Very simple game: THE FLIGHT BOARD.

[ListWitsFeatured Creator]

Now I'm going to show you one of my most ever BASIC layouts  In fact, it's so basic, I've used variations of this for multiple quick games for my Five Minutes to A Fortune set..   but you've got to know your _airport codes_.

Believe it or not this was an idea from my wife in terms of a game show... and I didn't want to do anything drastic, although I'm wondering after seeing the India map slideshow that Rusnak put up, if a "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" game show can be done.


Requires:   Two text files, 1 Slideshow.    And the reason why I did this (other than to say my wife has now got a game show to her name) slide show was to see how many text objects I could fit in a VBA array.

In fact, one of the Public Declarations is as follows:

                        Public Airport(10000), City(10000), Country(10000), IATA(10000) As String

Why so many?  Because there are text files out there have the name of every Airport, the city it's located in the country, and that airports 3 letter IATA code  (example:  Gatwick = LGW (I think),  John F. Kennedy = JFK, etc.).  If there are more than 10,000 airports in the world recognized by the IATA code, my file hasn't reached them.

File Number 2:   a very short file, 6 'cryptic like' clues, 6 6-letter words.

This is one of those games, that due to making sure everything fits in the flight board boxes, you run the "fill board" macro before you start the slideshow.   Some of those cities and airports are LONG, and if you try to fill the board during the slideshow, I guarantee some won't fit!

The VBA then goes through the 6 6-letter words, and splits them right down the middle to make 2 3-letter combinations for each word.  (and you guys probably already see where this is going)

It then runs through the IATA array to locate that exact three letter combination.   If it finds the combination, it pulls the Airport, City, and Country and places it in the first of the 12 boxes on the board.   If it can't find the combination, it puts that three letter combination in the box. 

It then repeats the process for the second half of the word, to check that three letter combination.

It then repeats the process for all 6 words, basically making 12 passes through the array of IATA codes...  

You then run a "Sort Airport" macro, to sort the airports and the three letter visible combinations alphabetically (otherwise, it'd be #1 and #2 = word 1, #3 and #4 = word 2, etc.) - But, you could change the game if you wanted to so that they knew which airports made which word, but i hate that set-up, but it's doable  (and probably best if i did a WITICSD game.


THEN and only then do you start the slideshow...



In this case, it found a valid IATA code for every letter combination except "IOD".

You then simply press the blue button, and it will cycle through the six clues



You simply identify the six letter words... by naming the route (or just naming the word, it just depends on how generous or blahse i am when I use this game...

So for instance "Man vs. Nature occurs here" could be a lot of things.. but the word in this case is "KAYAKS", so to make that word you had to travel from Wakaya Airport in Fiji (KAY) to Auki Airport in the Solomon Islands. (AKS)  (I think that's the right combination)



A failed fleet?    Why its' the Spanish ARMADA... which you can find on your trip from Armidale Airport, Armidale, Australia to Adana Aiport, Adana, Turkey

This is one of those mini-games I just threw together so there's nothing fancy about this, nothing graphically "wowsers" on it... but if I ever do decide to work on a Where in the World game, I would probably throw something a little more elaborate together for this one.

Which just goes to show, you can 1)   put VBA arrays through some huge numbers... and 2)   You can make a game just about anything if you set your mind to it...  (and again, you can blame the wife for giving me this one to work on).



and that IOD label?   Well, that'd be a colorful bleacher... and you'd find it after you landed in Chinde, Airport in Mozambique, if you were looking for some IODINE

[rusnakcreativeAdministrator]

Interesting concept, but is really dependent on how well you know your airport codes. I can see this being extremely challenging to those who don't travel often.

Also, the India slideshow was from John and his exciting vacation down to India, not me. Any places overseas I've been to were less desirable places I was told to go for an extended period of time, close-ish to India

[ListWitsFeatured Creator]

Yup... ridiculously difficult, that’s why I blame the wife for this one. And i always get the who-made-which slideshow backwards...

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