MacWorld 1998 September/Macworld (1998-09).dmg/Games World/Shareware Games/Solitaire Till Dawn 3.3/Solitaire Till Dawn Games Guide/Solitaire Till Dawn Games Guide.rsrc/TEXT_16807_• The Towers.txt

Text File | 1998-07-04 | 2KB | 16 lines

The Towers

We’ve received innumerable requests to add this addictive and fascinating game to Solitaire Till Dawn over the years, but we have always resisted out of courtesy to our friend Art Cabral. Art created the classic Macintosh version of this game: “Seahaven Towers,” a beautiful and creative piece of work. But Art recently assured us that he did not invent the game itself and that he would not mind our including it. The name “Seahaven” is Art’s trademark, so we present the game here as “The Towers.” Thanks, Art!

Layout Size: Fits nicely on a medium-size screen.

Difficulty: A good player should be able to win 50% or more of all games, at least if you are willing to make patient use of the Undo and Redo commands. We recommend that this game be treated as a puzzle: feel free to back up and try a different approach whenever you get stuck.

Rules: Shuffle the deck and lay out fifty cards in ten tableau piles, face up and fanned down, so that there are five cards in each tableau. Above the tableaus, on the left, are four piles called the towers, and to their right are the four foundations. The two remaining cards are placed face-up in two of the towers; the remaining towers and the foundations begin the game empty.

Tableaus build down in suit. Top cards of tableaus are available for play on other tableaus, on foundations, or on towers. Only Kings may be played to an empty tableau. An empty tower can hold any card, but each can hold only one card at a time; and of course such cards can be removed only by correctly playing them back onto tableaus or foundations.

(See picture: The Towers. There are many possible plays. One way to start is to move the Queen of Diamonds onto the King of Diamonds, revealing the 8 of Clubs. The 8 can then be moved to an empty tower, revealing the Ace of Clubs which can be played to the foundations. The Ace of Diamonds can also go to the foundations; and an empty tower can be reclaimed by bringing the Jack of Diamonds down onto the King-Queen.)

On the Screen: Solitaire Till Dawn will lay out the cards for you as usual. The rules state that you can move only one card at a time. But as a shortcut, Solitaire Till Dawn will allow you to move a build if there are enough empty towers, because you would have been able to accomplish the same effect by temporarily moving the extra cards into the towers.