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Text File | 1992-10-18 | 21KB | 471 lines

Lines of Luck version 1.01 by Glenn Franck October 12, 1992. Welcome! This is a gambling game, modelled after the "Lucky Lines"-style games which are popping up everywhere. Basically, for those of you not exposed to this game before, it's an enhanced one-armed bandit style slot machine, with 9 "wheels" instead of just three. As a result, there are eight different lines you may win on (3 horizontal, 3 vertical, and 2 diagonal), so a little strategy is involved. --------------------- 0) CONTENTS OF THIS FILE --------------------- 1) HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS 2) READ THIS PART 3) SPECIAL DISCLAIMER 4) INSTRUCTIONS 5) THE SETUP SCREEN 6) A BIT ABOUT THE WRITING OF IT 7) FOR PLAYERS NEW TO THIS TYPE OF GAME 8) REGISTRATION 9) BUGS --------------------- 1) HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS --------------------- The game used EGA mode 0, so you will certainly need at least an EGA monitor. It may be played in grayscale, but color is so much nicer. :) I developed it on a 386sx/16Mhz machine, and it runs quite nicely on this. Of course, the faster the machine that you run it on, the faster the animation will be, but you can probably run it on any type of processor - just expect it to be a little slower on slower machines. As for memory, 512K will do it. I haven't checked on using less, but I think it will run on only 256K, maybe less, though I'm not certain, and cannot recommend it. -------------- 2) READ THIS PART -------------- I've set up this doc file so that you can get right to the game. Please note that this product is shareware! In order to make this aspect as unintrusive as possible, and in the spirit of shareware, I have put no tricks in to get you to register it, nor does the game constantly remind you to send in a registration fee. All I will say to try to convince you is that registration is a measly $10, and I've put almost a year of work into this program, so, if you like it, please make me feel better by sending $10 (or more!). This is the full game as it stands now, nothing held back (no registered/unregistered versions). However, I cannot guarantee that I will not update this and release later versions. If you wish, you can guarantee that you will receive the next update when it becomes available - this will be only and extra $5 (to cover mailing and disks costs, as well as an administrative fee! :-) ). If you wish to have the C-code to look at, I can also send you that (an additional $5 more). I will detail this more later. Please note that while I have conducted extensive testing of this game, I cannot guarantee that it is completely error- and bug-free. I have virus-checked it with for the latest viruses before releasing it, but, again, cannot absolutely guarantee that nothing has been picked up since this time. So, I take no responsibility for any damage that may occur to your computer system, software or other programs as a results of using this program. I assume no liability for any problems resulting from the use or misuse of this program. ------------------ 3) SPECIAL DISCLAIMER ------------------ This is a betting/gambling game. I wrote it specifically for a friend of mine who has a gambling problem, so that he could play the game without actually losing any money on it. If you use this game, you take the risk that it may entice you to play other gambling games and possibly lose money. I assume no responsibility for this. You should note that most gambling games of this sort are not as easy as this one can be, and are designed to make money. By creating this game, I do not necessarily condone gambling in any sort. This game is to be played solely for entertainment purposes, or as an alternative to losing money in casinos or bars. It is not to be used for any monetary gain by other parties. ------------ 4) INSTRUCTIONS ------------ There is a bit of online help, mainly just showing what keys do what. Below is a little more detail, followed by a summary of the keys. Note that you may play as long as you want, and your score may go up to 2^31-1, though its doubtful you'll ever get that high! If your credits reach 0, you'll be prompted to quit or continue. The 'Q' key will quit; any other will continue. TO START "LINES OF LUCK": simply type "lines" at the DOS prompt (there are no modifiers), and wait for the graphics to load. TO INCREASE YOUR BET: press the 'bet' key (default is '+' key); max bet is 32 (equal to 8 bet lines, times a 4-bet per line), and no, you cannot change the order that the bet lines light up. Also, you cannot decrease your bet, so try not to bet over what you wanted to. You start with a certain number of credits, default being 20. You can never bet more money than you have. TO START THE GAME: (each spin of the wheels is a 'game') press the 'start' key (default is the enter key). Note that you have to bet before you can play. There is an exception to this: if your current number of credits is greater than or equal to the bet you made on the last game, then before you press the bet key, pressing the start key (your bet will be at 0) will automatically bet what you had bet last game, and spin the wheels for you. IF YOU WIN: a) you may double up, by pressing the 'double' key (default is '+'). This will bring you to a separate double screen, with playing cards. The object is to try to guess what the hidden card is, either 'big' or 'small'. Big cards are 8-King (8,9,10,J,Q,K), small are Ace-6 (A,2,3,4,5,6). 