[ANN] Dwemthy's Array -- the Ruby mini_adventure

[why the lucky stiff]

Since you were a very young rabbit in little cotton pants, Dwemthy's
Array has breathed on your neck and you're tired of it. You draw your
glistening Hero's Sword from its sheath and cut a low-circling falcon in
half as a confidence building exercise. Your eyes flick about in a cool
and freaky way.

You're ready... It's time to stare this construct in the face.

$$$ DWEMTHY_S ARRAY ^!^ A RUBY MINI_DUNGEON ^!^ CODE TO KILL BY $$$

Here, try this: http://poignantguide.net/dwemthy/

The sixth chapter of Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby is on its way. This
chapter covers metaclasses and method_missing with the help of Dwemthy's
demonic list. The code for the little RPG is now available. A full
explanation is forthcoming in chapter six.

Please send your hacks to the poignant-stiffs list. Subscription
information is at http://poignant.rubyforge.org/.

_why

 

[CT]

Here, try this: http://poignantguide.net/dwemthy/

Man.. I'm in tears here.
*sob*

_why

Shajith

PS: Hurry up with chapter 6, will ya?

 

[Jacob Fugal]

You're ready... It's time to stare this construct in the face.

$$$ DWEMTHY_S ARRAY ^!^ A RUBY MINI_DUNGEON ^!^ CODE TO KILL BY $$$

Here, try this: http://poignantguide.net/dwemthy/

Is it just me or is the DwemthysArray symbol never defined on that
page? I defeated the ScubaArgentine and am eager to fight the Dragon!

- Jacob Fugal

 

[why the lucky stiff]

Is it just me or is the DwemthysArray symbol never defined on that

page? I defeated the ScubaArgentine and am eager to fight the Dragon!

Well done, hero. You have discovered a weakness in Dwemthy's Array!!
This has been a crucial part of your training. You have learned to spot
omissions in the mechanisms of life!! ANd you have charged up to the
great god of the sky and thrust your javelin in the sky and bellowed
great screams, chiding the powers of speed and atmosphere, that you will
not accept this, that your honor and nobility is owed far greater than
this!!

Well done, I say. Raise a chalice of valor!! Let the mead flow thickly
through our devoursome fingers and ankle beards!!

_why

 

[Phil Tomson]

Is it just me or is the DwemthysArray symbol never defined on that
page? I defeated the ScubaArgentine and am eager to fight the Dragon!

No one knows how those hideous creatures got in DwemthysArray and no one
knows where DwemthysArray comes from either.

....yeah, I ran into the same problem.

How about:

dwar = [IndustrialRaverMonkey.new,
DwarvenAngel.new,
AssistantViceTentacleAndOmbudsman.new,
TeethDeer.new,
IntrepidDecomposedCyclist.new,
Dragon.new]

dwar.each {|creature|
r ^ creature
}

....but I get:

[Rabbit is too dead to fight!]
[Rabbit is too dead to fight!]
[Rabbit is too dead to fight!]
[Rabbit is too dead to fight!]
[Rabbit is too dead to fight!]
[Rabbit is too dead to fight!]

No doubt _why has put some magic in DwemthysArray that we're missing.

Phil

 

[Patrick Hurley]

No doubt _why has put some magic in DwemthysArray that we're missing.

He has that cool method_missing stuff where the method you are trying
to use against his array is sent to the first item in the array. If
the life trait runs out of the entry he shifts it out and brings on
the next one. It is a nice little idiom -- I like it.

Of course the only way I could beat the array was with a little smoke
and mirrors:

r = Rabbit.new
r.life = 9999

seemed to help a lot

 

[why the lucky stiff]

r = Rabbit.new
r.life = 9999

See, hex-editing is 10x fasterrr in Ruby, too.

ALls I can say is: you sure skipped a lot of lettuce-eating.

_why

 

[Patrick Hurley]

Oh btw, if you keep at it the DwemthysArray gets a little nasty
sending messages to Nil and nil does not seem to appreciate the extra
attention. So a minor change like below seems to help.

Thanks as always for the enjoyable read, yours is one of the more
interesting ways to introduce people to Ruby.

