MENU ITEMS

Play

•	New : Start a new game. Please note that it is not recommended to use this submenu. Please use the Game Selector instead.
•	-- Last Played Game : Starts a new session of the last game you played... (Also works when you relaunch Kyodai)
•	-- Solitaire (Random) : Start a new classic Mahjongg Solitaire game.
•	-- Solitaire (Specific) : Allows you to play a new specific board number (you can change the board number randomly by clicking on "New random game seed"). Please note : selecting the Winnable Layouts feature will cause the board number to generate a different layout.
•	-- Solitaire (2-Player) : Start a new 2-Player Mahjongg Solitaire game (oh, you knew that ?)
•	-- Rivers : Start a new Mahjongg Rivers game, based on Four Rivers / Arcade Mahjongg / Winojong
•	-- Memory : Start a new Memory game, based on Concentration.
•	-- Clicks : Start a new Clicks game. A cool game, based on Samegame, rather different from the Tile-Matching game. Enjoy.
•	-- Slider : Start a new Slider game. Yup.
•	-- Hashira : Start a new Hashira game ;-)
•	Vertical Variation : Switch to Vertical or Horizontal variation of Mahjongg Solitaire. The rules are the same for both versions, except that in the Vertical variation, you'll need the tiles to be free on their top or bottom sides, instead of left or right.
•	Random Layouts : This option allows you to start a different layout every time you start a new Tile-matching game. Very useful if you can't choose between all these layouts... ;-) This works only for the "New" button in the toolbar and the "Last Played Game" option in the menu.
•	Load Game : Load a previously saved game.
•	Save Game : Save current game. Can be used in Solitaire, Rivers and Slider.
•	Exit : Quit Kyodai (really ?) or the current game.

View

•	Cool Mouse : Shows either the default Windows mouse cursor or a hand cursor.
•	Cool Status : Enable or disable the Cool Status line. If activated, the status line's text will scroll when it appears. Please note that even if you disable the Cool Status, the "No more moves" mention will (intentionally) still scroll, in order to catch your attention very quickly.
•	Cool Tile Borders : Choose this option to give a beautiful gradient effect to the Tile borders.
•	Cool Game Background : When you select "None" in the "Background" menu, you can choose to have a nice Gradient effect between black and the color you selected.
•	Cool Window Shadow : Shows a shadow behind the menu panels and windows. Looks nice !
•	Interface Skin : Here you can choose the texture you want to use as the background for all toolbars, menus and windows.
•	Show Menu : Show or hides the main menu. When the menu is invisible, you can still access it by clicking the right mouse button. Then, click on "Menu" to show the menu again.
•	Show Manga Girls : Shows or hides the cute girls who visually comment your progression in Kyodai. Please note : you have to enable "Show Hall of Fame" in order to see them.
•	Old Style Hall of Fame : If you don't like the use of a texture as a background for the Hall of Fame panel, you can enable this option to see the good old background.
•	Play in a Window : For nostalgics. Allows you to run Kyodai in a sizeable window. Please note that you'll lose the nice-looking caption if you do this.
•	Total Immersion : Enables or disables in one click the options to show the Caption, Toolbar, Hall of Fame and Status bar.
•	Show Caption : Shows or hides the caption (or title) bar. This is the place where the application's name is written. You can double-click on this bar to maximize or restore the window.
•	Show Toolbar : Shows or hides the toolbar.
•	Show Hall of Fame : Shows or hides the Hall of Fame panel on the right side of the screen.
•	Show Status Bar : Shows or hides the Status Bar. (Really ?)
•	Show Elapsed Time : Shows or hides the "Elapsed time" counter. Added especially for a Kyodai user who wanted it :-)
•	Show Free Pairs : Shows or hides the "Free pairs" counter. This counter tells you how many pairs of tiles you can still remove from the board. The counter can increase if, for example, when you remove a pair of tiles, they both free other tiles that can be removed as well. It can be useful to track that counter if you want to see if your latest move was strategically interesting for the game. You can disable this function because you may feel it's a way to "cheat", or simply you don't like how close you are to the end...
•	Show Next Tiles : Shows or hides the "Next" indicator in the Slider and Hashira games. This indicator, of course, shows you what will be the next tiles to show up on the board...
•	Set Main Font : Allows you to change the main font used in Kyodai... The changes will be applied in most of the text areas (not all the windows, though), including the toolbar, the status bar and the menu. It's recommended to restart Kyodai for best results after you changed the font.
•	Set Volume : Provides a quick shortcut to the Windows control panel for volume control (MIDI, Wave, etc).

