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-
-
- EUCHRE card game from SPECIAL K
-
-
-
-
- release 2.2 - 1999
-
- created by G.M.McKAY
-
-
-
-
-
- COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS:
-
- Any 486, pentium or better IBM compatible computer will successfully
- run this game as long as it can run Windows 95 and has over 8 Mb of memory.
- It will use any sound driver that your Windows has fitted (ie. a
- sound card or PC speaker driver). A mouse is preferable (as with all
- Windows activities), but this is not a requirement. It works best if
- Windows has a standard screen resolution, such as 640x480, 800x600,
- 1024x768, or 1280x1024. However, it can accommodate any resolution.
-
-
-
-
- DISTRIBUTION:
-
- This copyrighted game is distributed under the SHAREWARE system which
- depends upon your support for on-going development. You are encouraged to
- freely copy and distribute this product unaltered to friends, business
- associates, bulletin boards and user groups. HOWEVER THIS PRODUCT IS NOT
- FREE ! You have an evaluation period of two weeks. If you decide you do
- not like the game, simply pass the disk along to someone else. If you are
- still using "EUCHRE from SPECIAL K" after two weeks of evaluation, you are
- obligated to send a minimum payment of $28. If the future of low-cost
- quality software is to continue, we all must support this concept. If you
- cheat on this payment may you be constantly finessed.
-
- When you register, you get lots of goodies, as well as that warm
- feeling that only comes from the knowledge that you are more saintly than the
- scum around you. Read the end of this file to find out about all the
- goodies.
-
- If you registered a previous version that gave you life time
- registrations (like this one does), simply setup this Shareware program on
- top of the previous one (ie into the same directory). It will become
- registered.
-
-
- RUNNING IT:
-
- See later in this file for full details on installing this program (if
- you are reading this, then chances are that you have already installed it
- correctly).
-
- Once the program has been installed, running it is as easy as clicking
- on the icon installed in your Windows START button Programs group. If this
- is too easy, you can also start it by double clicking on EUCHRE.EXE in the
- File Explorer (naturally you have to find the correct directory if you choose
- the hard way).
-
-
-
-
-
- LET'S PLAY:
-
-
- In keeping with the traditions of Shareware, the preliminary screen
- you see is a "nuisance screen", reminding you of the virtues and good Karma
- bestowed upon you by registering the program. The delay time increase from
- 10 seconds to 20 seconds after a month if you do not register.
-
- The first menu you see is the Main Menu which allows you to set the
- bidding rules, Misere rules, personal preferences (eg card table colour),
- view these instructions, and print out a registration form. You can alter
- this menu's background picture in the registered version of the game. If
- you do not register, you will have to make do with a splendid picture of
- myself and family. In the registered version place your Bit Map picture
- in the directory which contains the "EUCHRE" files, and call it
- "BACKGRND.BMP".
-
-
-
- "start game"
-
- Obviously, you press the top button on the menu to start the game.
- You can access this Main Menu at any time during a game, and return to the
- same game.
-
-
-
- "bidding rules" -
-
- i) There are a myriad of local rules for the euchre card game. This is
- a consequence of it being so popular among so many societies. The more
- common rules are accommodated here. You can choose to play with 24,
- 25, 32, or 33 cards. 25 and 33 cards use a .b(Benny), usually represented
- by the Joker, which becomes the highest trump.
-
- ii) You can choose what sort of partner to have. You can have a partner who
- bids conservatively, standard, or as a cowboy. This way, your partner's
- style can match your own. This affects your opponents as well as your partner.
-
- iii) Some people play that any person can play alone, and some that only the
- declarer can play alone. If any person can play alone you can have the
- situation where only one player from the declaring side and only one from the
- defending site play - in this case the defending player leads first.
-
- iv) You can choose how many points constitute a game.
-
- v) If the Benny is turned up as the card in the centre (if you are playing with
- a Benny), you can choose whether it automatically becomes a Heart and bidding
- continues as normally, or whether the dealer must nominate a suit (before
- looking at their cards) and wins the bidding.
-
- vi) If you get a bad hand, you may want to be able to order a re-deal. Options
- here are to order a re-deal if you have no face cards (ie Jack, Queen, or King)
- and one or more Aces, or order a re-deal if you have no face cards or Aces
- (ie, no Jack, Queen, King, Ace). The last option is also known as Farmer's Hand.