Patrick

*** dwemthy-orig.rb Wed Mar 23 14:33:52 2005
--- dwemthy.rb Wed Mar 23 15:20:07 2005
***************
*** 64,76 ****
alias _inspect inspect
def inspect; "#<#{ self.class }#{ _inspect }>"; end
def method_missing( meth, *args )
answer = first.send( meth, *args )
! if first.life <= 0
! shift
! if empty?
! puts "[Whoa. You decimated Dwemthy's Array!]"
! else
! puts "[Get ready. #{ first.class } has emerged.]"
end
end
answer || 0
--- 64,80 ----
alias _inspect inspect
def inspect; "#<#{ self.class }#{ _inspect }>"; end
def method_missing( meth, *args )
+ if empty?
+ puts "[Quit flogging my dead monsters!]"
+ else
answer = first.send( meth, *args )
! if first.life <= 0
! shift
! if empty?
! puts "[Whoa. You decimated Dwemthy's Array!]"
! else
! puts "[Get ready. #{ first.class } has emerged.]"
! end
end
end
answer || 0

 

[vruz]

Since you were a very young rabbit in little cotton pants, Dwemthy's

Array has breathed on your neck and you're tired of it. You draw your
glistening Hero's Sword from its sheath and cut a low-circling falcon in
half as a confidence building exercise. Your eyes flick about in a cool
and freaky way.

shine on you crazy diamond

 

[Shalev NessAiver]

--Apple-Mail-1-177947880
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=US-ASCII;
format=flowed

ALls I can say is: you sure skipped a lot of lettuce-eating.

_why

Yeah, I figured that part out. The only way is to frngllheeg aahhh
help- askdfjj.

[ Sorry about that folks, Shalev was called away on an emergency.
Go back to your normal lives people. ]


--Apple-Mail-1-177947880--

 

[Brian McCallister]

r = Rabbit.new
1000000.times { r % r }

is maybe a bit less of a hack ;-)

technically

maybe

-Brian

ALls I can say is: you sure skipped a lot of lettuce-eating.

_why

Yeah, I figured that part out. The only way is to frngllheeg aahhh
help- askdfjj.

[ Sorry about that folks, Shalev was called away on an emergency.
Go back to your normal lives people. ]

 

[Shalev NessAiver]

Except that that doesn't always work. You'll still die some of the
time.

It may be better to switch over to more damaging weapons somewhere down
the line.
(After you've gotten a bunch of life from the early guys).


-Shalev

r = Rabbit.new
1000000.times { r % r }

is maybe a bit less of a hack ;-)

technically

maybe

-Brian

ALls I can say is: you sure skipped a lot of lettuce-eating.

_why

Yeah, I figured that part out. The only way is to frngllheeg aahhh
help- askdfjj.

[ Sorry about that folks, Shalev was called away on an emergency.
Go back to your normal lives people. ]

 

[Patrick Hurley]

I think you missed he was using the lettuce on himself (rabbit on
rabbit action for those of you into that sort of thing). So he was
boosting his life before he started on any of the guys in the array.

Except that that doesn't always work. You'll still die some of the
time.

It may be better to switch over to more damaging weapons somewhere down
the line.
(After you've gotten a bunch of life from the early guys).


-Shalev

r = Rabbit.new
1000000.times { r % r }

is maybe a bit less of a hack ;-)

technically

maybe

-Brian

On Mar 23, 2005, at 7:32 PM, why the lucky stiff wrote:

ALls I can say is: you sure skipped a lot of lettuce-eating.

_why




Yeah, I figured that part out. The only way is to frngllheeg aahhh
help- askdfjj.

[ Sorry about that folks, Shalev was called away on an emergency.
Go back to your normal lives people. ]

 

[why the lucky stiff]

r = Rabbit.new
1000000.times { r % r }

is maybe a bit less of a hack ;-)

Ladies and gentleman, may I have your attention and give a warm welcome
to: Our Hero and His One-Million Acts of Bulemic Self-Bludgeoning!!

_why

 

[Shalev NessAiver]

Hmmm, you're right. I was hitting the ENEMIES with the lettuce.

Doing it to myself seemed....cheating.

-Shalev

I think you missed he was using the lettuce on himself (rabbit on
rabbit action for those of you into that sort of thing). So he was
boosting his life before he started on any of the guys in the array.

