Hi.
I've been trying to paste a solution. I have tried to follow step by step of the explications posted on the BBS about the abbr. I don't even know which is the clipboard. I get all the messages that I should according to the BBS but after that I just don't know what to do! Please help me.

Hi cptg

Here are the 4 steps copied from the other thread for reference. I've added a 5th step to make things clearer; after you have finished steps 1-4, you can play back the solution by clicking the 'REDO' button, or by pressing Enter.

--

1. Select the following recording. Click and drag from the start of 'Chocolate', to the end of the mess of numbers of letters. Once it is selected, all of the text should be a different colour.

Chocolate Castle Recording
Room: 1  Set: 1  Moves: 16  Len: 80  Chash: 7237
Md4d6Md6d7Mc8a8M2928M0d09M6b7bM3a68M92c4
M6777M3646M2271M4564M7685M8797M7868M7767

2. Choose 'Copy' from the edit menu to copy the text to the clipboard.

3. Run Chocolate Castle, and open Room 1 from the Easy puzzle set.

4. While you're in the room, click on OPTIONS and then the PASTE REPLAY button.

If it worked, it should show you a message: 'Replay Loaded', and you should be able to see 'MOVES: 0 of 16' beneath 'ROOM 1' at the top right.

5. Press Enter to step through the solution (or click the 'REDO' button).

[If you're curious - The clipboard is just where text is temporarily stored when you use Edit->Copy. You never actually need to see the clipboard - it's just there to remember what you've copied so that you can paste it somewhere else. Once a copy of the text is in the clipboard (step 2), you can paste it anywhere - into the game (step 4), a text file, and email etc. That's the best I can explain it!]

Hi and thanks a lot! I just did everything that you told me. You are so clear! I've been reading all your posts. Are you a professor? You should. Any way, it didn't work. When I open room 1, easy puzzles and press OPTIONS, then PASTE REPLAY I get a message:"There is no replay in the clipboard!" I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Thanks for explaining what's the clipboard :)

Brendonsoma was having a similar problem - it might actually be CC's fault. Are you using Windows or Mac OS X?

Could you try pasting what you've copied into a reply here, just to make sure the correct text is in the clipboard? i.e. after step 2, paste the text you've copied into your post using Edit->Paste.

Chocolate Castle RecordingRoom: 1 Set: 1 Moves: 16 Len: 80 Chash: 7237Md4d6Md6d7Mc8a8M2928M0d09M6b7bM3a68M92c4M6777M3646M2271M4564M7685M8797M7868M7767
This is what I'm "high lighting" -the sample that you posted above-. I've tried both: from the edit menu on my menu bar, top of the screen, I clicked "copy" and also by right clicking over the high lighted text, then "copy". Then I go to CC, open Room 1, Easy Level > Options> Paste Replay -> "There is no replay in the clipboard!" I don't know if this is what you wanted me to do. Sorry, and please, be patient with me, the comp. is not my "forte". Thanks!

Aha! It looks like your web browser (Internet Explorer?) isn't copying the end-of-line characters (all of the text is being copied as a single line). Now I understand why Brendonsoma had to reassemble the lines in notepad.

I'll work around this in the next version of CC. But for now, the easiest thing might be to just use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. It's a great web browser, free, and easy to install:

@

Well, at least I don't feel so dumb now! Yes, I'm using IE. I will try now with Firefox. Thanks a lot, specially for your patience and prompt replies. By the way, since it looks that you know a lot about the game and the trivia stuff (did you create the game?) I have some questions: -Which are boys and which are girls? -Why the snake and the cat from the Turkish delight don't have a name? -Why "Turkish" delight? -I can't figure out what kind of clothes is he/she wearing? It looks like if he/she were a king/queen.

No problem. Thanks for your persistence - that was a good bug to catch.

Yep, I'm the author of CC. To answer your questions:

Boys: Mogwash (brown bear), Rufus (dark dog)
Girls: Tabetha (pink pig), Misty (white rabbit)

I never got around to naming the cat and the snake. In my development notes I just call them 'Cat', and 'Snakey'. (:

Turkish delight is a kind of squishy sweet, otherwise known as lokum. The cat is wearing traditional low-resolution Turkish clothes.

