tk3950/akstria

A small application that generates fictional words syllable-by-syllable, written by request.

Akstria

Generates random words with a syllable-based algorithm. The name for this repository was generated with it. This is an old project from when I first learned how to create forms in C#. The request I was given was simple: Build a program that randomly creates fictional "words" for the user. The idea behind it was to create large wordlists that the user can look through, picking words to build a fantasy langauge. After proving the concept with a character-by-character algorithm, I designed a syllable-based algoritm to improve the amount of usable words that the program outputs. Below is a description of the current algorithm, organized according to what happens when one of the buttons is pressed.

#Generate

[button1_Click]

-String arrays for all syllable types are created, then populated with the contents of their respective text boxes.

--createWords method is called with these arrays and the result of method trackBarSums as parameters

---trackBarSums simple returns the sum of the trackbar values representing the "weights" (or probabilities) of each syllable type.

----The length of words and number of words are stored, and the program enters the main word-generator loop

-----While the number of words created is less than the chosen length...

------An empty string 'word' is created,

------While the word is less than the chosen number of syllables...

-------A string returned by the method getSyllable is appended to 'word'

--------getSyllable parameters call the method pickSyllableType, which calls getProbs to store the weight of each syllable as a percentage

--------and also calls getSeed to generate a random number 0-100

---------getProbs returns an array of the 11 syllable types weight (its value * 100 / the sum of the trackbar values)

---------local_sum is iterated through all 11 syllable types and the selected type is returned when the result of getSeed is less the weight of active syllable type

---------inside of getSyllable, empty string 'syllable' is created the syllable type is run through a switch statement

----------the switch statement sets the syllable to the element at an index chosen by getSeed from within its respective textbox, as stored in the first step.

-------Syllable separator string is appended to 'word'

------'word' is appended to the main textbox along with the word separator string

------And the main textbox is manually updated for each word.

#Clear

[button2_Click]

--The main textbox is cleared, then manually updated

#Save

[button4_Click]

--Basic steps to save the generated wordlist to a file, look this up elsewhere if it's hard to understand

#Test RNG

[button3_Click]

--All trackbars are zeroed out

--For 400 iterations

---A trackbar is chosen randomly with getSeed and has its value incremented

--The weights of these are then displayed in the main textbox (weights should be around 36 +/- ~11)