and do the same thing. Did write down the amount needed to get, 41 cents, and where to drop them off at the end. Plus the 5 verbs necessary for this game. Still wanted to use other verbs and request though.Rather forward of me but I was curious if more could be accomplished. Read the signs even when not suggested, but unless fear of computer crash, I would read the signs again. Gave me help and I didn't feel soalone on the quest. Remembered the locked vault, but wasn't sure where the key would be. Again reading the signs helped to move me forward by telling me "to sweep". Next time won't be so worried about making a mistake, even when told I could, it's a hard thing to give up. But the confidence gets better with each try.

04:08:47DEBRA LYNN 4392 D92 04:01:56 02-27-1998 D92READ SIGN D92S D92E D92W D92GET BROOMD92E D92D D92GET QUARTER D92E D92GET NICKELD92W D92W D92READ SIGN D92USE BROOM D92GET KEYD92E D92E D92W D92S D92GET DIMED92N D92E D92W D92U D92USE KEYD92E D92GET PENNY D92DROP BROOM D92GET PENNY D92WD92N D92DROP PENNY D92DROP QUARTER D92DROP NICKELD92DROP KEYD92DROP DIME D92 04:01:56 02-27-1998

APPROACH TO MOIDA1
The first two times I just went in, looked and went back out! Then I applied myself! I printed the facts and hilighted the ones that didn't apply, like "victim regrets the whole thing". After working in healthinsurance, it's kind of natural to just concern yourself with the facts you need and discard the rest. The first game I kind of went all over the page by the time I figured out the answer. After that I combined thetwo or three facts that were alike, "bald or full of hair" etc. You kind of get into a rhythm finding the facts that are important and primary in figuring out the puzzle. Ex. "all the members hate bees" came first tome, then "Baker was a member", then "witness loved insects", so therefore "baker was not the witness". Once you eliminate the obvious falsehoods, you are left with the truth. Hopefully! Guess I don't trust my firstinstincts, 'cause I double check the results. But if you don't check, you could then miss the "obvious" yourself. Plus I drew a lot of pictures myself so I could visualize what I was assuming, which helpedme, such as the taller of the two, etc., and then where one of the characters fit in the game.

q 02-28-1998 10:17:39 10:18:05  99 MOIDA1 -5 successes= 0 0 q 03-01-1998 00:34:07 00:34:13
266 MOIDA1 -2 successes= 0 0 debra lynn 4392 03-01-1998 00:36:51 01:55:34
695 MOIDA1 -788 successes= 10 10
 
 

 Week C:

  1. Toyland: Toyland is a text adventure game in which you meetfor the first time, by rescuing her from destruction, Andrea the android! I created this character because she allows me to put word-guessing games inside of a text adventure. For example, she can say, "I’m thinking of a five-letter word that has something to do with WATER." Then, I can have the game’s progress halt until you GUESS DRINK (something commonly done with water). Anyway, you move around in this environment (making your own map -- if you’re still enrolled in the course, that is) making mistakes until you CHARGE Andrea’s BATTERIES and win the game. Good luck!  (Note: The adventure games kick you off after 300 turns (crash avoidance).  When instructed to, type SAVE GAME, and when after restarting the game, type RESTORE GAME as your first COMMAND).
  2. DEPTH1: In this game (please pardon the implied violence), you command a destroyer and try to sink submarines based on the feedback you get from depth-charge explosions. The only dimension you have to guess is depth (DEPTH2 and DEPTH3 add dimensions to your task). The computer will tell you TOO HIGH, TOO LOW, or SCRATCH ONE SUBMARINE. This game begins you on the long road to becoming an efficient searcher. When you have more than 8 of 10 correct, send me a DEPTHDTA.TXT and a REPORT.TXT (every week!).

Week D:

  1. MORPH2: Hopefully, you’ve purchased the B1 volume of my Creative Thinking Puzzlers  (Critical Thinking – criticalthinking.com - 1-800-458-4849). In it, you will find instructions on how to solve morphs. Do the morph exercises in this book before tackling the MORPH2 computer game (you’ll find it in MENU). The number of required MORPH2’s (you get a new puzzle each time you run the program) is 30 plus the number of MORPH2’s you get incorrect. CAUTION: Because of the temptation to quit a difficult MORPH2 puzzle in hopes that the next one will be easier (which defeats its purpose as a learning exercise), I’ve included the requirement that you do an extra successful MORPH2 for each one you miss. Therefore, if you fail on 5 of them, you’ll need 30+5 or 35 successful ones. Ouch! This rule applies to all of the MORPH and WORD-GUESS puzzle games.
  2. The TOWNHOUSE adventure (or Adventures in Babysitting): In this text adventure, you fall asleep while babysitting and wake to find your charge has disappeared! Enjoy, and remember: MAKE MISTAKES! Also, don't forget to put your map and notes in the Possibilities workbook as you go along.

