CS 230 Spring 2007          Assignment 8 & 9 – More Sub Procedures and Function Procedures and Files–

(Paparazzi Invasion II – Celebrity Revenge Silly Simulation Game)                        200 points

Assigned: 03/21/2007

Due: 04/04/2007 at the start of class

Pre-Lab (Do Before Lab):  Bring materials – a way to save a copy for you and a copy to turn in. Plan out tasks, objects, and events needed for program. Write pseudocode for the main buttons and for functions / independent sub procedures. There’s a lot here, take it on bit by bit, as recommended in class.

.

Main Assignment:

You are creating a simplified but improved simulation “game”.  You are now more powerful, and so are the celebrities subject to the paparazzi invasion!  

· Write a program that simulates the invasion by paparazzi with the player allowed to choose a defense against them. 

· Upon loading the form (Form Load Event), randomly generate the effectiveness of each of 5 possible defenses against the paparazzi (do this using a independent sub procedure called from the Form Load Event Handling Procedure for reasons that will become clear below).

· For the Simulate button - Get from the user the starting number of paparazzi, difficulty level (1-10, combo box recommended), defense of choice (combobox recommended), and the number of months to simulate. Make sure that input values are all validated as described below (do this using an independent function procedure called from the button handling procedure).

· Display in a RichTextBox (see below) for each month elapsed, the number of months elapsed to that point, the number of new paparazzi, the number of paparazzi eliminated and the resulting number of invading paparazzi.  

· After the given number of months, display in labels or read-only textboxes the final number of paparazzi. Also, update the textbox for starting number of paparazzi (so the player can continue the game if they like), and make it read-only. NOTE – this task MUST be done with a loop – I need to see the month by month results in the text box – and in order to see that, you cannot do a single one-time calculation. 

· Provide capabilities to:

o simulate,

o clear (the inputs and outputs) to start again, and set the difficulty level to default (5), set the current month back to the beginning, and make the starting number of paparazzi text box no longer read only.

o restart (clearing inputs and outputs etc, as above, AND redo the random number generation for defense effectiveness)

o exit.

· A sample interface is provided on page 3. Don’t let that constrain your creativity. Use it to help understand what I see as the inputs and outputs.

· A surprise “twist” to the project related to files will be added to the requirements on 3/28. Stay tuned! (Hence the Assignment 8 AND 9)

Hand in:

• Floppy disk  or CD-R with an entire folder containing all files related to the project (or e-mail with zipped attachment containing all files related to the project).
• Please set the name of the project to something other than the default name (WindowsApplication1, …). It is helpful if you use a name that identifies you as well as the assignment (e.g. yourlastname assignment 8).
• Use Windows to copy the whole folder, instead of trying to “Save As”.
• Print out of your code.  

Task Details:

· In this task, we will get several of the benefits of procedures and functions (some will be called from more than one place, saving code; dividing a task up into manageable sub-tasks, making the whole easier than the sum of the tasks, and hopefully being able to re-use existing code).  You must write procedures and functions for this assignment (and use them!):

· Random generation of effectiveness of defenses must be handled by a function (hopefully called 5 times instead of once) (for details on the effectiveness, see below)

· Determining how many new paparazzi will invade each month could be handled by a function (recommended). (for details on the invasion, see below)

· Determining effectiveness of currently chosen defense could be handled by a function (recommended) . Use of module scope variables is ok, since effectiveness will be determined by another button and/or form load.

· Validating inputs must be handled by a function(s) (preferably one function, called more than one time)   

· You must use an independent sub procedure to clear textboxes etc for clear and restart capabilities

• After the user plays the first time, set the textbox for the starting number of paparazzi to be read only.  Keep the total number of months elapsed in a module scope variable so that it can be kept track of from button click to button click.
• Defense Effectiveness: - provide the user 5 defenses they could use (e.g. restraining order, body guard, …).
• I recommend letting the user chose a defense using a combo box. Choices for a combo box can be set using the Items property of the combo box.
• Each defense has a different random effectiveness, so a player can change defenses in order to try to fend off the paparazzi. 
• However, these effectivenesses do not change frequently – they are set only during form load and when “restart” button is selected (hence the user can learn through repeated play what defense is effective).
• The effectiveness of a defense (number of paparazzi eliminated) is determined via calling a function. The calculation is purposely somewhat complicated so that the advantage of dividing up a task will be illustrated. Randomly generate one of 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, or 600, then randomly add a value between -10 and 10. (Think about how to do this!)
• New Paparazzi: The pace of paparazzi invasion is different than in assignment 5. 
• The number of newly invading paparazzi is 100 times the difficulty level plus 10% of the current paparazzi (they must reproduce some how)
• a months new paparazzi is calculated before any elimination (or addition either). E.g. if at the end of month 1, the number of paparazzi is 100 and the difficulty level is 3, then the number of new paparazzi arriving during month 2 is 310 regardless of how many are eliminated.
•  The number of new paparazzi invading must always be a whole number; you might be interested in Math.round built in function and/ or Convert.toInt32 built in function.
• Validation: We’re no longer going to assume that the clerk enters valid and reasonable values.
• Ensure that the starting number of paparazzi, difficulty level, and number of months are numeric (and whole numbers for that matter), and
•  that the starting number of paparazzi is between 1 and 10000,
• the difficulty level is 1-10, and
• the number of months is between 2 and 100. 
• Don’t try to calculate anything if bad data has been entered (display a message).   
• For simplification, don’t worry about the reason that starting number of paparazzi is out of range (if because of user error or because the paparazzi have been eliminated or have overrun the place completely); the same message can be used.
• Hint: If a combo box is used, a DropDownStyle property value of DropDownList makes it impossible for the user to type in values of their own – thus making validation unnecessary if the choices given the user are all valid.  The value selected by the user is in the Text property of a combo box, as with other controls.
• MAKE SURE YOUR PROGRAM WORKS! (i.e. gets the correct answers).  It doesn’t have to just run, it needs to run correctly!  It should run on any inputs (We are now branching – so the program must be tested on more inputs to ensure that all paths through the program code work!). For instance, does your program still do the right thing no matter how many of the inputs are invalid?   Think up some different examples to test the program on. 

Miscellaneous

• You must turn on Option Explicit and Option Strict.
• Put YOUR NAME, e-mail address, date, and purpose of the program in comments at the beginning of the program. The purpose should be what the program is supposed to do, not the learning goals. Comments are indicated with a single quote (everything after the single quote is only for humans)
• You MUST include comments that explain your program in order to get full credit.
• Define numbers (especially those that appear more than once and/or could change sometime in the futures) as named constants
• Remember to use meaningful variable names
• Remember to indent to show the structure of the program (VB usually does this correctly).
• Name all textboxes, rich text boxes, comboboxes, and buttons meaningfully, and use conventions for starting their names.
• Make textboxes that user should never enter a value in (results / outputs) “Read Only”.
• Put your name on the form as a Label or as part of the form title.
• Try to use good user interface design. Make clear what user needs to do and what the answers mean. Make error messages as clear and helpful as possible!