Author:

• Name: Don Dodson
  Location: US - United States of America (United States)

To build:

    make all

There is an alternate version that allows you to cheat, giving you configurable amount of arrows at the start of the game. See the Alternate code section below.

Bugs and (Mis)features:

The current status of this entry is:

STATUS: INABIAF - please DO NOT fix

For more detailed information see 1994/dodsond2 in bugs.html.

To use:

    ./dodsond2

Alternate code:

This version allows you to choose how many arrows to start with, instead of the default 0. If one tries specifying a value < 0 it will set it to 0.

Fun fact: this version helped uncover and fix a bug that prevented the entry from working in some cases.

Alternate build:

    make alt

The default number of arrows in this version is 3 but if you want to change it, say to 5, try:

    make clobber ARROWS=5 alt

Alternate use:

    ./dodsond2.alt

Judges’ remarks:

Each year people find new ways to squeeze more and more out of the contest rules. Next year, entries that use compression utilities to get around the size limit will find themselves squeezed out of the contest!

A historical note:

The original source code was submitted as a GZIP compressed file that the file(1) command reports as:

dodsond2.gz: gzip compressed data, last modified: Mon Aug 29 21:54:39 1994, max compression, from Unix, original size modulo 2^32 2652

The dodsond2.gz file was submitted as source in an effort to get around the 1994 version of Rule 2:

2. Your entry must be <= 3217 bytes in length. The number of characters excluding whitespace (tab, space, newline), and excluding any ; { or } followed by either whitespace or end of file, must be <= 1536.

Indeed the dodsond2.c file is what you find today.

The IOCCC rules and guidelines were modified in an effort to address this fun “abuse of the rules” style hack.

It is worth noting that without this compression “abuse of the rules” style hack, the dodsond2.c is further obfuscated.

Author’s remarks:

Go searching for the Wumpus in the Caverns of Doom! But be careful… There are pits and bats waiting to seal your fate, as well as a stealthy robber lurking in the shadows. Move through the rooms by typing the number of the adjacent room you wish to visit. You can feel a breeze if there is a pit in an adjacent room. A rustling sound will tell you that bats are nearby. The scent of the evil Wumpus can be detected from 2 rooms away.

To win, you must find one or more arrows, determine where the Wumpus is, and shoot him, all without falling into a pit or becoming the next meal for the Wumpus. To shoot an arrow, type s. Then give a list of the rooms you want to shoot into. The rooms must be connected in the order you list them, or else the arrow may bounce back and hit you. An arrow can go through as many as four rooms. But beware that shooting an arrow and missing the Wumpus may awaken him.

There is a robber who waits in an unknown room. If you enter that room carrying an arrow, he will steal that arrow from you and move to a new room. If he steals all the arrows in the Caverns, you may catch him and recover all of them. Doing this gives you a bonus on your score.

You can quit at any time by typing q. Typing i will tell you how many arrows you are carrying. l prints the description of the current room again.

Primary files

• dodsond2.c - entry source code
• Makefile - entry Makefile
• dodsond2.alt.c - alternate source code
• dodsond2.orig.c - original source code
• dodsond2.gz - original source code in gzip form

Secondary files

• 1994_dodsond2.tar.bz2 - download entry tarball
• README.md - markdown source for this web page
• .entry.json - entry summary and manifest in JSON
• .gitignore - list of files that should not be committed under git
• .path - directory path from top level directory
• index.html - this web page

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