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SOLITILE Copyright 1989 by Everett Kaser All Rights Reserved Solitile is a game of solitaire, played with "tiles". It derives from several similar games, such as "Shanghai" and "Mahjongg", which are played with Mah-Jong tiles. Solitile plays the same game, but adds new starting layouts and the ability for the player to create new layouts and/or modify the layouts provided. It also uses new, "westernized" pictures on the faces of the tiles. Solitile is being distributed as Shareware. If you use the game for more than a week, you are expected to pay for its use by sending a registration fee to: Everett Kaser Solitile 35405 Spruce St Albany, OR 97321 I can be contacted via email on Internet at: hplabs!hp-pcd!everett or everett%hpcvlx@hplabs.hp.com The registration fees are: $10.00 if you're happy with the copy of the game you have. $15.00 if you'd like a fresh copy of the latest version mailed to you. There are no guarantees that the version mailed to you will be newer or different from the one you have. Specify media type: 5 1/4" or 3 1/2". $35.00 if you'd like the sources to the latest version mailed to you. These sources are copyrighted, and distribution rights are reserved. This means you may NOT give a copy of the sources to anyone else, NOR may you distribute them or place them in a publicly accessible place, such as a computer network or BBS. They are for your private use only. You are free to modify and re-compile them at will, but you may NOT distribute any program that is so generated. The sources are primarily Microsoft C, with a small amount of assembly language. The game package, which MUST include the files SOLITILE.EXE (the game) and SOLITILE.DOC (this file), may be freely copied and distributed. It's use is subject to the conditions of the above paragraphs. See section 7 for changes since the first release. 1. INTRODUCTION The set of tiles consist of 144 individual tiles. There are 36 different pictures on the faces of the tiles, with each picture appearing on four tiles. The object of the game is to remove all of the tiles from the board. Tiles are removed in matching pairs. For a tile to be removable, it must not have any other tiles on top of it, and it must have either its entire right side exposed, or its entire left side. "Exposed" means that there is not another tile on the same level and laying immediately against it. A few definitions of terms: LAYOUT: the starting pattern or arrangement of tiles, disregarding the faces of the tiles. This simply tells the program where to place tiles when starting a game, but not WHICH tiles to put in any given place. There are ten possible layouts, with nine being provided. The you may add to, delete, and modify these layouts. BOARD NUMBER: a number between 0 and 65535, which is used to control the placement of specific tiles in the starting layout. This number allows you to replay a specific game at will. The game normally starts with a random board. MENU: The list (displayed down the right side of the display) of up to ten possible actions you can direct the game to perform. These are in addition to playing the game. The menu items may be activated by clicking on them with the mouse, or by pressing the appropriate softkey. BUTTONS: the Left and Right Buttons refer to the buttons on your mouse. If you don't have a mouse, the HOME and PGUP keys on the numeric keypad of your keyboard perform the same functions. These two buttons are used to control the game action. The meaning of the two buttons is always shown in the bottom right corner of the display. 2. STARTING THE PROGRAM The program is started by typing SOLITILE There is an optional argument for specifying the board number: SOLITILE -b 34728 The number 34728 could be replaced by any number from 0 to 65535. The space between the -b and the board number is not required. The welcome screen is displayed first. You may proceed to the game screen at any time by pressing a key or clicking a mouse button. There are two primary "modes" the game can be in: PLAY and EDIT. PLAY mode is the default. EDIT mode is entered by selecting the "EDIT LAYOUT" menu. This allows you to edit, delete, and add layouts. 3. GAME CONTROL DURING "PLAY" MODE To select the first tile of a pair to be removed, move the cursor onto the tile and press the LEFT BUTTON. This will cause that tile (if it's removable, ie. not blocked by other tiles) to be highlighted. Once you've selected the first tile of the pair, move the cursor to the second tile and, again, press the LEFT BUTTON. This will cause the second tile to be highlighted. At this point, pressing the LEFT BUTTON a third time will cause those two tiles to be removed, or pressing both BUTTONs together will de-select the two tiles. A shortcut for selecting the second tile is to use the RIGHT BUTTON. First, select the first tile using the LEFT BUTTON. Then, pressing the RIGHT BUTTON will cause the computer to search for a removable matching tile. If one is found, it will be highlighted. Once both tiles are highlighted, pressing the RIGHT BUTTON again will cause the computer to look for a different tile to use as the matching tile. The RIGHT BUTTON can be used repeatedly to cycle through all possible matches for the first tile you selected. If you're having trouble finding a matching pair of removable tiles, or if you want to see all of the pairs that are currently removable, press the RIGHT BUTTON before selecting a tile. This will cause the computer to search for all matching tiles that are removable. It will highlight them, one set at a time. To cycle through the sets of removable tiles, repeat pressing the RIGHT BUTTON until a message appears in the lower left of the display, informing you that there are no more matches. At any time during this "help cycle", pressing the LEFT BUTTON will abort the "help cycle". During the PLAY mode, the menu contains these entries: F1 Try Again restarts the game with the same layout and board number. This is used if you get stuck and want another try at solving the board. F2 New Board starts a new game with a new board number. You can specify the board number, or the computer will pick a random number