-
-
-
-
-
- "Rules Variation" -
- i) A popular variation of the most common rules is that the dealer's partner is not
- free to order up the exposed card into his partner's hand during the first round of
- bidding. His only options are to pass or to order it down - ie. choose the card as
- trumps, but play alone.
-
- ii) If the defending team win all five possible tricks, they may get a hearty
- well done congratulation, or may be rewarded with a Super Euchre worth four points.
-
- iii) The person who feels inclined to order up a card to bid a suit, or to simply
- nominate a suit in the second round of bidding, may be free to do this without
- encumbrance, or may have to already possess one of the suit in order to do this
- (you may question why a person would want to do this with none of the suit, but you
- cannot delve too deeply into your partner's thought processes.
-
- iv) Any person playing alone, may want the option to receive a card from their
- partner. Their partner chooses the card to pass over without help, and the bidder
- must discard a card (or decline their partner's card) without looking at the card
- being passed to them. If your partner is the dealer, you can choose whether they
- can accept the turned up card before picking their best card to pass to you.
-
- v) A popular option is to force the dealer to bid if no one has done so by the end
- of the second round of bidding. This prevents multiple deals where everyone
- becomes timid and passes continually.
-
-
-
-
- "Preferences" -
- i) If you have installed a sound driver in your Windows, you can choose the
- level of sound you want. The Full Sound option makes congratulatory
- noises at every opportunity and calls the bids made, while Part Sound is
- somewhat more discrete. Euchre From Special K supports all sound cards that your
- Windows is set up for. This includes the standard PC speaker if you have
- installed a speaker driver.
-
- ii) You can also set the volume of the sound. Typically, mixer programs
- allow you to set the individual components of sound (eg Wave, Midi, Microphone,
- CD player, etc) as well as the total volume. You can only set this volume if
- you have chosen the Full Sound, or Part Sound options.
-
- iii) When you adjust the colour of the card table, the colour of the background
- changes instantaneously. This helps you to choose the colour that you
- really want. Remember that if you decide on a dark colour, any black
- writing will be difficult to read.
- Remember also that Windows can be customised to view different numbers
- of colours (through the Display icon in the Control Panel).
- Many people choose not to show millions of individual colours, but stick to 256.
- When an application, like Euchre, tries to show a colour which is not an exact
- colour, then Windows will dither it. This means that over the background,
- it will show a series of dots and crosses to approximate the colour that you
- chose. You will quickly find that Windows dithering does not help readability.
- If you do not find a card table colour you like, you can always set up Windows
- to show more colours (and less dithering).
- If you do not like the colour you have chosen - change it to another.
-
- iv) You can give names to the buddies that you are playing with, or simply
- leave them as Player 1, 2 & 3, or West, North & East.
-
- v) You can display tool tips or not. These show the name of cards and
- options.
-
- vi) You can slow down or quicken the game by adjusting the length of time
- for which the cards are displayed during a hand. This also affects the time
- bids are displayed.
-
- vii) Similarly, you can adjust the speed at which the cards move. So if you
- have a slow computer, or are simply in a hurry to get the cards played, you
- can set this to a fast speed.
-
- viii) The number of games won and lost are recorded. Press the reset button to
- set these game scores back to zero.
-
- ix) You can change the order in which your cards are displayed in your hand.
-
-
- "help"
-
- These instructions can be read from the text file EUCHRE.TXT, or
- from the "help" menu button. Use the scroll bar, or navigation keys,
- to read the whole document. Exit HELP to return to the Main Menu.
-
-
-
- "register"
-
- If you have read this far, you know that this enjoyable program is NOT
- free, but is being distributed as SHAREWARE. This means that if you
- continue to use it past a short evaluation period, you must register it.
- This option helps you to print out the registration form. If there is a
- problem printing through Windows, the form is stored in a file called
- REGO.FRM in your EUCHRE directory. You can print this out from
- DOS.
-
-
-
- "quit"
-
- Press the "quit" button to see what happens.
-
-
-
-
- THE GAME:
-
- You can make bids and play cards by either clicking the left mouse
- button on the card or button, or by using the F1 - F6 function keys.
-
- To stop playing the game and return to Windows, press the Options button
- (or right mouse click on the background), choose 'Main Menu', and press "quit".
