Dicey, A Dice Game of Skill and Luck

User Manual

Monday, February 21, 2000

Dicey is a game played by one to six persons. Rolling the dice, each person tries to score in thirteen different categories. The object of the game is to achieve the highest score. The computer program will keep track of the scores, rolls, whose turn it is, etc, on a game board on the screen.

How to Start

The program maintains two kinds of data files:

1) A Name File, containing the names of all Dicey players

2) A Score File for each player.

When the program starts, it first checks for a Name File. If it does not find one, it will display a dialogue box, asking you to add players to the Name File. Every player must have a unique name (or nickname), from one to 10 positions long. Do not use special characters in the name, but spaces are allowed.

If you would like a picture to display when it is your turn, you may wish at this time to copy some jpeg pictures (using Windows Explorer, for example) to the program’s current directory

The program will now ask you who is going to play this game. Pick from one to six players from the Name File (using the menu at the top of the screen). If you wish to play more than one game of the six available, you may add your own name more than once.

When you are done picking the names of the players, the computer will automatically roll the dice for the first player. If a jpeg file that matches the name of the player is found in the current directory, it will display during the player’s turn.

How to Play

These instructions refer to categories on the game board (following this topic). During the player’s turn, he looks at his dice, and based on the values that are showing, tries to decide which game board category to shoot for. During his turn, he can “pick up” (by clicking) any or all of the dice, and toss them again (by hitting the “Roll Dice” button). The player can pick up and toss the dice one more time. At this time, he must decide which category to score.

The player’s turn then ends. The dice automatically roll for the next player.

Instead of clicking on the dice, the player can press the 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 keys, respectively. The ENTER key will simulate pressing the “Roll Dice” button. This makes the game less mouse-intensive. Scoring, however, must be done with the mouse.

At the end of the game, a stat board will appear. It will display some really neat information, such as your average before this game, your average after this game, your high and low score, et cetera. If you scored over average, the computer will greet you with applause. Conversely, if you scored under average, the computer will console you with an “awww”.

The Game Board

Menu Options are discussed below.

Only the first six characters of the player name are displayed. The board is tight; that’s all there is room for unless I made the character font smaller.

The doubler button is used to double the value of any one score. It can be used only once per game, so use it wisely!

The scoring categories are listed below.

Category Name	Combination needed	Category Score
Aces	Aces	Total of all dice that show a “one”
Twos	Twos	Total of all dice that show a “two”
Threes	Threes	Total of all dice that show a “three”
Fours	Fours	Total of all dice that show a “four”
Fives	Fives	Total of all dice that show a “five”
Sixes	Sixes	Total of all dice that show a “six”
Three of a Kind	At least three of the same value	Total of all dice
Four of a Kind	Four of the five of the same value	Total of all dice
Full House	Three of a kind and a pair	1-1/2 times the total of the dice
Flush	All dice are the same color	25. If it is also a straight, an extra 40 will score.
Straight	one-two-three-four-five or  two-three-four-five-six	40. If it is also a flush, an extra 25 will score.
Dicey	All five dice show the same value	50 points, plus 100 for all subsequent Diceys scored in other categories.
Dumper	Anything	Total of all dice. The player can score in this category three times.
Menu Options

Game|New-	This option will start a new game. All current games will be aborted. All personal scoreboards will be updated.

Game|Exit-	This option will end the game. All current games will be aborted. All personal scoreboards will be updated.

Players|Add to PlayerFile

This option will allow you to add new players to the master Dicey players file. All people who play this game must be in the players file.

Players|Pick for Play

This optiuon will let you tell Dicey who (from the master players file) will be playing this game of Dicey.

Sounds	You have the option of turning sound effects on and off (See Sound Effcets below).Turning sounds off will speed up the game, but it will make the game less fun to play.

Help|Help	This option will display this file.

Help|About	This option will tell you about Dicey.

Pictures

The program will display a picture of the player when it is his turn, if there is a jpeg picture in the current directory whose name matches that of the player, e.g. Jane.JPG.

Sound Effects

Sound effects are played at certain times during the play of the game. You may replace any pf the sound files with your own, but you must name them the same as the original. For example, if you are not happy with the “Bummer” sound, simply copy one of your own wave (.WAV) files to the current directory as “bummer.wav”.  If you hear a bell, the chances are that one of the sound files is missing, misspelled, or corrupted.

Make sure you keep the original sound files in a safe place, in case you ever want to restore it.

The sound files are listed below.

Filename	Sound effect	When it plays
AWWW	Awwwww	Under average
BIGCHEER	Cheering	Score a straight
BUMMER	“Bummer”	Score a zero
CLAP	Applause	Over average
DOH	“Doh!”	Tried to score a box that was already scored
DOUBLED	“Your score was doubled”	The doubler feature was used
DUMMY	“Dummy”	Scored Dicey, but did NOT mark it as such
NICEG	“Nice going!”	When an extra 25 is scored in the upper bonus
OOH	“Oooooooh”	More than 20 in Dumper
ROLLDICE	Dice rolling	Rolling the dice
TYFPD	“Thank you for playing Dicey”	End of game: “Thank you for playing Dicey”
YES	“Yes!”	Scored Dicey, and marked it as such
YFTUYD	“You forgot to use your doubler”	At the end of the game, if the player did not use his doubler at all during the game
YOUMISS	“You missed your bonus”	Missed the upper bonus
Player Name File

The Player Name File (PLAYERNM.DAT) is a file containing the names of the Dicey players that you added at the beginning of one of the games. For your convenience, it was written as a simple text file.

Scores File

The Scores File (playername.DAT) is used to calculate averages, and all of the other statistics that appear on the stat board. Again, for your convenience, it was written as a text file. This way, you can easily (using your favorite text editor) merge the scores from games played in two different locations.

End of Dicey User Manual