Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-10-14 | 23KB | 51 lines
MPARTICLE
~fg>fg>
>fg>~g?
?G?Iu
``l`?
``l`?
INFO Title : Solitaire Sampler.
Publisher : Tower Software.
Author : Richard Brown.
Country : England.
Source : See text.$Conditions : Freeware - a five game$ demo of Serious Solitaire I & II.#
10 UK for each set of 15 games.
Category : Games.
Released : 1993.
Opinion : ***
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1.
Memory :
meg.
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES.
A600 wb 2.05 : YES.
Multi-tasks : YES.
Display : PAL.& This disk contains 5 solitaire card&games and is a sampler for two sets of&games known as Serious Solitaire I and&II which contain fifteen games each at&
10 a set. The review and the markings&are for this freely distributable disk&and not for the Serious Solitaire
disks which I've not seen.& The first problem I encountered&with this disk was when I tried to run&the program from the Workbench. An&assign is needed but the one given in&the docs doesn't work using Workbench&2 on the A600. All of the command is&enclosed in speech-marks but I found I&had to have the first speech-mark&after the assign name to get it&accepted. This kind of problem can be&avoided by never using spaces in your
file or disk names.& The disk autoboots quite happily&but it's nice to be able to run the&games from Workbench. Also included is&an install program to put them on a
hard-drive.& Once loaded you are presented with&a nicely drawn screen, six options&along the bottom, a bar along the top&with info and the date and time in (a&nice touch) and five games to play.&The six options are Shuffle, which&acts as a toggle - when it's off&you're dealt the same hand repeatedly,&Help, which describes all the rules of&each game with the one you're playing&shown first, Level for those games&that have them, Menu for choosing one&of the five games, Again for re-&playing a game and Quit for when you
want to get on with life again.& The help given for each game is&well done and nicely set out. Poker&Squares for instance has each hand&such as pairs and straights displayed&as cards laid out on the screen. Hints&on playing the games are also included.& The five games here are Carlton,&Martha, Pas Seul, Slider and Poker
Squares.& Carlton is similar to the classic&solitaire but played with two packs&and selecting from the deck places a&card on each of the seven rows used.&The problem here is that you soon run&out of screen space and the cards are&then stacked so you can't see the&previous few underneath them. This&needs fixing as you can't select just&a few cards like you should be able to
do. Otherwise it's a good game.& Martha is a single pack game with&six rows of cards already dealt out&with their faces alternately exposed.&The problem of running out of room is&the same here as with Carlton but it&doesn't seem as pronounced. The luck&of the draw seems to make the most&difference with this game which in to&my mind makes it less interesting to&play. It seems pretty hard to complete
too.& Pas Seul is a well balanced game&with luck not playing too much of part&in it's outcome. It's a one pack game&with six rows to build from and you're&only allowed to go through the deck&once. Once again the problem of space&may crop up in this game. Even so it's still enjoyable and challenging.& Slider's a bit different from the&norm with the four aces in a row down&the left hand side and 28 other cards&arranged randomly in eight columns&beside them. This leaves four spaces&in the grid. The object of the game is&to get the cards of the same suits as&the aces into the same rows as the&them. This is achieved by moving the&even numbered cards horizontally or&vertically and the odd numbered ones&in the same way as a knight moves in&chess. You have only a set number of&moves to do this in. A good time
waster.& In Poker Squares you have to&arrange cards from the stack in a five&by five grid so that their poker&values, computed horizontally and&vertically, are as high as possible.&The computer then tries to beat you&using the same cards. The only&complaint here is that the computer&makes it's moves much too slowly.!Otherwise it's an enjoyable game.& There's a minor bug in the program&that leaves lines on the screen&occasionally but it doesn't cause a&crash or anything disastrous. And&missing is sound. There's not a beep&to be heard but I guess you could&always play some music if you wanted$too as it multi-tasks quite happily.& As this is not strictly a shareware&program I haven't put Tower Software's&address in the Shareware column but&for those who wish to contact them the&address is... Richard Brown, Tower&Software, P.O. Box 9, Gosforth,&Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE3 1QW, United&Kingdom. Sending a disk and an S.A.E.&will get you an up to date price list&and some of their PD and shareware&games. If sending from overseas then I&suggest you buy a postage response&coupon from your local postal service%to cover the return airmail postage. & So five reasonable card games here&and a well designed program holding&them all together. It runs quite&happily in half a megabyte and all the&games are loaded at once so there's no&waiting while the individual games are&loaded in. An excellent program to&have running in the background for a&bit of amusement between your more&serious Amiga activities. If you like&card games then check it out as it&seems there's plenty more where these&came from. See also the comments about&this disk and others in the column on
(.txt)