This game is released as freeware. It may be distributed freely on the internet or by bulletin board, providing it remains unmodified and includes this notice. It MAY NOT be distributed on America On-Line or Compuserve, nor sold for any cost. It MAY NOT be included in any promotional collection or included in a magazine sold for money without my permission.
My reasons: I've been ripped off by both AOL and CIS, and I don't like this proliferation of shareware disks being sold everywhere: somebody is making a profit on it, and it ain't the authors. I've also gotten a few reports since version 1.0 that some UK magazine has been distributing Stones without my consent; it galls me to think they don't have the courtesy of asking.
Why freeware? Several reasons:
a) No one would pay me for this game.
b) I want to repay some of my debt to mac programmers everywhere for letting me use their software.
c) I hate guilt in general.
BUT... please drop me a line! Tell me what you think, and where you got ahold of the game. I've gotten only a handfull of comments so far (thanks!) and I love mail.
The Game
I have seen this game called Mancala, OuarÄ, Awele, and Kalah. I've seen it marketed under the name Arcana. I've heard it referred to as being either African or Mesopotamian in origin. I've seen several variants of the game. I don't know anything more about it. If anyone does have any historical information about this game, or further variants, let me know at the adress below. I'm interested.
Playing the Game
The game is played with stones and piles. Player one's piles are in the bottom row, and player two's piles in the top. Player one has his scorepile on the left; player two has her scorepile on the right.
On your turn, you choose a pile by clicking on it. All the stones in that pile get scooped up. The computer then 'seeds' the stones around the board clockwise, putting one stone in each subsequent pile. When the last stone is dropped, one of three things happens:
Ñ The last stone lands in a pile with stones in it: The entire pile (including the stone you just dropped in) is picked up, and you start going around the board again.
Ñ The last stone lands in a score pile: you get a free turn. Choose another pile from your side. (This is a very desirable outcome, in most cases.)
Ñ The last stone lands in a pile with no stones in it (and not in your score pile): your turn ends. The other player gets to go.
When the stones are seeded, you always get your stones dropped in your own score pile, but skip your opponent's score pile.
Finally, the game ends when all of your stones get cleaned out of your side. If you have no stones in any of your piles (except your score pile) the game ends, and all the loose stones left on your opponent's side get put in your score pile. This is important: games are often won or lost this way.
The Program
You choose a pile by clicking on it.
A few simple sounds are available, and can be turned on or off. The "Hmmm." sound means the computer is starting it's turn; there are also two click sounds associated with the different players. (If anyone out there has any good alternate sounds for this game, send 'em on in! The sounds may be replaced in the resource fork: just make sure they have the same ID numbers.)
The speed setting, in the Game menu, determines how long the computer pauses after placing each stone or picking up a pile. Start out with the slow settings until you see what is happening. The fastest setting is as fast as the computer can process the update events.
You can start out with 2,3,4,5, or 6 stones per pile when the game begins.
The game remembers your preferences from session to session. (It creates a prefs file in your system folder.)
Tactics
For the beginning game, there aren't a lot of tactics. Often, just choosing the biggest pile will give you the best results. You may want to think about how many empty piles you leave after your turn: the more, the harder it is for the other player to get around the board multiple times.
The endgame gets interesting, though. The first thing your are concerned with is picking up lots of stones, by carefully doing 'free turn' moves in correct sequence so you set yourself up for the next free move. I'll let you work out the details.
The other important thing is a 'guard stone'. You gradually work your last stones toward your own scorepile. What if your opponent suddenly wraps a stone or two around to land in your last pile? You've now got an orphan stone sitting out there, keeping you from winning. The solution: leave a guard stone back there. Two stones are much easier to move than one.
Conversely, you can also do this to your opponent, buying you time until you can win yourself.
The AI
When I wrote the AI, I figured it would be mediocre, and that it would merely serve as a base for a more complex system. Boy, was I wrong. The thing beat the pants off me.
The reason for this is that the computer is extremely good at the beginning game, which humans usually suck at. It's difficult, not to mention extremely boring, to count your stones around the board, keeping track of which piles get more stones along the way, and then do that for all the possible choices. The computer is very good at this. However, the computer, especially on the stupider settings, is quite beatable because it has very little strategy around the endgame.
For those that are intrested, the AI works fairly simply. It builds up a tree of possible desicions. ("If I move pile one, I then get a free turn, and can move pile three or pile four, which...") It then sees how many stones wind up in it's score pile for each possible sequence of decisions, and takes the best one. (Oh, it also checks to see if there's a move it can win on, and takes that with preference.) Surprisingly, this takes virtually no processor time.
To cripple it, I reduced the number of branches it would consider at one time. At the stupidest setting, it naivÄly checks to see how many stones it gets in it's scorepile for a move, regardless of whether it gets a free turn or not. At the smartest setting, it evaluates the entire move tree.
But Enough About You, Let's Talk About Me...
I'm currently a graduate student in physics, working on my M.Sc. at the University of Guelph. Despite the evil, anti-christ DOS-box culture around here, I've stuck to my guns and continued to use my trusty Mac. I'm wrote this program in about two months of spare time, learning C and C++ as I did so, not to mention system 7, PowerPlant, the use of CodeWarrior, etc. Not bad, I think.
I'd love to hear from you if you have any comments about this program. I can be reached at
ntagg@uoguelph.ca
Or, if you must resort to snailmail:
Nathaniel Tagg
Apt. 10, #3 Forrest Hill Drive
Guelph, ON
Canada
N1G 2E1
Stuff Even More Boring Than The First Boring Stuff...
Release version 1.0: Initial release.
Release 1.1
- Stones now creates a prefs file to remeber speed, player, and sound settings. I always play on the 'speedy' setting, so I prefer to have it move quicker.
- Winner's score pile now flashes at the end of the game. Whoopee.
- Sounds changed. Kinda fun. I realized I was using pirated sounds (from Mancala and Spaceward Ho!) and decided that wasn't very sporting. Now my sounds are pirated from another source. (Can anyone identify all of them? I doubt it.)
Future Versions: I think I'm done with Stones now; I've got another project on the burner. The PPC version is doomed, I'm afraid; I just can't get time on a PPC box. Maybe in a few months...