7 is even, and does nothing. The last 6 cards that have been drawn are shown, thus giving you a bit of help as to what may come up next. Note, however, that the hidden card is restricted from being any of these 6 cards, but may be ANY OTHER, even one that was picked only seven times ago. TO PICK BIG: press the 'big' key (default is '+'). TO PICK SMALL: press the 'small' key (default is 'enter'). If you pick correctly, your winnings will double, and the three number wheels will spin. If two or more sevens show up here, your winnings will increase even more. You can then double again, or collect you winnings (see below). As long as you guess correctly, you can keep doubling. However, if you guess incorrectly, you will lose all that you would have won, and automatically be returned to the main screen. b) you may decide to collect your winnings, adding them to your credit pile. Do this by pressing the 'take' key (default is 'enter'). Those are the basic playing keys. They all are predefined, but may be changed at will. There are also some other keys of importance, however, and these are outlined below. TO SHOW PAYOUTS: press 'F1' at any time while on the main screen (the screen with the nine wheels on it). TO TOGGLE THE HELP SCREEN ON/OFF: press the 'H' key at any time. TO SHOW THE SETUP SCREEN: press the 'S' key at any time. TO RESET CREDITS TO 0: press 'R' when your bet is 0. This is the only time you may do this. You may restart playing with the starting number of credits by pressing any key other than 'Q'. Pressing that key will quit. TO QUIT THE GAME: aside from being in the above situation, you may quit at any point (except from the setup screen) by pressing ESCape. You will be prompted to confirm this intention, of course, as in any good application! :) In summary, the keys are as follows: (default keys) '+' - increase bet 'ENTER' - start (or spin, if you prefer) '+' - double up on winnings 'ENTER' - take winnings '+' - pick BIG 'ENTER' - pick SMALL (unchangeable keys) 'S' - display setup screen 'H' - toggle key help on/off 'R' - reset credits to 0 (only when bet==0) 'F1' - show payout screens ---------------- 5) THE SETUP SCREEN ---------------- The setup screen allows you to customize the game in many ways. You can navigate through the options by using the arrow keys, and pick an option to change by using the ENTER key. Once you are finished making changes, you can save the changes to disk so that they will become the default setup, or you may, by pressing ESCape, use them for only the current run of the game. Note that changes will not be saved, and you may not exit the setup screen, while there are problems in keys you have defined. This means that the same key cannot be used for two conflicting functions (ie, the same key cannot be used for both BIG and SMALL, TAKE and DOUBLE, or BET and START). You will have to fix these problems, then save or exit. Note ESCape will exit the setup screen, not quit the program. To quit the program, you must first exit the setup screen, then press ESCape again. I) REDEFINING KEYS: Press ENTER once you are on the key you wish to redefine. The current- ly defined key will change from white to green. You will now be able to redefine this key as any key you press, with the exception of the unchangeable keys listed above (R, S, H, F1). When you have decided upon what key you wish to use for this function, press ESCape. The key will remain, and change from green to white. DO NOT DEFINE THE SAME KEYS FOR BOTH (BIG AND SMALL), (TAKE AND DOUBLE), or (BET AND START)! II) ADJUST SPEED: Press ENTER while 'Adjust speed' is highlighted to change this option. You may toggle this option between three settings by pressing the spacebar. If it is set to ADJ, then the length of time that the wheels spin will be adjusted so that the length is not too short. The faster a machine you have, the faster the animation will be, so the animation must last longer to get the same effect. Setting the option to SND will adjust it so the sound will be about the same as on the machine I wrote the program on, so should be more tolerable. Turning this to OFF will allow the wheels to spin at the maximum speed your machine allows. Note that if your machine is as slow or slower than mine, then this option should make no difference. Press ESCape when you have decided what you wish this option to be. III) STARTING CREDITS: Pressing ENTER while 'Starting credits' is highlighted will allow you to change the number of credits that you start with initially or after resetting your credits. The default is 20, but can be any number from 1-100. Pressing either the up arrow key, the '+' key or the spacebar will increase this number by 1. Pressing either the down arrow key or the '-' key will decrease