This documentation must be included with all copies of Solitaire. You may not give out copies of the game without the documentation. This game is free for all non-commercial use, so please feel free to pass it along to your friends. It may not be sold for profit without the author's written permission.
SHAREWARE NOTICE:
This program is Shareware, and if you decide to keep it, please send in a registration fee of $5. You'll help me put my wife through medical school! :-) You'll also ensure that I continue to write bigger and better games. To register, send a check or cash (in U.S. dollars, if at all possible) to the snail mail address at the end of this file. Thanks, and I hope you like the game!
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
This game requires System 7. As far as machines go, as long as your computer has color Quickdraw, you can play the game. It's a fair bet that if you don't have color, you don't have color Quickdraw -- with one exception. It will work on an SE/30 (which is what I have!) The SE/30 is the only B&W machine I know of that has color Quickdraw.
INTRODUCTION:
This particular game of Solitaire (I don't know it's real name) was inspired one day as I sat on the floor, going through the tedious process of dealing all 52 cards out in rows. I've always liked this game, but hated having to deal out all those cards and keep them in neat little rows. It suddenly struck me: why bother? Why not let my Mac do it for me? So, I sat down and started working. Now, here I am, with a finished product. (I believe it's pretty well debugged, but drop me a line if you find one I missed!)
The actual game was taught to me by my wife several years ago. She herself learned it a few weeks before from a friend of hers. Besides myself, they are the only people I know of who have even heard of this game! So, I hope that it will be a great success with Solitaire-lovers, since it's a new type (for me, anyway). And, as I said before, I have no idea what the game's actual name is, if it has an official one. If anyone out there has heard of this game and knows it's name, PLEASE let me know!
THE GAME:
The game is a very simple one to learn, but a very hard one to win. You'll find instructions on how to play in the online help. Simply choose How to Play from the Help menu, and you'll learn all you need to know to play.
THE GRAPHICS:
Initially, the graphics in this game were to be black and white only. However, at the request of my testers, I went back and added a color option. (I had to make the color pictures at work! I was naughty. ;-) So, you can run this game in either color or black and white. If you want, you can throw away the unused resource file, as long as you don't distribute the program in that form. Of course, the program will choke (gracefully) if you try to switch to black and white and you threw out that resource file! One other thing about resource files -- don't rename them and expect the game to work. If you MUST rename them, you can edit the STR# resources in the program to make it work. STR# 129, items 2 and 3 hold the names of these files.
Some of the graphics used in the game, like the marbled background and the face card in the Version info box (although the color face card was colorized by me), were copied from various Hypercard clip art stacks. Other graphics, like the cards, and the deck of cards in the About box, were drawn by me.
THE SOUNDS:
All the sounds used were found on various Mac sound archives. I wish I could make my own sounds, but the SE/30 doesn't come equipped with a microphone, and I can't afford to buy all the hardware I'd need.
HIGH SCORES:
If you can beat these high scores, let me know. In fact, if you can win in 0 shuffles, send me your time. I'll start a high score list and will list your name in future releases of the game if you make the list!
Thomas Reed: 0 shuffles, 3:14
Jim Schwartz: 0 shuffles, 3:28
CREDITS:
I'd like to thank my wife, Nevada, for teaching me the game, for initially play testing it, and for giving me some invaluable suggestions that have made the game much nicer.
I'd also like to thank Steph and Jim Schwartz for all their help with the game. They were invaluable in tracking down the last (and worst) bug!
Lastly, I'd like to thank all of my other play testers. Thanks to Jason P. Chang, Michael D. Galloway, Scott Tooker, Harry A. Reinke, Gary Anderson, Steve Holden, Mark Eaton, Matthew J. McBride, and Geoffrey David Bourne. You've all been a great help, and many of you have contributed ideas that were incorporated into the final version, or will be incorporated in future versions. Without all of you, this game wouldn't be the same!
HOW TO CONTACT ME:
If you want to send me a message through e-mail, you can contact me at one of two addresses. Either will suffice. They are:
reed@medicine.wustl.edu
reed@telesphere.wustl.edu
Unfortunately, I'm probably going to be moving when my wife graduates from medical school (sometime in 1997), so these addresses will cease to be valid then. At that point, this game becomes freeware, if it still works!
For registration purposes, or if you don't have access to e-mail, here's my snail mail address:
Thomas Reed
4476 Greenwich Ct. #C-2
St. Louis, MO 63108
(For those of you who have got my address already from the first version of Valley of Peril, it's wrong by one digit. This one is right. I discovered the problem shortly after my access to the Internet was cut off, so I couldn't fix the problem! Fortunately, I have gotten some things that were mailed to the wrong address.)
Hope you like the game, and good luck!
Also look for my other game, Valley of Peril, if you're into adventure games! It's freeware, so there's no charge! I'm also hoping to release a shareware program soon called Coffee Break that will force you to take periodic breaks. It's designed to take one step in preventing repetetive stress injuries.
