Gateway Game

0. Playing This Game on a Cell Phone
Tap on a browser such as Google Chrome to open it.
Go to address www.seafjmc.com
Scroll down to Trump Challenge. Tap on cube.
Follow play instructions on this page using a finger tap instead of a mouse click.
(To go to game from this page, tap on green dot at upper right of this page.)

Trump Challenge Instructions
1. Goal
In January 2018, Donald Trump boasted that he got a perfect score on a mental test. Actually, it was a cognitive assessment test. You're supposed to get a perfect score. Failing a question points to possible brain damage in the area of the brain tested by the missed question.
In this test, a cube has six faces.
*** Red is opposite magenta.
*** Green is opposite yellow.
*** Blue is opposite cyan.
The solved position is red face up, green face right, blue face front.
The cube starts in a different position. Your job is to either press keys or click the mouse so as to spin the cube back to the solved position.
In easy mode (which the game starts in), you can solve it with no more than three spins. (One spin is pressing the same key or clicking the mouse in one location one or more times.)
It tests spatial visualization. Maybe Donald Trump would like to try it. It's really simple.

2. Tire on Axle
Think of the cube as a tire spinning on an axle.
Jam a pencil perpendicularly through the red face, through the center of the cube, out the magenta face. The pencil is the axle the tire is mounted on.
The other faces—blue, green, cyan, yellow—make up the surface of the tire.
Turn the pencil and the tire spins about its axle.

2. A. Keyboard
Look down the pencil toward the red face.
Keys F, L (capital or lower case) spin the cube 10° counterclockwise.
Keys S, J (capital or lower case) spin the cube 10° clockwise.

Jam the pencil perpendicularly through the green face, through the center of the cube, out the yellow face. Look down the pencil toward the green face.
Keys R, I (capital or lower case) spin the cube 10° counterclockwise.
Keys D, K (capital or lower case) spin the cube 10° clockwise.

2. B. Mouse
Click right of center to spin the cube 10° counterclockwise when looking at the red face.
Click left of center to spin the cube 10° clockwise when looking at the red face.
Click above the center to spin the cube 10° counterclockwise when looking at the green face.
Click below the center to spin the cube 10° clockwise when looking at the green face.

2. C. Right hand rule
In your imagination, wrap your right hand around the pencil. Your thumb points away from the face. Your fingers curl in the counterclockwise direction. That is the direction the cube will spin 10° if you click the mouse right of center (looking at red face) or above the center (looking at green face).
To spin the cube 10° clockwise, click the mouse left of center (looking at red face) or below center (looking at green face)
This is the method I use.

2. D. Practice, practice, practice
Rather than trying to visualize these instructions, get the red face in view, press red face keys or click red face mouse locations. See what happens.
Get the green face in view, press green face keys or click green face mouse locations. See what happens.

Note that the key you press applies to the associated face no matter where it is. Your mind has to do two steps:
*** Look at the cube. Twist yourself around. Maybe you decide to spin the cube clockwise 10° about the red face.
*** Regardless of where the red face is you press the S or J key or click the mouse left of center.

3. Easy
The game starts with an easy game already selected. At any later time, press the Z key or click the Z button to start a new, easy game.
You should be able to restore the cube to its finish position in two or three spins. (A spin is pressing one key or clicking on the same location with the mouse one or more times.) The game does not stop or signal when the finish position is reached It's up to you to see that:
*** The red face should be up, The green face should be right, The blue face should be front.
*** The corners of the cube should just touch the tips of the fixed lines and align with them.
*** The values of x, y and z below the cube should all be 1.

4. Hard
For a hard game, press the X key or click the X button.
I strongly recommend against playing the hard game.
The easy game is fun.
The hard game adds nothing but brain burn.
I added the hard game because it was easy to code once I wrote the code for the easy game.

5. Bubble Background
I like coming up with computer and phone wallpaper and game backgrounds.
I made the bubble background for the start page by squirting a dab of dish detergent in the middle of the bottom of a fry pan. I filled the pan nearly full of water.
After a minute or two the surface was a mass of bubbles.
I took a picture with my cell phone.
In Paint Shop Pro photo editing program, I selected a 400x400 pixel section of fairly uniformly-sized bubbles and cropped the picture to the selection. I then applied Image Effects, Seamless Tile.

6. Browser Not Support Canvas
If you get a message when you try to start the game that your browser does not support canvas, then try another browser. You can have multiple browsers on your computer. In fact, having multiple browsers is recommended. One may be best for one program, another best for another program. Microsoft actually has two: Edge and Internet Explorer. Others are Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Opera.
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update 6/28/2020
copyright © 2019-2020 Fred McCarthy. All Rights Reserved.