The object of Othello is to gain as much of the board as possible before the game ends. The game ends when either one of the players has no chips of his color on the board, when all 64 chips have been placed or when neither of the players can place a chip. A general hint is not to go for many flips early in the game. Wait until there are about 5-10 chips left for both players to put on the board before you make your chip-gaining moves.
There are two players, each with 32 chips. The one with the green chips open the game. (Actually, each player only have 30 chips to work with, as 4 chips is placed on the board when the game begins.)
To better understand the rules for flipping, you should watch the tutorial, accessed through the Othello menu by selecting Show tutorial. If all you are interested in is the rules for flipping, simply selecting Show rules for flipping from the Othello menu will bring up a dialog explaining legal flips. You can also turn on Show available moves to see legal moves while playing.
To place a chip on the board, simply click on one of the empty squares. As long as the move is legal, the chip will be placed and the flip will be executed. If you have no available moves, you will need to skip your turn by selecting Skip move from the Othello menu or dragging the rotating cube to the opposite chip’s location. When you have to skip a move, the cursor will change into a hand when it is moved over the rotating cube.
If you at any time want to end a game, just select End game from the File menu. You will be asked to confirm your choice. You can hold the option key down to skip the confirmation dialog.
During the entire game, the number of chips each player has on the board is shown next to the chips located in the upper right corner of the Super Othello window.
To begin a game of Super Othello, just select New Game from the File menu or click on the New Game button located to the right of the board. You can decide if you want to play against another human, against your Mac or just simply watch you Mac play against itself. To do this, simply check the item matching the sort of game you want to play/watch from the Othello menu. Depending on your settings, you or the Mac will make the first move. These settings along with the intelligence level can be changed during play.
To control the difficulty level at which the Mac plays when it plays against a human opponent, select the appropriate level from the Intelligence sub-menu, which is accessed from the Othello menu. You can also click and hold on the brain to change intelligence level.
During the game, you can see where you are allowed to place chips by selecting Show available moves in the Othello menu so that a checkmark appears next to it. The legal moves are represented by a little white pearl in the middle of unoccupied squares. You can also turn marked chips on or off via the Settings dialog (explained later). This will cause the chip being placed to blink before the flip is executed.
To undo a move, you can select Undo move from the Edit menu or click on the arrow. You can also undo moves after opening a saved game (in practice, you can start the game all over again, even though this has little or no purpose in itself). Due to the ability to undo moves after opening saved games, the format of the saved games have changed. This means that you can not open games saved by versions earlier than 2.3.
The Super Othello window (scaled), with explanations of the various items available. You may need to resize the SimpleText window to see the entire picture.
As of version 2.3, Super Othello will let you cheat by dragging chips to, from or around the board. To drag a chip to the board, hold the option key down while letting your cursor hover over either the red or green chip next to the scores. Then click and drag a chip to the board. To move chips around the board, simply hold the option key down while letting the cursor hover over the desired chip. Then drag it to its new destination (which can be either an empty square or an occupied one). To drag a chip off the board, all you have to do is hold the option key down, then drag the desired chip of the board. Please note that cheating will disable your ability to undo moves, and if you save a cheated game and then attempt to undo a move, interesting side-effects will occur. Logging cheated games will most likely produce an error. In case you try to run any such logged games, just select End game from the File menu when the errors become too annoying (and believe me, they will).
Settings
The Settings dialog, accessed through the Othello menu, gives you the opportunity to control the following aspects of the game:
√ which player makes the first move when playing against the computer
√ at what intelligence levels the computer plays at when playing itself
√ whether or not the location of the chip being placed is shown by a marked chip
To set any of these options, simply go to the Othello menu and select the Settings item. The dialog is pretty self-explanatory. If you want to revert to the default settings, simply click on the Default button in the Settings dialog. Please note that the default settings do not apply to logging, Mac vs Player AI level or showing available moves.
Saving, loading, logging and reviewing games
Super Othello will let you save any game in progress. This is done by selecting Save game from the File menu. Loading a game is simply a matter of selecting Load game from the File menu and then choose a game to load. Please note that you can not open games saved by versions of Super Othello earlier than 2.3.
To log a game, first make sure that the Log on item in the Othello menu is checked. You can check this at any time during a game -- it doesn’t matter if it’s before the last move or right after the first. It can also be unchecked at any time. When the game is over, you will be prompted to save the logged game. To later review the logged game, all you need to do is select Review logged game from the File menu and choose a logged game to review. A rather interesting feature here is that while you are reviewining a game, you can save it and then continue at the point where you saved it, allowing you to continue playing already played games. You will even be able to undo moves past the point at which you saved your game.
Super Othello supports drag and drop, meaning that you can drop both logged and saved games onto the Super Othello icon to open them. This will have the same effect as going via the File menu and select either Load game or Review logged game respectively. You can also double click logged and saved games to load them.
Registering
When you have registered Super Othello, you will receive a code. Along with your name, this code makes up the serial number for your copy of Super Othello. You may not give this code away to anyone (doing so will lead to a termination of your license). As soon as you have received your code, you should enter it, along with your name, in the Enter code dialog. This dialog is accessed either from the Apple menu by selecting "Enter code" or from the Register dialog by pushing the Register button. Make you sure you enter your name exactly as spelled on your registration card.
If you have problems with your serial number, contact me and I will try to fix it.