for you. F3 New Layout lets you select a new starting layout for the tiles. There are nine supplied with the game. F4 Back Color lets you modify the color used for the background. You can specify a number from 0 to 63, or cycle through the colors until you find one you like. F5 Save Board saves your current game, so you can come back to it later. It's saved in a file called SOLITILE.SAV. F6 Load Board loads your saved game. F7 unused F8 Undo allows you to put back tiles you've taken off, to recover from an accidental removal, or to try alternate paths. Tiles are put back in exactly the reverse order from which they were removed. F9 Edit Layout allows you to edit, delete, and add your own layouts. F10 Exit To DOS quits the game, returning control of your monitor to your you, until next time, in the Solitile Zone. Several of the parameters of the game, such as Layout, Background color, and any Layout Edits, can be saved to disk in a file called SOLITILE.DAT. To do this, follow these steps: 1) select the "New Layout" you wish to be the default. 2) select the "Back Color" you wish to have. 3) enter EDIT mode by selecting the "Edit Layout" menu. 4) press F7 "Save Changes" to store your selections in the file SOLITILE.DAT See section 4 below. 4. GAME CONTROL DURING "EDIT" MODE In EDIT mode, you can add or delete tiles in the current layout. When finished with your edits, you MUST have exactly 144 tiles in the layout (if you intend to save it). You can also delete and insert layouts. The LEFT BUTTON adds tiles, and the RIGHT BUTTON deletes them. The menu contains these entries: F1 Delete All Tiles deletes all the tiles in the current layout, leaving you a "blank slate" upon which to create your NEW layout. (This is frequently used after an "Insert New Layout".) F2 Insert New Layout if there's room, moves all layouts from the current layout to the last one, to make room for a new layout where the current one is. F3 Delete Layout deletes the current layout. F4 Back Color lets you modify the color used for the background. You can specify a number from 0 to 63, or cycle through the colors until you find one you like. F5 Change Name changes the name of the current layout F6 unused F7 Save Changes updates the SOLITILE.DAT file, saving the BACKGROUND color, default LAYOUT number, and the layouts. F8 unused F9 End Edit terminates EDIT mode, returns program to the PLAY mode. If changes have been made, they will be saved in the file SOLITILE.DAT. F10 Exit To DOS quits the game. Although the mouse works (sort of) in EDIT mode, it is recommended that the keyboard be used for all layout editing. See bugs. 5. PLANNED CHANGES AND ENHANCEMENTS 1) Add "Select Layout" menu entry to EDIT mode. 2) Reorganize the menus. 3) Re-draw some of the tile pictures. 4) Fix bugs 5) Hopefully, add a "light source" and shadows, to enhance the appearance of three dimensions. 6. KNOWN BUGS ********1) When editing a layout, "Save Changes" doesn't save the changes * * you've edited into the current layout. To avoid loosing your * FIXED * layout edits, DON'T use "Save Changes" (except for saving the *rev 1.3* BACKGROUND COLOR and the DEFAULT LAYOUT). Instead, after you * * finish your edit, press F9 "End EDIT". This will prompt you ********* to save your edits. Respond with YES (LEFT BUTTON). This WILL save your edits. 2) In EDIT mode, the mouse doesn't work well. The cursor is limited to those locations where tiles may be placed, and this is difficult to control with the mouse (for you, the User. For me, the prog- rammer, it's humiliating failure). Additionally, the mouse buttons will NOT activate the menu. You MUST press the softkeys on the keyboard to activate the menu. Because of this, it is recommended that ONLY the keyboard be used while in EDIT mode. 3) In EDIT mode, sometimes the cursor won't move in a specific direction, as if it's blocked. Try moving "around" the blocked area, sneak in from the back. You should be able to get to where you're trying to go. This happens particularly when there is a large difference in the height of the stacked tiles that you're moving "across". ********4) If one or two tiles are selected when UNDO is activated, those * FIXED * tiles remain selected, but may become blocked, and partially *rev 1.4* re-painted by the UNDO. ********* 7. CHANGES, ENHANCEMENTS, AND AMMENDMENTS In rev 1.3: a) "patched" around an apparent timing problem with certain Mice on certain computers. The reported failure mode was that the game ran fine with the keyboard, but the mouse buttons would not activate anything (except responses to questions). This was seen by four or five people with Logitech mice and one person with a Microsoft serial mouse. Most of the people with Logitech mice had the problem with the 4.00 mouse driver, while the 3.42 driver worked fine. One person was the other way around (or, at least, his computer system was). Since I didn't have access to this problem first hand, I had to depend upon others for information and testing. I would like to thank Brynn Rogers, BOTE chief (Beta/Omega Tester Extraordinaire) particularly for his testing help. b) Added in the three layouts that were accidentally left out of the original release, bringing to nine the total layouts supplied with the game. c) Added the ability to de-select a single tile by pressing both mouse buttons together. This was previously available ONLY when you had a pair of tiles selected. To de-select a single tile, you had to move back to that tile and click the left button ON the tile. Now, you can de-select the single tile from anywhere by clicking both mouse buttons at the same time (or pressing esc on the keyboard). d) Fixed bug 1) listed above in section 6, having to do with an edited layout not being saved by "Save Changes". This now works properly, by saving your edited layout, IF it has 144 tiles, otherwise an error message is displayed, and NOTHING is updated in the disk file SOLITILE.DAT. e) Added a more visually stimulating congratulations display when you successfully complete a board. In rev 1.4: f) Fixed bug 4) listed above in section 6, having to do with the failure to first un-select any selected tiles before UNDOing a previous move. End of SOLITILE.DOC