@

Another question, Master ;-) : differences/improvements/etc. between V1.03 & V1.04
Congratulations for developing CC! As I told you be4, this is one -if not THE- of the best games I have. Well, maybe it's because I love these kind of puzzles. CC has a lot of mathematical stuff. I don't know if it was intended to be this way, if not, let me tell you that the only way I've been able to solve the puzzles in the number of record movements posted here it's applying some math (believe it or not, when I'm having a hard time I just "translate" the puzzle into an equation(s) and, voila!)

v1.04 mostly improved on bits of the interface (not very exciting!):

• Cursor keys to browse rooms.
• Delete solutions in the selection screen (shift-D).
• Unsaved changes confirmation when exiting room editor.
• Can undo in room editor.

You can see a complete history at the bottom of choc.txt, which comes with the game.

Shucks, thanks! I'm not an experienced puzzle solver myself, so I didn't appreciate the finer points of CC puzzles until other players starting posting their solutions (even though I designed them).

My wife sees a resemblance between the CC cat and our own cat, Usagi. Since the cat didn't get a name, I assume it didn't get any fictional family relationship to Neko either?

cptg: Thanks for sharing the note about the relationship between CC and math. I tried to take that approach; although my math was never good enough to encapsulate the general case, calculating the theoretical minimums was helpful for many of the Easy and Medium rooms. For the more complex levels, I break the puzzles into sections and look for equivalent states with fewer moves, but the overall approach is usually intuition.

CC could be used in Operation Research. I won't do it, don't worry -it's your game- but the other night I was thinking what a good idea it would be to base my final exam of Theory of Decisions on CC. Something like giving an A+ to those students who could come with the least number of movements in all the puzzles of the 3 levels. An A if they can come with almost most of them, and so on.
Thanks for the tip of the Jelly Blocks. I played it yesterday -never heard about it- and liked it (it's OK, but it's not CC). I bet Usagi is a very good looking cat and if your wife says it looks like the one of CC I'm sure he/she does. Women are better physiognomists than men :-)

Hi! I can't believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It seems like I've just broke a record: Room 35, Level Medium: 22 moves. Maybe somebody else already solved it in less than 23 moves and the "optimal solutions" board hasn't been updated. I don't know... In case someone is interested, here's my solution -hope I copied and pasted it as it should be done, since I'm still learning how to use these options.

Chocolate Castle Recording
Room: 35  Set: 2  Moves: 22  Len: 110  Chash: 32e1
M0e1dMcbccMd4c5M8191M3d1eM1a09M69caM2c99
M4b2cM6d69M2b59Me0c2Mea89Mbba9M375cM2d4c
M73a5MeeccM1a5aM3445Md796M0032

Good job! This definitely belongs on the solution page.

New score: Room 37, Medium Level, 25 moves

Chocolate Castle Recording
Room: 37  Set: 2  Moves: 25  Len: 125  Chash: 1d04
M94a4M3363M5553M3745M5a48M7a3aM787bM7679
M4686M5476M4743M3a36M8959M8b5bM9b68M3b9b
M497aM474bM7846M6638M8658M7476M4474M5654
M3031

I can't believe it! Silly me, but I'm so excited! ;-)

Nice solutions cptg - I've added them to the collection here:
@

I like the idea of a bunch of OR students working on optimal CC solutions! Just let me know if you need extra licenses, on the house (:

It's interesting to hear about mathematical approaches to optimising (or solving) these puzzles. They certainly weren't designed with this in mind, but I do like the sort of alegbra which emerges during optimisation. That is - finding sequences of moves which may look quite different, but are functionally equivalent (same thing as equivalent states, really).

Weedhopper - Usagi is a cute name for a cat. Is it because she/he look like a rabbit? I never made the connection between the two cat characters, actually. But on my wishlist is an update of neko which allows the player to select from a bunch of cats, in which case it would be nice for the Turkish cat to make an inter-game appearance (: