BOGGLE(6) BSD Reference Manual BOGGLE(6)
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 Prime the random number generator with seed instead of data
from /dev/arandom.
-t time Change 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.
+ Allow a cube to be used multiple times, but not in succession.
++ Allow a cube to be considered adjacent to itself.
A starting board position, boardspec, can be specified on the command
line by listing the board left to right and top to bottom, in lower case.
Help is available during play by typing '?'. More detailed information on
the game is given there.
FILES
/usr/share/games/boggle/dictionary
compressed dictionary
/usr/share/games/boggle/dictindex
dictionary index
/usr/share/games/boggle/helpfile
online help file
AUTHORS
Boggle is a trademark of Parker Brothers.
Barry Brachman, Dept. of Computer Science, University of British Columbia
BUGS
If there are a great many words in the cube, the final display of the
words may scroll off 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 clearly indicate reused cubes.
MirBSD #10-current August 4, 1997 1