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- Hot Death UNO Notes v1.1
-
-
- -NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-NOTICE-
-
- HOT DEATH UNO is not, repeat, NOT a "family" game! However cute and innocent
- ordinary UNO may be, the Hot Death variation contains several obscenities and
- "adult" references. It is also not 100 percent "politically correct." If
- these things bother you, do not play this game. You may wish to review the
- game's content before distributing it to your progeny.
-
-
- *** HOT DEATH UNO IS =NOT= SHAREWARE! ***
-
- UNO is a trademark of Parker Brothers, and the creators of Hot Death UNO and
- the author of Hot Death for Windows have no legal agreements with that company
- to license that trademark. Therefore, please do not send any money to the
- author of this game.
-
- Why did I choose to use the trademark anyway, right down to mimicking the basic
- design of the cards? Well, it boiled down to a question of artistic vs. legal
- integrity. I've been dissatisfied with the poor visual design of many
- shareware and freeware games, and I resolved to make Hot Death for Windows a
- more professional-looking product (at least as far as one can using Visual
- Basic 1.0). It was only natural to use the design forms with which people
- would already be familiar -- that is, those of the actual UNO product. In
- doing so I resolved that I would accept no profit from the use of these
- trademarked and copyrighted designs. The only people who have the legal right
- to be making money off UNO are the folks at Parker Brothers.
-
- Although distribution of this program is encouraged, please be sure to include
- this file, README.1ST, along with it. Once again, if you paid money for this
- program, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE!
-
-
- HOW TO INSTALL HOT DEATH UNO
-
- Since you are reading this document, you have already unpacked the Hot Death
- UNO files from their .ZIP file. The files UNO.EXE and C00.BMP through C81.BMP
- must all be in the same directory. (Please do not tamper with the .BMP files
- -- while they will not cause the program to stop functioning or act
- erratically, altered bitmaps will not match the ones permanently drawn into
- the Help With Cards screen.)
-
- Use the Program Manager to place Hot Death UNO in the program group of your
- choice. Be sure to set the Working Directory property to the directory in
- which the .BMP files are resident. UNO.EXE must have access to those files as
- it runs and will crash if it cannot find them.
-
- After you run and exit UNO.EXE for the first time, it will create a short text
- file called UNO.INI. Hot Death UNO saves your Options settings between runs.
-
- You must have the file VBRUN100.DLL in your Windows directory for Hot Death UNO
- to run. Hot Death UNO does not come with this file. However, this file is
- commonly available on bulletin boards and FTP sites wherever finer shareware
- and freeware programs are archived.
-
- Hot Death UNO uses a LOT of memory and may occasionally cause conflicts. If
- portions of cards are improperly redrawn, minimize Hot Death UNO, remove some
- other programs from memory and restore Hot Death UNO. Don't even try to play
- the game without at least 2 megabytes of RAM. Four megabytes is preferable.
-
- [ADOBE TYPE MANAGER USERS: If you have the LeftyCasual font, Hot Death UNO
- will use it to write the scores on the score pad. If you don't have it, try to
- find it. It looks a lot better on the pad than Arial, the default.]
-
-
- HOW TO PLAY HOT DEATH UNO
-
- Hot Death UNO is played like regular UNO, with two rule changes and a flock of
- new cards. These cards and their functions are described in the Help With
- Cards screen. The first rule change is that Wild Draw 4 cards are not always
- final. The victim of a Wild Draw 4, if he has one as well, may "stack" his on
- top and make the next player suffer the effects of both cards. This stacking
- process may continue on as long as players can continue to provide Wild Draw 4
- cards for the stack; it also extends to two of the special Hot Death UNO cards,
- the Hot Death (Wild Draw 8) and the Delayed Blast Draw 4. Another new card,
- the Harvester of Sorrows, has the power to force the end of the stacking.
-
- The second rule change is that instead of always dealing seven cards, the
- dealer may choose to deal any number of cards from five to 15.
-
- Hot Death UNO games are to 1,000 points. This score can in fact be reached in
- only one hand of play. However, a more typical game, depending upon the
- number of players involved, will take between 30 and 45 minutes.
-
- You may choose to play against two to seven computer opponents. There is no
- allowance for having more than one human player, but the computer opponents
- should prove quite entertaining, particularly if the "Computer Players Talk"
- option is checked.
-
- You may choose the speed of the game: Slow, Normal or Fast. The Slow and
- Normal settings animate each hand's deal and provide a pause before each
- computer player lays a card. The Fast setting does not animate the deal and
- provides no pause.
-
- When the "Computer Players Talk" option is checked, the computer players will
- trade barbs and announce Wild card color choices and victims of the targeted
- cards, Glasnost and M.A.D. They will also call "UNO!" when they are down to
- one card. (You do not ever have to call "UNO!" yourself.) When this option is
- turned off, vital messages will be displayed in message boxes, but you will not
- be notified when a computer player is down to one card! If you have to be away
- from your computer, however, you may wish to turn the talk option off to make
- sure you do not miss anything significant.
-
- The "Show Cards at End of Hand" option provides a list of the cards each
- computer player holds at the end of a hand. Sometimes -- particularly when you
- play against many computer opponents -- these lists will be so long that they
- will overflow the screen, and you will be unable to click on the "OK" button
- to move on. If you cannot see the "OK" button, just press "Enter" and the
- program will continue. This problem is most serious for users with 640x480
- VGA displays. Users with 800x640 or 1024x768 displays should find their screen
- space ample for end-of-hand card lists.
-
- The "Sissy Game" is a standard UNO game, played with only one deck. (Hot Death
- UNO is played with two.) The game ends when one player's score reaches 500
- points.
-
- To make room for the cards, which do not overlap -- mainly because I couldn't
- figure out how to get Visual Basic 1.0 to overlap them -- scroll bars will
- appear next to hands that hold more than six cards. Pressing Control-R will
- sort your cards by color and number, making it easier to evaluate your hand.
- The option is also available from the Game pull-down menu.
-
- To play a card, double-click on it. Hot Death UNO will not allow you to make
- an illegal play. All drawing of cards is handled automatically. If a Draw
- card is played on you, but the computer seems to be waiting for your input, it
- probably is -- usually that means you have a card that can counter or deflect
- the effects of the hostile card. Scroll through your cards to find the one
- you can play. If you decide you would rather draw than play, double-click on
- the draw pile. After drawing, if you still choose to pass, double-click on
- the draw pile again.
-
- The score pad will appear automatically at the end of each round, but you can
- call it up any time by pressing Control-S or selecting "Show Scores" from the
- Game menu.
-
- When you are eliminated from a hand by the effects of a card, the computer
- players will keep playing before you until the hand is finished. This process
- can take a while -- long enough for some screen savers to try to kick in. If
- the display seems to be acting strangely while the computer players do their
- thing, it's probably your screen saver trying to assert itself, only to be
- yanked off again by the appearance of a computer player's talk window. You
- can avoid this problem simply by twitching your mouse from time to time.
-
-
-
-
- THE HOT DEATH CREED:
-
- *** ONE GOOD DRAW TWO DESERVES ANOTHER! ***
-
-
- 11/28/93
- ###
-