Messages

My solution is all about not knowing where the intruder is, I am only assuming that they are somewhere within a sector of ±60° from a shot straight through the door, which is pretty reasonable, unless they're pressing themselves against the wall near the door (in which case the chances of hitting them drop to 0, which is certainly not what slasher was asking about).
The width of the room doesn't matter, only the distance between gun and intruder. Unless of course the room is tiny or very narrow, but there's no reason to assume that based on the initial question.

The big problem with your proposed solution is that the door isn't as wide as the room. The shooter isn't going to change position, just angling the gun. Just imagine the room on the other side is really big, but the intruder is standing relatively close to the door. In that case it's obvious that your solution's result is going to be way off base, while mine is still pretty accurate.

Sure... but we don't know where the intruder is standing!

"I am only assuming that they are somewhere within a sector of ±60° from a shot straight through the door" - but slasher said "you have no idea where in that room the intruder is positioned". Why couldn't the intruder be in the corner of the room next to the door???

If the room is very wide, then the intruder is PROBABLY not going to be standing in the shooter's path. And if the room is very narrow, then the intruder is PROBABLY going to be standing in the gun's path - assuming the shooter knows the layout of the room he'll shoot along the length of the room and not into the side wall, like he might in your interpretation.

My solution doesn't involve the shooter changing positions. If we were to test our solutions by having 100 intruders in 100 rooms, my shooter would stand in the center of the door and fire straight along the length of the room 100 times. This is because the shooter has no reason not to - there's no point in angling the gun or moving around, because the shooter doesn't know where the intruder is.

The fun thing is, both our solutions are correct. Slasher can pick the one that he was looking for. My answer fits MY interpretation of the problem better than yours, but I wouldn't be too surprised if my mind works differently from slasher's.


Anyways... NUMBER MUNCHERS!!! Yes! I loved that game! Or else I hated it and I was just forced to play it. I love it now, anyways.

2.

Spoiler

Key?

[close]

Not to be antagonistic, but I believe my assumptions are more in line with the original problem than yours. Your solution doesn't take into account the width of the room or the fact that we have no clue where the intruder is.

Since we have no idea where the man is, the shooter should not care where he aims.

What other assumptions do you think are faulty? The shape of the room? The height of the shot? Meh.

2. It asks no questions,
But demands many answers.
Don't know it until you
Are ready to see what waits
On the other side.

3. You can spin, wheel, and twist
But it can turn without moving.

2.

Spoiler

Locked door?

[close]

3.

Spoiler

Gyroscope?

[close]

[There is about a 1/(W-1) chance that the intruder will die]

A little late, but I have a much more intuitive answer if we tweak our assumptions a little: keep the projectile the same while making the location of the intruder variable. This makes more sense to me because you have no reason to fire at different angles. Assuming the room is rectangular, you are firing chest height across the length of the room, the intruder is equally likely to be anywhere in the room, and iff you hit the intruder within 6 inches of the center of his chest he will die, then:

There is about a 1/(W-1) chance that the intruder will die, where W is the width of the room in feet.

If the room is 2 feet wide, then the only place for the intruder to stand is in the path of the bullet (assume he has to stand with his center of his chest about 6 inches from the wall) so there's a 100% chance he'll be hit, no matter how far away he is. If the room is 11 feet wide, then the intruder has a 1/10 chance of standing in that middle 1-foot-wide section.

Fish on skateboard! Aaaaahhhhhhhhh!

Well, it ended up being quite short and it's not subtle, but I'm happy with it.

Weather

I'd be interested to know your best guess as to what weather this is, so listen to it before looking in this spoiler:

Spoiler

A light snow turning into a blizzard.

[close]

Greetings and Salutations! Name's Adam, pleased ta meetcha. I currently live in Houston, Texas, USA, Earth. Thankfully, I plan on moving out of this hellhole soon (Houston is the hellhole in question, not USA or Earth or Universe.)

I actually have not played many adventure games. King's Quest, Quest for Glory, and Space Quest, and... that might actually be it. So I guess I've been brainwashed by Sierra. Hopefully that won't negatively express itself in my work.

I'm making my first game, something a bit like King's Quest except with puzzles that aren't insane. My main game-making experience is recording music (mostly pop songs but a few random orchestral pieces), modding games like Starcraft and Warcraft, and copying some album art with acrylic paints. I also have photoshop that I use to manipulate pictures, but I've never been able to make decent original art. I took a couple CS classes in college but I'm definitely rusty, to say the least. 

Hopefully I'll have a demo to show for my efforts soon. And I look forward to honing my craft with you delightful people.

[We laughed so hard at Johnny]

We laughed so hard at Johnny
Eaten by a tree bear
I know it sounds bad now
I guess you had to be there

Sam loved skydiving for 15 years
And hated it for 15 seconds

Sadomaso, Chris
1977-2013
Choked by his wife
Died of happiness

Forum and AGS noobie here, I'm going to give this a quick shot so please consider giving a teeny tiny extension if I don't post strictly by the deadline. Thanks!