this value by 1. If you exceed 100, the number will roll over to 1. Similarly, if you go less than 1, the number will change to 100. Press ESCape when you have decided on the starting credits you want. IV) SOUND: Press ENTER while 'Sound' is highlighted, and you will be able to toggle the sound on or off. The spacebar will switch the value between YES and NO. Press ESCape when you have decided if you want it on or not. V) SPIN STOP: Pressing ENTER when 'Spin stop' is highlighted will allow you to decide whether you want this option on or not. The spacebar will toggle it on or off. If it is on, you can stop the spinning of the wheels at any time by pressing any key. All spinning wheels, regardless of where they are, will come to a halt almost immediately. By doing this you override other options which would otherwise control what comes up. This could be either good or bad. It's up to you to decide. Press ESCape once you have picked what you want this to be on. VI) HELP SCREEN Select this to change by pressing ENTER when it is highlighted. The spacebar will toggle this option on and off. This controls whether the key help block on the left side of the screen is shown. You may also toggle the key help on and off by pressing the 'H' key when you are not in the setup screen. Press ESCape to enter the value you have selected. VII) CHANCE OF BIG WIN: Press ENTER when this is highlighted to change its value. The space- bar will cycle through the options. By 'big win', I mean a screenful of one item coming up. This is a big payout. You can select it to be 'OFF', which means, unless it comes up randomly (highly unlikely), you won't get a big payout. Selecting any other setting means that the odds of getting a big payout are calculated as follows: 1 in ((800 - (#spins so far)*5 + (credits/2)) / (setting chosen)) where (#spins so far) refers to the number of spins since the last big win, and (setting chosen) is 1 for LOW, 2 for REG and 3 for HI Thus, if you first start off at 20 credits, you would have the following odds of getting a screenful of all one item: LOW: 1 in 810 REG: 1 in 405 HI: 1 in 270 The way odds are calculated, the longer you play, the better your odds. Of course, the higher your credits, the worse your odds! (You don't need to win if you're doing good, anyway!) This option is overridden if you have spin_stop on and stop the wheels - ie, you won't get a screenful, even if you were supposed to otherwise, so use the spin_stop with care! Note that a big win could also mean swinging bells (! - you'll see if and when you get them - definitely cool!) or multiple sevens (>4). It does NOT mean all fruits (a screenful of nothing but fruits - oranges, plums, cherries or watermelons). When you have decided what you wish this option to be, press ESCape. VIII) ODDS OF WINNING This affects just how often you will win - specifically, how often your credits will increase. If you win, double it, and lose - then it doesn't count as a win (aren't you lucky!). The numbers mean that if you set it to having an X% chance of winning, then if, in the last 20 games you have won less than X% of the time, you MAY win - its not guaranteed. However, if your winning percentage is >= X%, then you _won't_win_ on this spin. In other words, you will win no more than X% of the time. By using the spacebar you can cycle through the percentages. Note they run from 30% to 90%, then RND. Winning less than 30% of the time is simply unplayable. RND is equivalent to 100%; i.e., there are no restrictions on how often you can win - it becomes totally random (as much as a computer can be! :) ) This is another option, BTW, that gets affected by spin stop - I can't restrict the winning when you stop the wheels, so your odds may actually increase. When you're done, press ESCape. IX) SAVE CHANGES TO DISK When you've got this option highlighted, press ENTER to save the setup data to disk. It creates (or overwrites) a file called LINES.INI, which will automatically be loaded the next time you run Lines of Luck, so that you may use these same options again. ----------------------------- 6) A BIT ABOUT THE WRITING OF IT ----------------------------- As I said earlier, I started writing this game in the late summer of 1991, when it became clear that a friend of mine was wasting too much of his money on these games in the bars. I wrote this so that he wouldn't have to do it anymore. In total, I worked on it heavily for about the first four months (almost every day), then did little for about the next four months, then I have worked on it quite a bit again in the last four months in order to finally get it finished so that I may work on my next application. I haven't decided what that next project will be yet. I wrote the game in Turbo C (actually, I used TC++, but have no C++ code in here). There are almost 4500 lines of code, and I've tried to make the game both as pretty-looking and user-friendly (read: customizeable) as possible. If I you discover any bugs, however, or have any suggestions then please send them to me at one of my addresses at the end of this file. The game uses EGA mode 0, for several reasons. First and foremost is