3D

•	Go 3D !! : Switch from 2D mode to 3D mode and vice-versa.
•	Enable all effects (Nice) : Enable, with one click, all of the options that actually improve the visual aspect of Kyodai in 3D. It doesn't enable the 3D options that are not directly related to the visual effects.
•	Disable all effects (Fast) : Disable all of these options with one click. It is targeted to users who don't have a 3D card and would like to play the 3D version anyway. Please be aware of the fact that, even with all of the options disabled, it will STILL be very slow and nearly unplayable. I'm really sorry for all of you who can't play Kyodai 3D at full speed.
•	Fully Textured 3D Tiles : Enable or disable the textures on the tile borders and tile backs.
•	Anti-aliased Textures : Switch between Linear (Anti-aliased) and Nearest (Normal) textures. Anti-aliased textures are very smooth, but may be slower on your machine.
•	High-resolution Textures : Switch between 64x64 and 128x128 textures for the tilesets. It is recommended to use the 128x128 textures, they clearly look better. Also, this option allows you to choose between a 256x256 or 512x512 texture for the background, in case you're using the Background cube mode for example.
•	Enable Animations : Enable or disable animations in the 3D version. So far, it only concerns the tile-removal animation.
•	Enable Shadows : Enable or disable shadows in 3D mode. Shadows work perfectly on most video cards, but some of them might show some artifacts.
•	Show Platform : Shows a table behind the board, that uses the current window background.
•	Emphasize 3D effect : Use this option to bend the tiles, which should improve playability. Press the "5" key, enable this option, disable the Contemplation modes and you should get a visual effect very close to the 2D representation.
•	Colored Layers : Add color effects to the different layers. It might help you differentiate them, especially when you're watching the board from the top.
•	Special Effects : Want some funny effects ?
•	-- None : Normal mode
•	-- Cube Mapping : In Background Cube mode, using this feature will transform the board into a reflective surface that will mirror the surrounding walls. Works on few video cards : GeForce, Radeon...
•	-- Environment Mapping : This effect adds a moving lightmap to the board. Not actual Environment Mapping. Use "Cube Mapping" for this.
•	-- Bump Mapping (EMBM) : This one gives an added effect of realism via a specific bump texture. Few video cards support it, though.
•	-- Bump Mapping (Emboss) : Same thing, but different implementation (which should work on most video cards) and different effect : the bumps are directly applied to the tiles, creating a "carved tile" effect. Looks much better when you zoom the board and maximize the contemplation effect.
•	-- Specular Light : Adds a specular light to the screen. Looks fine depending on the board position.
•	Contemplation mode : You've bought a new 3D card that shows very good results in Kyodai's 3D mode ? Then you can show it to your friends by setting Kyodai in Contemplation mode.
•	-- Normal : Disable Contemplation mode.
•	-- Rotate (Y-Axis) : The camera will slowly rotate around the board to let you "contemplate" it. You can even keep playing in this mode ! ;-)
•	-- Follow Me (Slow) : The camera will move along with the mouse to "highlight" the region you're looking at. Looks great ! Works only when "Highlight in 3D mode" is enabled.
•	-- Follow Me (Normal) : Same thing, but a bit faster.
•	-- Follow Me (Fast) : Guess what.
•	-- Camera-based : This option emulates the Follow Me mode of Kyodai 10.21, where the camera moves around the border instead of the board moving around the space.
•	Video card Compatibility : These options are provided to improve compatibility with older video cards like Voodoo 2.
•	-- Texture as Background : Shows the background as a 256x256 texture. It then looks somehow blurry, but you should expect up to 50% better performance on a Voodoo 2 when using this option. However, on a more recent card you might get the opposite effect.
•	-- Texture as Mouse cursor : Uses a texture to emulate the mouse cursor. Voodoo users will appreciate this... ;-)
•	-- Double-sized Mouse cursor : Multiplies by 2 the size of the textured cursor. More like a gadget, of course, except if you're at very high resolutions.
•	Background Type :
•	-- Normal : Well, back to normal...
•	-- Background Cube : Maps the current background on a sphere that surrounds the board. Looks really good with most pictures.
•	-- Background Sphere : Maps the current background on a sphere that surrounds the board. Looks best with a deep space picture :-)
•	Tile Borders : With these options, you can customize the borders around the tiles.
•	-- Default : Uses the default tile border specified in the current tileset file.
•	-- Marble : Uses a marble-like border type.
•	-- Ivory : Uses an ivory-like border type.
•	Vertical Synchronization : Enable or disable the VSync option which synchronizes the animation speed to the current monitor refresh rate. Useful if the animations are too fast.
•	Show benchmark : Enable this option to show the actual rendering speed on screen. A speed over 40 fps is very good. If you get a framerate below 20 fps, it won't be very playable, and below 3 fps, don't even think of playing the game.

