Loadstar 222/222.d81/t.michaels

Text File | 2002-01-01 | 6.7 KB | 241 lines

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           MICHAEL'S PUZZLES

           by Maurice Jones
        Mr. Mouse by Lee Novak
       Adapted by Dave Moorman


 [FENDER'S PREMUMBLE:] Often the best
games are the simplest. This latest
card solitaire game by LOADSTAR's
BASIC Philosopher has very simple
rules and NO foundation! All 52
cards are dealt to seven tableau
files. Your job is to move the cards
around, building down according to
suit. End up with four files built
from king to ace and you win.  What
could be simpler?

    Here's Maurice to tell you a
little about the programming before
he gets into the game itself.
Professor Jones, the lectern is all
yours:


    Card solitaire games are like a
chronogically disadvantaged
ex-teacher: every day there's a new
wrinkle.

    The new wrinkle is the playing of
cards from a spread pile. I
considered using CRSR DOWN to be
consistent with the normal piles, but
it just went against my instincts, and
I guessed that it would bother most
other people too. So when a pile is
spread horizontally, use the CRSR
RIGHT key to move the arrow. When a
pile is vertical, use CRSR DOWN.

 [DAVE'S INTERCEPTION:] I love this
game, but got tired of using key
presses in a Mouse kind of world. So
I ported in "Mr.Mouse 2+," Lee
Novak's great contribution to
civilization. Actually, Maurice made
this program extremely easy to
modify.

    Fist of all, almost everything in
is Basic. Secondly, he put the custom
font at the bottom of Basic memory.
My favorite copy of Mr. Mouse resides
mostly under the default font, just
above the custom area.

    The biggest chore was figuring
out Mr. Jones' logic, which was not
so hard since he thoughtfully labels
every main section with REMarks.

    The result is a Mouse playable
game. If you want to use the keyboard
instead, you may. Nothing was
damaged.

    I found converting Maurice's
older sols and puzzles fairly easy,
and plan to do so with all his
programs in the future. (Right after
shipping Home Towers and special
products and everything you are
waiting for!)

    But enough of me -- back to the
Master himself:


    An oddity: After every play,
before the FROM prompt, the program
checks for a win. This is not
noticeable, EXCEPT when the game is
won. It is mostly a matter of
perception, although the check does
take a few jiffies longer.

    The use of a scoring system does
not seem to add to the game, but I
think that some people might like it.
I can't see why it should bother
anyone. At the least, I like to know
how many games I have played.


 [ABOUT THE GAME]

    This game was shown to me by a
friend named Michael who did not know
its name. I could not find the game
in Moorehead & Mott-Smith, either.
Since all cards are dealt face up, I
followed my tradition by calling it a
puzzle. Hence the name, MICHAEL'S
PUZZLES. I had decided that all
solitaires could be classified as (1)
building all cards to a set of
foundation piles, (2) removing all
cards to a waste pile, or (3) playing
a series of hands (poker, cribbage
and the like); but here is one with
no foundations and no waste. The
cards are just moved within the
tableau.

    I naturally compared this to the
two puzzle type games, BISLEY and THE
FOURTEEN PUZZLES. My guess (and it is
just a guess) is that this one can be
won more often than BISLEY, but less
often than FOURTEENS. Like the other
puzzle type games, this program allows
you to replay the same game. You may
think this is a no-brainer at first,
but the first time you score under
400, play the same game again and you
can probably make a different score.
I found it more difficult to tell when
a game was unwinnable than in either
of the other two. I would like to
know what others think.

    This is one of those games where
stacks can grow beyond any normal
playing surface, beyond the reach of
the arm. With real cards a player
spends lots of time thumbing through
the cards, and often uses two hands
to make a play. Now, you can sit
back and let the computer do all the
sorting. You are limited to 35 cards
in any stack, but this is not a
problem. It is unlikely that you can
build a stack of more than 35 cards,
even if you try. As in real life,
the cards cannot always be stacked so
that all cards are visible. If a
stack grows beyond 15 cards, the
subsequent cards will be piled on top
of the fifteenth. The S key can be
used to spread any pile so that all
cards can be viewed.

    All piles are built downward by
suit from the king to the ace. Any
card is available for play to the top
of any other pile, with spaces being
filled by kings only. The object is
to end with four stacks, arranged by
suit from the king to the ace. When
this is accomplished, the computer
pauses for a half beat before
congratulating you. When you use F1
to end a game, you will be asked to
wait about half a second while the
score is calculated. This is not too
bad since every card has to be
checked.

    The card sound can be turned off
by pressing F3 at the "TO" or "FROM"
prompts and will speed up card
handling slightly. This is a toggle,
so that a second press will turn the
sound back on. Ten points are scored
for each card in correct sequence,
except that when all cards are in
sequence the score is 1000. The most
recent play can be cancelled by using
O (oops) at the next FROM prompt. Any
pile can be spread for inspection by
using S. When an attempt is made to
play from a pile of more than 15 cards
the pile will be spread automatically.
A HELP screen is available by pressing
H.

 [MOUSE METHOD:] Simply click on the
"From" card (you will see a pointer
mark your choice), then click on the
"To" column. When a column has cards
stacked at the bottom of the tableau,
just click on the bottom card for
"From." I put in a little routine
that searches for any playable card
in the stack.

    When moving a King to an empty
column, click on the NUMBER above the
column. The background is roundly
ignored by the mouse. You can access
the controls listed at the bottom of
the screen by pointing to them and
clicking. For SPREAD, first click the
word, then point at the desired
column and click. Click again to
return to play.


    Back to Maurice:

    This is my sixteenth card game
published on LOADSTAR, not counting
ROTATO POKER which Fender and I
collaborated on, so I move into the
double digits even in hexadecimal.
Not only is it fun playing these
games, it is fun writing the programs
and fun being associated with the guys
at the Tower. Thanks, Fender, Jeff
and all you game players. Keep those
cards and letters coming in!

 MJ


 [DAVE'S LAST WORD:] One wonderful
feature of our VICE emulator is Warp
Speed. While wedging in the mouse
routines, I found that pressing
<Alt-W> speeds things up quite well.
The sound is turned off, but what the
heck. On my wife's new P950, we get
3500% speed. WHOOOOOSH!!! Press the
same to slow down to normal.

 DMM