#General

You can do two things: 
• take a group of cookies of the same colour by clicking on it or 
• make the cookies slip along a diagonal (tilt the box) by clicking in the circle that appears at the outside of the target vertex after the first taking move (thus forming new groups and disconnecting old ones). 

Your aim is to take all the cookes in the box with the best taking moves (tilt moves don't count). What “best” is depends on the GAME chosen.

You have Undo operations for both the last take and the last tilt, which are disabled if ARRIVALS are in effect.
#Games
are different in the way of counting the number of points gained for n cookies taken at a time.  The score is the average of these points per taking move.

In the AVERAGE game you get n points for n cookies taken - the less taking moves to empty the box are the better. You can get a limited number of different results only in this game (compatible with version 1).
In the AVERAGE + BONUS game you get an extra bonus if at the last taking move all the corners are empty, so results with bonuses tend to be different.

In ONE AND HALF game you get (n^3 + 6n^2 + n) / (4n + 4) points (rounded down) for n cookies taken at a time, which is an approximation of n times square root of n. Don’t take little groups and make big ones too if you can.

In the SQUARE 2 game you get (n - 2) * (n - 2) points for n cookies taken at a time but cannot take less than 2. If you leave one cookie of a color, you cannot finish the game.
In the SQUARE 3 game you get (n - 3) * (n - 3) points for n cookies taken at a time but cannot take less than 3. If you leave one or two cookies of a color, you cannot finish the game. In these two games you should strive to make at least one very big group.
#Scores

are kept in an oblivious way: out of the about 200 possible game configurations (different sizes, number of colours and GAMES) only the 15 last used configurations are remembered, with the 7 best scores for each. 

With ARRIVALS chosen you cannot enter the top scores.

#Arrivals

That's like a pesky little brother trying to disturb you by throwing cookies in the box now and then. He's not very smart and his cookie will not end up in the box unless he hits a hole. 

You can choose to be annoyed when you just took cookies or just when you tilt the box - or as time goes by. (Arrivals by time require System 7.) Or, of course, several of these. In the time case, emptying the box becomes something of an arcade game.

With arrivals in effect, you cannot undo your operations (that would be too simple if you could get rid of a new cookie this way), nor will you enter the best scores (too many cases).
#The author
With diplomas in pure mathematics, computer science and in information systems I have made the design and programming of 
• an expert system of information site security audit
• a form edit/send/fill in/evaluate system in Java/HTML & NewtonScript
• the cryptographical protection of a videoconferencing system on Internet
• a Query by Exemple interface for a semantical network of linguistical data
• an analysis tool for realtime execution traces, learning from the traces of tests,
as well as managed an international project of a production management system.
Currently I work on animated image compression.
I am always interested  in a creative compurting case study / design / development job, but just a contact or your opinion of the game is fine too.
Have lots of fun with my program
                                 Georges GYORY
                                 ggyory@club-internet.fr
                                 http://perso.club-internet.fr/ggyory/

P.s. the BackgroundWarper homepage (if you wonder how I made the background of the main window) is at 
                                 http://perso.club-internet.fr/ggyory/Warper/warper1.html
#Shareware

No warranty comes with this program though I think it performs well. If you find any bugs, let me know about it.
I encourage you to distribute this program free in an unaltered and unregistered form.  You must have my written permission for commercial distribution as well as for distribution in an altered form.

The shareware fee is 10 $. You can register online at
 
                                 http://order.kagi.com/?OVC

.You will receive a code (by e-mail or mail) to disable the dialog prompting you to register.

You can find a pointer to the latest version at 

                                 http://perso.club-internet.fr/ggyory/Cookies/Cookies.html

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