Configuration

•	DirectX Settings : Same as clicking on the game selector's DirectX button. Shows a dialog box that lets you choose the video card and resolution to use, as well as enable Z-Buffer and Hardware acceleration. Please note that a lot of video-cards require the use of a DirectX fullscreen mode to enable hardware acceleration. Also, the DirectX fullscreen mode is not the same as the "desktop fullscreen" mode that you can enable by double-clicking on the caption bar (which is a quick way to hide the taskbar).
•	Winnable Layouts : Makes sure the next time you'll select a new board, there's at least one way to the victory. Please understand that it does NOT mean that you have no way to lose, even though using this feature is a serious option to winning without shuffling. Use with caution, as it could lower the general interest of the game...
•	Winnable Shuffles : Makes sure the next time you'll re-shuffle the current board, there's at least one way to the victory. Same comments as below. My preferred method is enabling Winnable Shuffles and disabling Winnable Layouts, but you can use any combination.
•	Enable time tracking for the Hall of Fame : If this option is not checked, your final time will not be recorded in the Hall of Fame. Check this option only if you don't fear to challenge the Hall of Fame. ;-)
•	Enable automatic Quicksave : If you quit Kyodai while playing a game that can be saved, the program will save it automatically if you enabled this option. It will then relaunch it the next time you run Kyodai, bypassing the preference stocked in the "Begin game directly at startup" option.
•	Date Format : Allows you to choose the way dates are recorded in the Hall of fame. In France we use the DD/MM/YY format.
•	Highlight : Defines how the current tile will be highlighted. The current tile is not a selected tile, it's simply the tile on which the mouse cursor is on.
•	-- None means you don't want Kyodai to show you which tile you are on.
•	-- Red Rectangle quickly draws a small red rectangle around the tile.
•	-- Green Rectangle quickly draws a small green rectangle around the tile.
•	-- Blue Rectangle quickly draws a small blue rectangle around the tile.
•	-- Colored Tile shows the tile exactly as if it had been highlighted by a Hint call.
•	-- Highlight Slider : Highlight the Slider game using the current rectangle color.
•	-- Highlight in 3D mode : Highlight the game in 3D mode like in 2D mode.
•	-- Show Current Tile shows the currently highlighted tile in the lower right corner of the board. It is useful for you if you want to make sure you can see all of the tiles of the board, even if they are hidden by other tiles. Please note that it makes the game a bit easier on certain boards, and that the use of this function is not recommended -- it's no fun anymore ! You must first select a highlight type (rectangle, colored tiled) before you can see the tile in the border.
•	-- Only possible moves allows you to highlight only the tiles you can select. Please note that if you can select a tile, it doesn't mean that you can remove it, of course.
•	Stretch Options : Use these to adapt the tilesets to your current screen size. Recommended for the 2D mode.
•	-- Stretch Tileset : Adapt the Tileset's original size to your window's current size. Useful for small tilesets like Kyodai.bmp.
•	-- High-Quality 2D Stretching (Slow) : This option, enabled by default, calls a specific resizing process using intensive floating point operation. It can be extremely slow if you're trying to load a large tileset. Applies to 2D mode only.
•	-- High-Quality 3D Stretching (Slow) : Same thing, but applies to 3D mode only.
•	-- Maintain Tileset's aspect ratio : Make sure that the tileset is not deformed when it is resized, by maintaining its original aspect ratio.
•	Tileset Options :