-
- Other choices on the Options Button menu are:
- review bids made
- review cards played during the hand
- review the last trick
- review the score card with the last 15 scores in your game
- save the current game
- load the saved game and play from the start of the hand
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- RULES:
-
- EUCHRE is a well loved card game with a number of local rules
- (which are accommodated here via the rules menu). It is probably derived
- from the game Juker which was played in Alsace. It reached the USA in the
- early 1800's, and in the 1850's it became the first game to use a Joker.
- In 1904 the US Playing Card Co. created a variant called 500. Since then,
- its popularity has increased, which resulted in many new euchre variants
- all over the World.
-
- The object of the game is to collect a specified number of points and
- stop your partner from collecting the same points. The game is played in
- teams with you and your partner (sitting opposite you) playing against the
- players sitting facing each other. Cards are ranked in order of Ace down
- to 9 (except if you choose to have cards down to 7), except in the suit
- that has been designated the TRUMP suit for that hand, in which the order
- is - Joker, right bower (the Jack of the trump suit ), left bower (the
- Jack of the other suit of the same colour), Ace, King, Queen, 10, 9, etc.
-
- The game starts with each player deciding which suit they want as
- the trump suit, so that they can win at least three tricks (with their
- partner's help). Once one suit is chosen, then that becomes the trump suit.
- The bidding starts with the player to the left of the dealer. One card is
- turned up, and that is offered to everyone as the trump suit. All four
- players have the chance to pick this suit, starting with the player on the
- dealer's left. If any player chooses this suit they "order up" the card,
- and the dealer has the option of accepting it into his own hand and discarding
- another card. If no player wants that suit, the card is turned over and
- all players are given the chance to choose another suit. If all players
- pass, the cards are dealt again (unless you have chosen the "shaft the dealer"
- option which means that the dealer may not pass the second time.
-
- A game option is that the dealer's partner may not choose to order up
- the card into the dealer's hand, but only order it down, ie choose the suit,
- but play alone.
-
- Each player can elect to play alone, rather than as partners. In
- this case their partner does not play. An option is that when playing alone
- your partner can pass their best card to you and you discard before looking
- at it to accept it.
-
- Each player plays consecutively in a clockwise direction, with the
- winner of the last trick leading. Each player must follow the suit led if
- they can (otherwise it is called reneging).
-
- The bidding team scores 1 point for winning 3 or 4 tricks, and 2 points
- for 5 tricks. If they win less than 3 tricks the opposing team win 2 points.
- You can choose for the opposing team to win a Super Euchre of 4 points if they
- win all 5 tricks.
-
- The game ends when one side reaches the designated number of points
- (usually 10 or 11).
-
-
-
-
-
- INSTALLATION:
-
- Euchre is distributed in a form which makes installation easy for you.
- Like all Windows programs, its installation is more complex than DOS
- programs, but the SETUP.EXE utility takes care of all this for you. This
- way, it can ensure that you have the correct Windows System files that it
- needs to run properly, without you having to do any work.
-
- After installation, you should have these files in the
- \Program Files\Euchre From Special K directory -
- EUCHRE.EXE - base program
- EUCHRE.HLP - Windows help file
- EUCHRE.TXT - ASCII text help file
- REGO.FRM - user registration form
- SCORES.EUC - game scores and set-up info
- GAME.EUC - saved game
- *.CRD - data files.
-
- In addition, it will make sure that you have Windows system files in
- your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.
-
-
- If you received this software from a Bulletin Board or the Internet, it will be
- compressed into the one file, eg EUCSK22.ZIP. Before running the
- installation program you will need to decompress it. Create a temporary
- directory, eg C:\EUC_TEMP, and decompress all the files into it. The
- software is now ready to install, as if you had bought it on a floppy disk.
-
- Now start Windows, and run the SETUP.EXE program. The easiest way of
- doing this is choose RUN from Windows START button, and type in the drive,
- directory, and SETUP.EXE name. Alternatively, you can run it from the File Explorer.
-
- The installation program prompts you to enter the directory name in
- which to store the files. The installation program does NOT interfere with
- any of your standard set-up eg, AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, *.INI, path. It
- places the icon to start the EUCHRE game in a group called "Euchre From Special K"
- that it creates in the Programs group on the START button. If you want, you can
- easily move this icon to a different group (by the usual method of dragging
- and dropping).
-
- If you created a temporary directory, eg C:\EUC_TEMP, you can now
- remove it.