Except that that doesn't always work. You'll still die some of the
time.

It may be better to switch over to more damaging weapons somewhere
down
the line.
(After you've gotten a bunch of life from the early guys).


-Shalev

r = Rabbit.new
1000000.times { r % r }

is maybe a bit less of a hack ;-)

technically

maybe

-Brian

On Mar 23, 2005, at 8:52 PM, Shalev NessAiver wrote:

On Mar 23, 2005, at 7:32 PM, why the lucky stiff wrote:

ALls I can say is: you sure skipped a lot of lettuce-eating.

_why




Yeah, I figured that part out. The only way is to frngllheeg aahhh
help- askdfjj.

[ Sorry about that folks, Shalev was called away on an emergency.
Go back to your normal lives people. ]

 

[Florian Gross]

r = Rabbit.new
1000000.times { r % r }

Now that's what I call real power gaming!

 

[Dave Burt]

$$$ DWEMTHY_S ARRAY ^!^ A RUBY MINI_DUNGEON ^!^ CODE TO KILL BY $$$

Here, try this: http://poignantguide.net/dwemthy/

I have a couple of things to share with the crazy Ruby
meta-dungeon-programmeering community.

First, I found this cheat code on the internet:
class Rabbit
# you can defeat enemies easily with the
# secret cheater's laser gun
def =~( enemy )
fight( enemy, 2691 )
end
end

It reminds me of the little laser soldiers in Age of Empires.

It allows the Rabbit to laser things to death like this:

r=~ Dragon.new

[You hit with 2181 points of damage!]
[Dragon has died.]
#<Dragon:0x2ac8dc8 @life=-841, @weapon=939, @charisma=1020, @strength=451>

And sometimes like this, which isn't as good for the Rabbit:

r =~ Dragon.new

[You hit with 368 points of damage!]
#<Dragon:0x2abf288 @life=972, @weapon=939, @charisma=1020, @strength=451>
[Your enemy hit with 699 points of damage!]
[Rabbit has died.]

Secondly, I put together this strategy that any Rabbit can use to defeat
DwemthysArray 1.0, without using lasers or anything dodgy like that.
# requires Patrick Hurley's [Quit flogging my dead monsters!] patch
# to DwemthysArray to work properly
class Rabbit
def battle( enemy )
stats = Hash.new(0)
while enemy.life > 0 || self.life <= 0
weapon = if self.life <= 0 then :%
elsif enemy.life % 10 >= 5 then :/
elsif bombs and rand < (0.1) then :*
else :^
end
send weapon, enemy
stats[weapon] += 1
end
total = 0
stats.each_pair do |weapon, uses|
puts "[#{ self.class } used #{weapon} #{uses} times]"
total += uses
end
puts "[#{ self.class } attacked a total of #{total} times in that
battle.]"
end
end

Output:

r.battle DwemthysArray.new

....
[Rabbit is too dead to fight!]
[Healthy lettuce gives you 42 life points!!]
[You hit with 1 points of damage!]
[Dragon has died.]
[Whoa. You decimated Dwemthy's Array!]
#<DwemthysArray[]>
[Quit flogging my dead monsters!]
[Quit flogging my dead monsters!]
[Rabbit used / 79 times]
[Rabbit used % 101007 times]
[Rabbit used * 3 times]
[Rabbit used ^ 89 times]
[Rabbit attacked a total of 101178 times in that battle.]
=> nil
irb(main):012:0> r
=> #<Rabbit:0x2ab9b88 @life=4, @weapon=4, @bombs=2, @charisma=44,
@strength=2>


And finally, I would also propose the following patch, to stop the Rabbit's
ability to eat when he or she is dead, but it makes the game too difficult:
--- rabbit.rb
+++ rabbit.rb
@@ -18,6 +18,10 @@
# lettuce will build your strength and extra ruffage
# will fly in the face of your opponent!!
def %( enemy )
+ if life <= 0
+ puts "[You are beyond the help of the healthy lettuce.]"
+ return
+ end
lettuce = rand( charisma )
puts "[Healthy lettuce gives you #{ lettuce } life points!!]"
@life += lettuce

Happy meta-dungeon-programmeering!

Cheers,
Dave