•	-- Enable 3D borders on Small Tiles : Enable or disable the 3D borders on the tiles used in Clicks, Slider and Hashira. Although enabling them will make these game look better, it is recommended to disable the option if you have a slow PC. This should accelerate the rendering by two or three times.
•	-- Show Numerals and Letters on Tilesets : Allows you to show the name of the tile in the upper left corner. If the tile has a Chinese character for "7" on it, you will see the number 7 on the corner. If it's a Summer Season tile, you'll see "Sum"... By the way, for your information, the names for the flower tiles are Bam(boo), (Chrysanthe)Mum, Plum and Orc(hid).
•	-- Enable 3D shadows on Tileset : Enable or disable the cool shadows you can see on the tiles. Disabling them will only make the game a bit faster on an old machine.
•	Tile Borders : This submenu allows you to control the aspect of the borders around the tiles.
•	-- Set Main Color : Allows you to call the Color Picker and choose a new color for the Tileset's borders. Use the "Cool Tile Borders" option to choose whether or not you want the borders to have a unique color or a nice gradient effect.
•	-- Set Edge Color : Allows you to choose a new color for the Tileset's edges.
•	-- Enable Top Edges : Shows or hides the borderline along the top of the tile.
•	-- Double Height : Creates bigger borders. The secondary color is the opposite of the primary color.
•	Pause game when losing focus : When this function is checked, Kyodai pauses the game when you switch to another window (Layout selector, About, Help, ...). The advantage : the counter is paused. The drawback : it is less "elegant" than when unchecked.
•	Begin game directly at startup : You can choose to begin a solitaire game automatically when you launch Kyodai.
•	Show Options at startup : Enable this if you want to see the dialog box that enables you to choose the language and the main options at startup.
•	Quick DirectX Start : Allows bypassing of the DirectX driver enumeration process. This should slightly accelerate launching, and avoid a resolution change if you have, for example, a Voodoo card that you don't want to use.
•	Language : One of the most important features in Kyodai.... Allows you to choose your favorite translation of Kyodai. Please note : if some parts of Kyodai remain in English although you changed the language, it's probably due to an uncomplete translation. You should find the latest versions of the translations on my website.
•	Run music automatically at startup : If this option is unchecked, Kyodai will not launch any music when you start it. Choose a music from the menus to start it.
•	Enable MOD digital music player : If you have the "mppsdk.dll" file in your Kyodai directory, you can activate it with this option. It is not activated by default because some PC configurations are known to crash when they load it. If you don't know, this DLL file allows Kyodai to support MOD music. You can find many MOD files on FTP and websites like scene.org... You can also find a selection of MOD files on my own website. (They were too large to be included in the main package)
•	Enable DirectSound engine : Allows you to choose between the older wave engine (Kyodai 10.21) and the newer DirectX engine (Kyodai 11.21 and later) to play sound effects. If your sound card has problems, you might want to disable the DirectSound engine. However, please note that you'll lose MOD music support as well.
•	Play sound effects : Easy to understand, no ?
•	Play music : Why should you want to stop this haunting music ? Oh, because your wife/husband is trying to sleep ? Okay... (NB : the differences between this and the Music button on the toolbar is that, firstly, the music is rewinded to the start when you enable it again, and secondly, the setting is remembered the next time you launch Kyodai)

