NAME

       boggle — word search game

SYNOPSIS

       boggle [-bd] [-s seed] [-t time] [-w length] [+ [+]] [boardspec]

DESCRIPTION

       The  object  of  boggle  is to find as many words as possible on the Boggle board within the three minute
       time limit.  A Boggle board is a four by four arrangement  of  Boggle  cubes,  each  side  of  each  cube
       displaying  a  letter of the alphabet or `qu'.  Words are formed by finding a sequence of cubes (letters)
       that are in the game's dictionary.  The (N+1)th cube in the word must  be  horizontally,  vertically,  or
       diagonally adjacent to the Nth cube.  Cubes cannot be reused.  Words consist solely of lower case letters
       and must be at least 3 letters long.

       Command line flags can be given to change the rules of the game.

       -b         Run  boggle in batch mode.  A boardspec must also be given.  The dictionary is read from stdin
                  and a list of words appearing in boardspec is printed to stdout.

       -d         Enable debugging output.

       -s seed    Specify a seed seed other than the time of day.

       -t time    Set the time limit for each game from the default 3 minutes to time seconds.

       -w length  Change the minimum word length from 3 letters to length.

       +          This flag allows a cube to be used multiple times, but not in succession.

       ++         This flag allows the same cubes to be considered adjacent to itself.

       boardspec  A starting board position can be specified on the command line by listing the  board  left  to
                  right and top to bottom.

       Help is available during play by typing ‘?’.  More detailed information on the game is given there.

BUGS

       If  there are a great many words in the cube the final display of the words may scroll off of the screen.
       (On a 25 line screen about 130 words can be displayed.)

       No word can contain a ‘q’ that is not immediately followed by a ‘u’.

       When using the + or ++ options the display of words found in the board doesn't indicate reused cubes.

AUTHOR

       Boggle is a trademark of Parker Brothers.

       Barry Brachman
       Dept. of Computer Science
       University of British Columbia

Debian                                            April 1, 2001                                        BOGGLE(6)