Week E

  1. MOIDA2: This game is similar to MOIDA1 only harder. The criterion is the same and the same *.txt files get sent.
  2. Queue3 (Q3): This is a code-breaking, search game in which you are to guess which of 6 possible orderings of 3 Englishmen (Ash, Baker, & Carr) is correct for the day in question.  Have enough time available to play this game to a criterion of MORE than 8 out of 10.  Before starting, work through the Deductive Search chapter of the Possibilities workbook.  Use the Q3 record sheets provided in the workbook to record your work.  After you make each guess, record the guess AND the computer's response (number of chaps in the right order), e.g.  ABC (1 chap)

Week F:

  1. DEPTH2: See the DEPTH1 description for a description and the criterion.
  2.  Cursed Castle Adventure: The two most confusing things about this adventure are the map and the appearing/disappearing objects. The map is a problem because the castle has 4 levels connected by a staircase. Draw each level map as if looking at it from above and connect the level maps with a diagonal representing the stairs. As to having things disappear, I recommend acceptance – the adventure takes place in a dream and the normal laws of physics can be bent a little. The reason the giant drags you back to the fireplace from time-to-time is that he isn’t hungry (having eaten your oatmeal), but knows he will be soon and doesn’t want you to get cold before you become lunch!  Hurry!!

Week G:

  1. Word guess 1: All the answers in this game are 4-letter words (not those 4-letter words) in which all 4 letters are different. Even so, you can guess words like BOOT and get good feedback. For example, if the answer is MONK and you guess BELT, the computer will say that none of the letters in your word are found in the answer word. A second guess of BOOT will yield feedback of 2 correct (both of your O’s match the O in MONK). Now you know the answer must have an O in it. Whew! This generates GUESDATA.TXT.

Week H.

  1. Queue4: Q4 has 24 possible arrangements (they’re in the workbook), making it 4 times as hard as Q3. Try not to take more than 6 turns figuring out the order. If you have trouble on your own, follow the procedure in the workbook. Every time you make an inefficient guess, the program will tell you why that guess is inconsistent with what you already know. Again, for full credit on your workbook, you MUST keep GOOD records of your turns in the workbook space provided  e.g., #1 ABCD-2 (which means that on guess #1, you guessed abcd and had 2 chaps in the right order).
  2. Pirate Island Adventure: The biggest problem with this adventure is the ending: some people have trouble with the final command. Therefore, if all else fails (or before), try UNLOCK GATE. I may re-write this one because students have said that they were frustrated because they wanted to fire the cannon (the hermit fires it, not you). Any suggestions you have for improving any aspect of the course will be gratefully received.  Also, don't drop any keys.

Week I:

  1. Hangtown adventure: I've added an eighth treasure (seven needed to win) but omitted the automatic uppercasing of input.  Consequently, if you choose to type DROP ANTIQUE!, you have to be in upper case for the program to recognize it. (Just keep the caps lock key down for this one and be compulsive about the !'s.).
  2. Word Guess 2: See earlier word guess description (GUES2DTA.TXT).  The answer to CUTTING is EDGE -- sorry.

Week J:

  1. Morph3: These are just the same as Morph2’s, only harder. Hopefully, you are getting tougher faster than the work gets harder. The answer to NORTH 2WEST is LEFT and the answer to REACH GRAB is GRUB, ALLEY BONE is BOWL, and FLUSH FLOOD is BLOOD-- trebly sorry.

Week K:

  1. Uptown: Like Boardwalk, Uptown involves code breaking as well as logic clues. Logical errors are recorded, so process the logical clues the way you’ve learned to (make a matrix) rather than just floundering around. I’ve added a flashlight clue when you PRESS CHARGES in case you missed it when you got the flashlight from the car.


Week L: Boardwalk (By now, you know the drill.  Good luck.)

Return to syllabus: syllabus.htm