Animations

•	Animate Pause and Start screens : Shows some cool animations in the Pause screen (two moving "Pause" logos) and Start screen (a "Kyodai" logo moving around the Game Selector).
•	Animate Board while building it : Shows the tiles as they are being added to the board when you start a new game.
•	Animate Tile Rivers in Rivers : Disable this feature if you're busy. It allows the tiles to "meet" themselves graphically in the Mahjongg Rivers game.
•	Animate Falling Tiles in Clicks : Disable this feature if you don't like to wait for the tiles to fall.
•	Animate Sliding Tiles in Slider : This is the animation that shows your selected tile moving on the board when you click on its destination.
•	Animate New Tiles in Slider : Adds a (very) small delay before each new tile appears in the Slider game.
•	Animate Background in Hashira : Shows or hides a scrolling background in the Hashira game... May distract you from the actual game ! ;-)
•	Animate Chain Reactions in Hashira : If your PC is definitely too slow, you may want to disable this. It will speed up the Chain Reaction process in the Hashira game when you remove a column.
•	Animate Tiles in Solitaire (2D) : Disable this if you don't want the tiles to be animated when removed.
•	2D Animation Speed : Set the animation speed for the Tile-removal. You can choose between 5 different speeds, from Slow to Lightspeed.
•	2D Animation Type : Change the way the tiles will disappear from the screen.
•	-- Nucleus : One tile will go to the center of the left side, the other will go to the center of the right side.
•	-- Classic : This was, approximately, the animation used by default in the 8.x versions. The tiles will go to the closest side (left or right, or up or down if you're using the Vertical variation), remaining on the same vertical (or horizontal) coordinates.
•	-- Fuzzy : The tiles go anywhere on the screen. If you're not afraid of headaches... ;-)
•	-- Union : The tiles go anywhere on the screen, but they both go to the same point. Happy end ? ;-)
•	-- Ghost : My favorite. The tiles fade out when they disappear.
•	Hashira Speed : Set the speed at which the columns fall in the Hashira game.
•	-- Hashira Columns Fall Slowly : If you have a state-of-the-art PC, this may be needed to slow down the speed... Playing at 100 fps can be fun, but also painful if you try to beat your scores... ;-)
•	-- Hashira Columns Fall Normally : If you have a powerful PC, this is the default and recommended speed.
•	-- Hashira Columns Fall Quickly : If you have a slower PC (Pentium MMX or something like that), maybe Hashira will be too slow for you. You can accelerate it with this.
•	-- Hashira Columns Fall Very Quickly : Set the tiles' falling speed on steroids !!
•	Camera Animations : Activates camera animations, for example when launching a new game (3D).
•	Particle Animations : Activates particle animations, which occur when you remove a pair of tiles (3D).

Background

•	Load from disk : Load a new background picture. If you quit the game while this menu item is checked, it will load the same background the next time Kyodai will be launched. Please note : click once on this item and Kyodai will show you the last background you had loaded. Click again and it will ask you to choose a new background.
•	None : Shows a solid background behind the tiles. Useful if you don't like being distracted by the pictures. You can choose the solid background's color with the color picker. This setting will be saved for the next times. NB : you can associate this with a Gradient effect (see "Cool Game Background" menu item).
•	Other menu entries : List of the background files found in the "Backgrounds" directory.

