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Text File | 1992-12-18 | 15.2 KB | 298 lines

INTRODUCTION This game of MIN-HA-TO was developed as a project for a program- ming course in C language. (I had already taught myself C, but I needed the credits). I have decided to release it as shareware after many of my friends urged me to do so. Who knows, maybe enough people will register that I can upgrade my system. NOT! The game was developed over the course of about four weeks in Quick C 2.5 and assembler (for graphics speed) on a Zeos 386SX/16 computer. While I have developed many other programs, both at work and home, this was my first attempt at a color graphics game. Since my wife is Korean, I decided to try and get her involvement by designing a Korean card game. She likes it so much that several more are planned. Since several more games are planned, I decided that this first game could be distributed as shareware. Then if people like it enough to send in a payment, I would send them the other Korean card games when they are completed. Please feel free to copy and distribute this game. REQUIREMENTS This program requires a VGA monitor. While it will work on a monochrome VGA, I have not tested it thoroughly and the colors play a large part in recognizing some of the cards so I don't recommend using a monochrome system. The game will use a mouse if available, but one is not required. It also requires about 300K of free memory and makes no attempt to use either expanded or extended memory in the system. While the program itself only takes up about 60K, the graphics for all of the cards need almost 200K. INSTALLATION You may install the game to either a floppy disk or a hard disk. There are four files included with the game. Please provide all four files when distributing the game to your friends (or enemies). MINHATO.EXE - The program itself. MINHATO.DOC - This documentation file. HA-TO.CRD - The card graphics. REGISTER.DOC - Shareware Registration form. The DOC files are not required to play the game. The MINHATO.EXE and HA-TO.CRD files must be in the same directory to play the game. Here are some example installation steps. Installing to a hard disk from a .ZIP file - MD \MINHATO PKUNZIP MINHATO.ZIP \MINHATO Installing to a hard disk from a floppy disk in drive A - MD C:\MINHATO COPY A:*.* C:\MINHATO Installing to a floppy disk from a .ZIP file - PKUNZIP MINHATO.ZIP A: THE MUNDANE DETAILS To run the game, change into the directory where you installed the game and type in MINHATO and press ENTER. You may also specify the path to the game instead of changing to the program's directo- ry. If desired, you can add the program's directory to the PATH command of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Then you can type in MINHATO at any time to run the game. See your DOS manual for more information on the PATH command. After the cards are read from the disk a copyright notice is displayed and three options are given: Begin, Help or Exit. The first time you play the game you should read through the help to learn the combinations of cards that form up suits. Once you exit help the game will start. Select Begin to by-pass the help screens and start the game immediately. I think you know what exit means. There are two pull down menus available in the game. They are the Game menu and the Help menu. On the top row of the screen you will see the title bar and current scores. You may use the mouse to click on either Game or Help to bring up a menu. Also you may press ALT+G to access the Game menu or ALT+H to access the Help menu. The Game menu has five choices. The New option will restart the game. It does not affect the high scores recorded. The High Scores option will display the number of games played, won and lost along with some other meaningless statistics. Information about high hands is updated after every hand, but the game information is not updated until the end of a complete game. The high scores are recorded in a file named MINHATO.SCR, which the program creates the first time you play the game. The Skill Level option pops up a box which allows setting the computer to easy, medium or expert mode. The Sound option lets you turn the sound effects on or off. It will show the current setting. The program will remember the last setting of the Skill Level and Sound option. The Exit option works as expected. The Help menu has two choices. The View Help option will bring up the on-line help system. It consists of 5 screens of rules and hints. An additionsl 6 screens will display the cards in their proper suits along with some background information. The Hint option was designed for you to use until you memorize the card suits. It will briefly flash the card or cards the computer would play, if it had your hand. Usually this is the best move, but not always. Short-cut keys that are active when playing the game - F1 .......... On-Line Help Shift+F1 .... Hint F2 .......... New Game F3 .......... View High Scores F4 .......... Toggle Sound on or off Alt+F4 ...... Exit Game HOW TO PLAY THE GAME Much of this same information is also contained in the on-line help available by pressing the F1 key. The game of MIN-HA-TO is similar to a game of GO FISH, with a twist. This game uses an Oriental deck of cards called HA-TO. The deck has 48 cards which are divided into 12 suits of four cards. Each suit has a picture meant to associate the suit with one of the 12 months of the year. See the on-line help for a description of all of the cards in the deck. The instructions below assume you are using a mouse. To move a card with the mouse, move the pointer to the card and press and hold the left button to begin dragging the card. Then move the card until it is over a matching card and release the button. When releasing cards, placement is not critical, but since the cards overlap it is better to drop the card slightly to the left than to the right. Be careful if two cards of the same suit are side by side. If you change your mind about the card you wish to play, release the card anywhere away from the playing area and it will move back to your hand so you can select a new card. To use the keyboard to play the game, move the pointer with the arrow keys, then press ENTER or SPACE to select the card