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Latest Version : 1.3

How do you contact me ?

email : eder@bigfoot.com
site : ohad.visual-i.com
GSM : 972-54-262144

Checkers is a nice game!

Therefore it must have a Pilot version...

Very simple logic behind the making of this game :)

What is Checkers ?

Checkers is a nice board game, Checkers is the american name for 'British Draughts'.

What is IMR ?

IMR is the corporation.

How do I play Checkers ?

A man may only move or take 1 place diagonal to the opponents side.
A King may only move or take 1 place diagonal to both sides.
If a man reaches the opponents side, he becomes a king.
If a player can't make a move, he loses the match.

Where can I get IMR-Checkers ?

You can download it from the following web-sites :

http://ohad.visual-i.com/pilot/ickr/ickr.htm
http://www.palmpilotgear.com
http://www.palmcentral.com
http://www.pilotzone.com

in the last 3 sites enter 'IMR' or 'Checkers' in the search field and you will be lead automatically to the game.

Why is IMR-Checkers Shareware ?

Because I've worked on this game alot of time.

Whats the difference between the Shareware and Registered version ?

In the shareware version you can play only 7 games. In the registered version you can play untill the sky falls :)

In the shareware version you can only look at the preferences but not change them, things like difficulty level, computer behaviour (defensive,offensive,etc), many nice features. In the registered version you can change all that.

In the shareware version the board-state is not saved between sessions, this means that if you leave IMR-Checkers and go to an other program, when you come back, the Pilot will automatically start a new game for you. In the registered version the board-state is saved between sessions.

In the shareware version you can't undo moves. In the registered version you can undo up to 250 moves :)

The shareware version has a 3 second shareware-nag-screen when it loads everytime.

What do i get for registering IMR-Checkers ?

You get :

The Registered version which has all the nice features mentioned in the above paragraph
Tech-Support
Free Updates of IMR-Checkers v1 Revisions/Fixes/Updates.
Anything else we can come up with.

Cool, I want the Registered Version, how do I purchase it ?

Great, click on this link, and you will be brought to an online purchasing site..

Does IMR-Checkers support multiple-eats ?

As of version 1.1, Yes :)

Whats that on my screen ?

1. Your Units.
2. The Pilot's Units.
3. Blocks you can move to.
4. The Pilot's Last Move.
5. Pilot 'Think-Bar'.
6. Amount of Black-Pieces.
7. Amount of White-Pieces.
8. Pilot Attitude.
9. Control Buttons.

Note : This is a shot of the standard board, its also possible to play in the 'Big-Board' mode, just click on 'menu->Config->Board Size' or draw a '/B' on the grafitti area.

Whats this 'Setup Board' screen ?

Using the 'Setup Board' feature you can start playing from any possible board position.

Just click the gray blocks to change their content from Black pieces, to White piece to Kings (both black and white :).

You can quickly clear the entire board by clicking the 'Clear Board' button at the bottom of the screen,
And you can quickly set the standard board by clicking the 'New Board' button at the bottom of the screen.

What do all the preferences mean ?

Lets take a look at hte preferences...

Sound Efects - Hard one to guess.
Must Eat If Can - I'm not sure if this is an official law, or a twisted version of the official law, but anyhows it says that if one of your units has the opportiunity to eat one of the enemie's units, it has to. Same goes for the enemy.
Show Valid Moves - When you select a unit, if its your unit and it CAN move, a black rectangle will appear around it. If 'Show Valid Moves' is enabled, all the block into which this unit can move will be marked with a cripple 'x' mark.
Show A.I Movements - This is one for the coders. The Pilot uses MinMaxi'ng to find the best possible move, along this 'tree-scanning' he performs many many moves and evaluates the board. If you enable 'Show A.I Movements' you will see all the movements the computer does and all the board states he reaches. This is most interesting at Level - 3 where the computer reaches 4 levels deep (yes 4 not 3), you can really see him planning and ealuating a long way in. Note : on high levels (level 3 for instance) this can slow down the 'thinking' proceess significantly.
Alpha-Beta Pruning - This simple applies a technique called Alpha-Beta-Pruning to the Pilot's thinking process, it speeds up the process. I didn't implement this feature "percisely" as it's explained in some-sites, so I added the option to disable it in case you feel its messing up, although it hasn't in beta-tests. :)
1-Click Multiple-Eat - When this feature is on, when you have a situation when you can perform a multiple eat/jump, you just click the last position your piece will reach and the Pilot will perform the move-sequence for you. Sometimes, you have several ways to reach a position, and the Pilot won't always choose the passage you prefer, so just disable this feature, perform your long-move, and then enable it back again.
Multiple-Eat Backwards - This feature exists due to a collision between British Rules and American Rules. American rules state that during a multiple/long eat, a Pawn (not a King) can eat backwards. British rules do not allow such behaviour, they state that a pawn can ony eat forward, even if it's during a multiple/long eat.
Pilot Intelligence - Determines how 'smart' the Pilot is, 1 is not far from the IQ of a hamster, 2 has the brain of your average octopus, level 3 gets smarter, and level 4 even more.
Pilot Attitude - Yes, another cool option. This REALLY determines the Pilot's attitude, wether he'll be Defensive keeping his back row, trying not to loose units at all, or be Offensive and ...

Ok, Now tell me all the cool stuff about the Computer Artificial Intelligence...

Ahh, I'm so happy you asked.

It goes like this, IMR-Checkers uses the standart MinMax algorithm, reaches depths 1, 2, 3 & 4.
The Evaluation function has no less than 9 factors.
Due to the fact that IMR-Checkers can't get too deep in the tree, the evaluation function takes into consideration several aspects that compensate for this.
It uses Alpha-Beta pruning to speed up the deep level scanning, but uses it only on one side, this eliminates the possibility of mischoosing the 'best-move'.
It has 3 playing modes : Offensive, Normal and Aggresive, all 3 of them are different implementations of the evluation function. All co-efficients were composed after a period of beta-testing and heuristic evluation.
Cool :)

Tell me what was the difference between all IMR-Checkers Versions...

Version 1.3 :

Speeded up Pilot Player, Especially level 3 (speeded it up by about 500%).
Re-Structured Evaluation Process or in other words 'Pilot is smarter than ever'.
Added the menu-item 'Force Pilot Move', this allows the player to have the Pilot start the game, or start playing after a board-setup.
Added display of chosen Difficulty Level in top right screen corner.

Version 1.2 :

Added the option to disable backwards eating during a multiple/long-eat.
Highly improved Pilot Intelligence, especially on level 2 which is the default level played.

Version 1.1 :

The game now allows Multiple-Eating.
Faster-Smarter Pilot Opponent.
Setup-Board option.
Several Bug-Fixes.

Version 1.0 :

IMR-Checkers was released.