Tileset

•	Load from disk : Load a new tileset. If you quit the game while this menu item is checked, it will load the same tileset the next time Kyodai will be launched. Please note : click once on this item and Kyodai will show you the last tileset you had loaded. Click again and it will ask you to choose a new tileset.
•	View Tiles : Calls a page that shows you the current tileset, with its tiles grouped by families (Bamboo, Dragons, etc). If you are not familiar with a new tileset, it's very helpful, although the tiles may look a bit "deformed".
•	Small Tiles : This submenu contains a list of tilesets used for the secondary games of Kyodai (Clicks, Hashira, ...). Just click on another set to select it.
•	Other menu entries : List of the tileset files found in the "Tilesets" directory. The default entries are Ancient (based on Ivory, a tileset introduced in Kyodai 8.0) and Kyodai (introduced in the very first version of Kyodai).

Layout

•	Select Layout : Call the Layout Selector and play a new layout. You can select your favorite layouts from the Layout Selector. They will appear in this very Layout menu.
•	Create Layout : Call the Layout Editor and start a blank layout.
•	Edit Layout : Call the Layout Editor and use the current layout as a template.
•	Favorites : Hides the layouts that aren't in your Favorite Layouts list. You can modify this list by calling the Layout Selector.
•	Other menu items : Lists your favorite layouts (or all the layouts, depending on what option is checked in the View menu) included in the Kyodai\Layouts directory. If there is no layout file (*.lay) in this directory, the game will refuse to run. It seems logical... No ? By the way, you can add your own Layout files by copying them into this directory. Add them to your Favorites by calling the Layout Selector.

Music

•	Random Music : Play a new random music each time the current music is finished.
•	Other menu item : Start a new music.
•	Please note : you can put any MIDI or MOD file into the "Musics" directory and they will appear in Kyodai the next time you launch it.

Help

•	Contents : Shows this very help file.
•	What's New : Full update history since v1.0 :-)
•	Problems ? : Troubleshooting FAQ. If you have any questions about Kyodai, please read this page first...!
•	Register : Click here (or press F9) to register. First, you must have got a user name and a password from the author. Enter your user name and your password as they were given to you (they are case-sensitive), and press Register. Thanks again for supporting Kyodai !
•	Hall of fame : Shows the hall of fame for the current layout. You can select another hall of fame by clicking on the combo box in the bottom of the dialog box and choosing another layout. The Delete Scores button in the Hall of Fame dialog box allows you to delete all the entries for the current layout.
•	About : Shows information about the author.

Context menu : Access it by clicking on the right mouse button

•	Pause : Pause current game. Get back to the game by simply clicking again on this menu item (renamed "Continue" when the Pause is activated).
•	Back : Cancels the last move. Very useful if you feel like you ruined the whole game by doing a wrong move. Please note that you can undo as many moves as you want, everything is kept in a history list.
•	Hint : Shows you a possible move by highlighting a pair of tiles. If you are not satisfied with the hint, you can call this function again and it will show you another possibility, until there's no other possible move. Using this function will add 40 seconds to your total time, so don't waste your time on it !! Important : this feature doesn't work on the 2-Player game (this one is for evident reasons).
•	Shuffle : Shuffle current game tiles. It means that Kyodai will exchange the tiles between them, without touching their positions or their number. It's particularly useful when there are no more possible moves. Indeed, you can find new combinations this way. But please remember that every possible move left will then cost you 10 seconds. For example, if you have 5 moves left to do, press Shuffle, and you'll have, let's say, 8 moves left now. Your current time will be increased by (8x10)=80 seconds. So, use this function only when you really have no more moves left !
•	Menu : Same as the "Show Menu" option in the View menu.
•	Restart : Restart current game from the beginning.
•	Stop : Stop current game and empty screen.

Kyodai Mahjongg is © Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by René-Gilles Deberdt.
All rights reserved.