that this way I can have four pages to flip between, so I don't have to redraw the screen every time a different one comes up - makes things faster and easier. Also, this mode allows me to use 16 colors, so I can make things look much prettier. A final reason is that I use putimage() to show the animation of the wheels, so using this mode (640x200) gives me good resolution, but allows pictures to be put up faster (VGA - 640x480 - would be more than twice as slow). Also, to speed up the drawing, I made the wheels smaller than the commercial versions. I think you get used to it pretty fast, though. Who knows - I may release a hi-res, large-wheel, full-screen version of this game (with digitized graphics maybe) if I receive good response to this one! All the images were drawn using graphics routines (line(), ellipse(), etc.) and were saved in the .dat files. I have separate routines I used to draw these images, and these C files are available with the C-code if you want it. As I said above, I'd like to try digitizing some images and using them in a later release of the game - should look neat! But, I'll have to see about that. ------------------------------------ 7) FOR PLAYERS NEW TO THIS TYPE OF GAME ------------------------------------ There are a few things you should know about this sort of game. First, it's important to note that not only lines of all the same type are the only winners. A row of any three types of bars (1-bars, 2-bars and 3-bars) will also pay out. Also note that cherries are very important in this game. If any line STARTS with a cherry (along the leftmost column or top row, depending on the line), you also win. Two cherries starting a line is also worth some- thing (a little more than one cherry). Two other ways to win are by getting four corners the same item, or to get a screen of all fruits (no 7s, bells or bars). If you get a screen of all fruits, you will not only get a fairly substantial payout, but, as a bonus you will also get the value of the '???' indicator. Note that this indicator is actually a count of the number of 7s that have come up so far. If you get an 'all fruits' screen, then you get the '???' value added to your score, and it gets reset to 0. As far as betting and payouts go, the F1 key will show payouts for line wins and screen wins. Your line win will be the value shown on the payout screen, multiplied by your bet on that line. A screen win will be the value indicated on the payout screen, multiplied by your total bet. All fruits and four corners multiply your total bet. Note that each line has a small pointed square attached to it, with a number. The number will light up when you place a bet on that line, and will fill the square 1/4 full. The lines light up in order of the numbers, and cannot be changed. Each time you add another bet to a line, another 1/4 of the square will be filled. If a square is 3/4 full, it shows you have a 3-bet on that line. If that line wins, then the normal win on that line will be multiplied by 3. The maximum bet on a line is 4, and there are 8 lines, so a maximum total bet will be 32. As a payout example, suppose you bet 16 (2 per line). If you get a cherry in the middle of the top row, you would win 4. (That equals the payout for a single cherry - 2 - times the bet on line #7 - 2 - for a total of four.) However, suppose there was a single bar in each of the four corners - then your win would be 32 (four corners is worth 2, times your total bet of 16 would equal 32). Anyway, you see how it goes. Play a bit, experiment, and see how much you can win. Have fun. After all, that's what the game was intended for! ------------ 8) REGISTRATION ------------ If you like this game, please register it. Basic registration is only $10, and it would be a nice reward for me after all my hard work to see that someone is enjoying the fruits of my labour. If you like, for an additional $5, I will send you the next update of the game when its become available. At the very least, that should include bug fixes and upgrades to the game, if not an entirely overhauled version of it. For you programmers out there, I am also willing to share the code for the game and for the images used in the game. For $5 extra, I will send you this on a disk of your size preference. So, please send $10 (or more, if you like) plus money for either of the extras mentioned above to the following address: Glenn Franck 38 Virginia Avenue Dartmouth Nova Scotia Canada B2W 2Z7 - Please indicate what the extras are that you desire to have! - Please indicate what size disk you prefer (5-1/4" or 3-1/2"). - Please indicate the version number of the game! - Dollars quoted are Canadian dollars. ** If you like, use the registration sheet in the file register.doc ** ---- 9) BUGS ---- None that I'm aware of. However, if you find any, or have any comments or suggestions about the game, please send e-mail to franck@ug.cs.dal.ca (this account may disappear soon) or gfranck@ac.dal.ca or you can send regular mail to the above address, if you're really desperate! Well, thanks for taking the time to read this through. I hope you enjoy the game. -Glenn Franck October 12, 1992.