-
- The total space that this program takes up on disk is about 3.8 Mbytes.
-
- If you run Euchre and find that it does not fill the whole screen, the
- answer is probably the screen resolution that you have chosen for Windows.
- You can change this via the Display icon in the Control Panel. It works
- best with standard resolutions, such as 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, or
- 1280x1024. However it supports most other resolutions. If it does not fill
- the whole screen, you can force it to use another.
-
- Windows 95 also lets you uninstall this program (not that you would ever
- want to!).
-
-
-
- ************************************************************
- If you have any problems with this program, whether installing
- it, or running it, please let me know. You can contact me on
- gmckay@dezzanet.net.au or Garry.McKay@akzonobel.com.au
- ************************************************************
-
-
-
- VERSION 2.2
-
- This version of .b(Euchre From Special K) is designed for new players
- as well as experienced players. It is recognised as the most enjoyable Euchre
- software game. It provides support for standard and non standard screen
- resolutions.
-
-
-
- REGISTRATION :
-
- If you are still enjoying this game after two
- weeks you should support the Shareware concept and register your copy by
- sending a minimum donation of $28. For an extra $2 handling I will send you,
- via email, a registered copy of Euchre From Special K. Make this $6 handling
- instead of $2 if you want to receive your programs slower via postal mail,
- rather than email.
-
-
- Choose from the following:
-
- - the latest, updated registered version (with even better card playing skills).
- - if you want it, for a small extra postage cost, I will include a registered
- copy of 500 Card Game For Windows 95 or Bridge Card Game From Special K.
-
- An additional incentive is that you can register this version and have
- registered versions for life! With this registered version you receive a key.
- Download any future shareware version from the Internet, or any other source,
- and you can turn it into a registered version!
-
-
- Yet another incentive to register is that the registered copy does
- not make you endure the initial "nuisance" screen when you run it.
-
- SPECIAL BONUS - The registered copy also has a much more pleasing picture
- as the background to the Main Menu (ie. you do not have to see me and my
- family). It also allows you to put in YOUR OWN background to this menu, so
- if you have a pleasing Bit Map Picture, or even a scanned-in picture of
- yourself, this can be in the background every time you run it.
-
- You can register by posting the registration form and a check to me, and
- choose to receive your registered version by mail, or receive it quicker by
- email (and pay $4.00 less).
-
- You can also register on line by credit card by visiting my homepage at
- http://www.dezzanet.net.au/~gmckay or
- http://www.geocities.com/heartland/forest/8063 or
- http://members.xoom.com/500cardgame .
-
- Dealer enquires are welcome. Corporate licenses are available.
-
- ____________________________________________________________________
- EUCHRE FROM SPECIAL K SOFTWARE
-
-
-
- Name: __________________________________ Date: ___/___/___
-
- Address: _____________________________________________________
-
- City: _______________________ State: _____ Code: ________
-
- Country: _______________________
-
- Version: _2.2_ Email address: ________________________________
-
- My Copy From: ______________(if the Internet, what site)
-
- Windows ver: ______________ Floppy: __1.44MB__
-
- Registration .............$----- ($28)
- Postage & handling........$----- ($2 for email or $6 for post)
- options:
- include 500 card game.....$----- ($3 if required)
- include Bridge card game..$----- ($3 if required)
-
- total $----- (at least $30 or $34)
-
- Included in the price, please send me: (mark your needs)
-
- ______ registered copy of the latest version of EUCHRE.
- ______ registered copy of 500 CARD GAME FOR WINDOWS 95.
- ______ registered copy of BRIDGE CARD GAME FROM SPECIAL K.
-
- Send registered version by email or post: ________
-
- I will be grateful for any suggestions, comments, or information on
- problems with the game you may have.
-
- _________________________________________________________________________
- SEND THE FORM TO:
-
- G.M.McKAY
- 29 Melissa St.
- Strathmore
- Victoria , 3041
- Australia
-
- ph 03-9379-7696
- fax 03-9311-9141
- gmckay@dezzanet.net.au
- Garry.McKay@akzonobel.com.au
-
-
- If you want to register on the Internet and pay by credit card,
- you can at http://www.getsoftware.com, or visit my home page at
- http://www.dezzanet.net.au/~gmckay or
- http://www.geocities.com/heartland/forest/8063 or
- http://members.xoom.com/500cardgame
-