you want to play. Then move the pointer to a matching card and press ENTER or SPACE again. You may select a new card if you change you mind by moving the pointer to the new card and pressing ENTER or SPACE. This will unselect any previous card and select the new card. When a card is selected it is shifted up slightly. During the game you and the computer will take turns matching a card from your hand with one of the cards in the playing area. Once you play a card from your hand, you then turn over the next card from the deck and attempt to match it with one of the cards in the playing area. This is repeated until all cards have been played. As you play, the current points you have won are shown on the bottom line of the screen. In this game, "My" means the computer and "Your" means the person playing the game (usually a human). Your hand is displayed across the bottom of the screen and the computer's hand is across the top. Of course, you cannot see the computer's cards, but don't worry, the computer does not look at your cards. To the right of the screen is the playing area and the deck is just to the left of the playing area. Both the computer's hand and the deck can be recognized by the large blue RLP and 1992. You must play a card from your hand every round. If you do not have a match, or don't wish to make a match, you must add a card to the playing area. Do this by dragging a card to the playing area and releasing it. If you attempt to illegally add a card to the playing area that has a match, or accidently drop a card on a different suit, the card will move back to your hand to indicate an illegal move. The twist in this game is the fact that many of the cards have extra symbols drawn on them. These extra symbols are worth points when you win the cards. Nine of the cards also have Korean lettering on a sign. Three of them have black letters on orange signs and are called HUNG-DON. Three of them have white letters on orange signs and are called CHO-DON. The last three have black letters on blue signs and are called CHUNG-DON. If you win all three of the related signs, more bonus points are awarded. In addition, three of the suits are considered trump suits and provide bonus points if you win all four cards in the suit. The three trump suits are called CHO-SI-MA, PUNG-SI-MA and BE-SI-MA. See the on-line help for a list of the special groups. The bonus points given to your hand are also subtracted from your opponent's score. Usually, the bonus points will win or lose the hand. To win the game often you must learn to recognize the card groups that give extra points and play to win them. A little luck is also needed, but skill will give you the edge over the computer. Once a hand is completed, the computer will show all the cards that have points. See the on-line help for the point values of the cards. If either you or the computer have won any special groups, their names are displayed also. When the computer wins one or more of the special groups their names are shown at the top of the screen. When you win any of the special groups, their names are at the bottom. At this point press any key or click the mouse to begin the next hand. A demonstration mode is available. Use a /d switch to start the game and the computer will play against itself. Press any key to exit the program when running in demo mode. You may also use /q to turn on the Quiet mode (ie. No sound). REGISTRATION This is a shareware game and if you like the game, I would appreciate any donation you care to make. I am asking for $10.00, in U.S. funds please. Also for each additional $10.00 you send I will send you another game based on the HA-TO card deck. There are two more games planned for the very near future. The other games play similar to MIN-HA-TO but the scoring is completely different and the special card groups are different. The game of MIN-HA-TO is the older of the three, so it has fewer rules and stipulations. The two games under development are called GO-STOP and YUK-BECK (Korean for 600). To register the game, print the file REGISTER.DOC using the DOS command COPY REGISTER.DOC PRN, then fill out the form and mail it to: Randy L. Pearson 3809 Ashland Drive Huntsville, AL 35805 Since this game is still in a testing stage I am looking for errors in the program. If you find a bug and mail me the first description of the error, I will automatically register you for the additional games. I ask only for $5.00 to cover the cost of disks and shipping. Please provide the version number and a complete description of your computer setup and exactly what was happening when the error occurred. This offer will expire on July 4th, 1992. I reserved the right to determine if the error you report is the first time reported, and whether it is really a bug in program or some other error in your system. FINAL THOUGHTS This program is copyrighted 1992 by Randy L. Pearson. Do not attempt to sell or otherwise profit from the distribution of this program. Mail order distribution companies may only charge a nominal fee designed to cover the cost of reproduction and shipping and handling fees for this program. Since this is a copyrighted game, please do not attempt to reverse engineer or modify the program code. If you wish to have a modified version, contact me and we can discuss the matter. What does RLP stand for? It could be "Really Long Programs", "Real Lousy Programs" or even "Real Life Programs". What do you think? One last thing. Since I am in the military, I am subject to be moved overseas at any time. Military regulations prohibit using the U.S. military postal system to operate a business. If I am sent overseas, I will no longer be able to mail registered users copies of the new programs. If this should happen, I will ask a friend to continue the mailings. Should this not be possible, any money received while I am out of the country will be returned to you. I do not expect to be sent out of the country for another two to three years, so this should not pose a problem, except for you procastinators out there. Good luck and hope you enjoy the game! P.S. I got an A in the class. I get my grade from you based on the number of registrations I receive. ___________________________________THE_END______________________________________