Crossword Quirks

Status: Implemented | 2023

Problem Statement

One challenge we’ve run into is propagating behavior changes to XwordState. That system tends to follow a fairly simple approach:

$$ state + event \rightarrow state’ $$

Most of the time, this naive approach works fine. However, there are times we want to be able to have the app environment factor into the calculation of the new state. Rather than PlayState having all the logic of trying to determine the environment, we encapsulate these settings into a CrosswordsQuirks object. This can yield a different state than just the event alone.

$$ state + event + quirk \rightarrow state’’ $$

As an example, Dutch has an “IJ” digraph that appears in puzzles as a character pair. If a user types a “J” on a cell with an “I” in it already, then it will add the “IJ” to the cell rather than replace the cell as per normal.

Assumptions

We have a quirk GObject that can be included with a puzzle state. It’s optional — no quirks means standard event behavior.

In addition, it’s possible to have quirks based on the overall environment of the crossword game, so a quirks object without an associated crossword is possible.

List of quirks

• IJ_DIGRAPH: Dutch support for IJ digraph

• GUESS_ADVANCE: User setting for how to advance the cursor after a guess

• SYMMETRY: Desired user setting for the symmetry of the puzzle. Used only by the editor