500 Game Surplus/XSurplus.iso/594/500WIN.TX_/500WIN.TX

Text File | 1996-03-17 | 18KB | 426 lines

                     FIVE  HUNDRED  card  game  for  WINDOWS




                             release 2.2 - 1996

                            created by G.M.McKAY





 COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS:

       Any  286 ,386 , 486, pentium or better IBM compatible computer will
successfully run this game as long as it can run Windows and has over 1Mb of
memory.   It will use any sound driver that your Windows has fitted (ie. a
sound card or PC speaker driver).   A mouse is preferable (as with all
Windows activities), but this is not a requirement.   You can use Windows ver
3.0, 3.1, 3.11, or Windows 95.     It works best if Windows has a standard
640 x 480 screen resolution, but it can accommodate any resolution.





 DISTRIBUTION:

       This copyrighted game is distributed under the SHAREWARE system which
depends upon your support for on-going development.   You are encouraged to
freely copy and distribute this product unaltered to  friends,  business
associates, bulletin boards and user groups.   HOWEVER THIS  PRODUCT IS NOT
FREE !   You have an evaluation period of two weeks.  If you decide you do
not like the game, simply pass the disk along to someone else.   If you are
still using "500 for WINDOWS" after two weeks  of  evaluation, you are
obligated to send a minimum payment of $27.   If the future of low-cost
quality software is to continue, we all must support this concept.   If you
cheat on this payment may you be constantly finessed.

       When you register, you get lots of goodies, as well as that warm
feeling that only comes from the knowledge that you are more saintly than the
scum around you.   Read the end of this file to find out about all the
goodies.


RUNNING IT:

       See later in this file for full details on installing this program (if
you are reading this, then chances are that you have already installed it
correctly).

       Once the program has been installed, running it is as easy as double
clicking on the icon installed in your Windows Program Manager.   If  this is
too easy, you can also start it by choosing RUN from the Files menu in
Windows, or by double clicking on 500WIN.EXE in the File Manager (naturally
you have to find the correct directory if you choose the hard way).





LET'S PLAY:


       In keeping with the traditions of Shareware, the preliminary screen
you see is a "nuisance screen", reminding you of the virtues and good Karma
bestowed upon you by registering the program.

       The first menu you see is the Main Menu which allows you to set the
bidding rules, Misere rules, personal preferences (eg card table colour),
view these instructions, and print out a registration form.   You can alter
this menu's background picture in the registered version of the game.   If
you do not register, you will have to make do with a splendid picture of
myself and family.



"start game"

       Obviously, you press the top button on the menu to start the game.
You can access this Main Menu at any time during a game, and return to the
same game.



"rule options" -

 i) Some people adopt the policy of bidding 6 No Trumps to indicate no more
than that they have the Joker.   You can choose whether you want the other
players to follow this convention or not.

ii) The non-bidding team get 10 points for each trick that they take.   This
may take their bid over 490 points.   They still cannot win the game until
they make a successful bid, but you can choose whether you want their score
to stop at 490 points, or continue above it.

iii) There are a myriad of local rules as well as very local "house rules"
which govern the 500 card game.   This is a consequence of it being so
popular among so many societies.   Five of the more common bidding rules are
accommodated here.

iv) You can choose what sort of partner to have.   You can have a partner who
bids conservatively, standard, or as a cowboy.   This way your partner's
style can match your own.   This does not affect your opponents who always
try to bid as effectively as they can.



"misere options"

i) The playing of Misere is the cause of more "weird" house rules than any
other feature.   It involves a very different balance of skill and luck,
which tends to polarise people between those who love it, those who loath it,
and those who tolerant it.  Because of this variety, you can choose whether
to play no Misere, just Open Misere, or both Open and Closed Misere.

ii) Because some people love to bid Misere, and others only want it bid
rarely, you can choose the level of enthusiasm with which all your players
embrace Misere.

iii) Closed Misere is worth 250 points, which is more than 8 Spades (240
points).   However many card schools play that any 8 bid beats Closed Misere.
You can decide which option you want.



"preferences"

i) If you have installed a sound driver in your Windows, you can choose the
level of sound you want.   The "Full Sound" option makes congratulatory
noises at every opportunity and calls the bids made, while "Part Sound" is
somewhat more discreet.  500 for Windows supports all sound cards that your
Windows is set up for.   This includes the standard PC speaker if you have
installed the speaker driver (via the Windows control panel & Drivers).

ii) The number of games won and lost are recorded.  Press the reset button to
set these game scores back to zero.

iii) You can slow down or quicken the game by adjusting the length of time
for which the cards are displayed during a hand.   This also affects the time
bids are displayed.

iv) Similarly, you can adjust the speed at which the cards move.   So if you
have a slow computer, or are simply in a hurry to get the cards played, you
can set this to a fast speed.

v) When you adjust the colour of the card table, the colour of the background
changes instantaneously.   This helps you to choose the colour that you
really want.   Remember that if you decide on a dark colour, any black
writing will be difficult to read.
       Remember also that Windows can be customised to view different numbers
of colours (through "Windows Set-up" in the Program Manager "Main Group").
Most people choose not to show millions of individual colours, but stick to
about 256.   When an application, like "500 for Windows", tries to show a
colour which is not identical to an exact colour, then Windows will dither
it.   This means that over the background, it will show a series of dots and
crosses to approximate the colour that you chose.   You will quickly find
that Windows dithering does not help readability.   If you do not find a card
table colour you like, you can always set up Windows to show more colours
(and less dithering).
       If you do not like the colour you have chosen - change it to another.

vi) You can give names to the buddies that you are playing with, or simply
leave them as Player 1, 2 & 3.



"instructions"

       These instructions can be read from the text file 500WIN.TXT, or from
the "instructions" menu button.   Use the scroll bar, or navigation keys,
to read the whole document.   Press the "continue" button to return to the
Main Menu.



"register"

       If you have read this far, you know that this enjoyable program is NOT
free, but is being distributed as SHAREWARE.   This means that if you
continue to use it past a short evaluation period, you must register it.
This option helps you to print out the registration form.   If there is a
problem printing through Windows, the form is stored in a file called
REGO.FRM in your 500 for Windows directory.   You can print this out from
DOS.



"quit"

       Press the "quit" button to see what happens.




THE GAME:

       You can make bids and play cards by either clicking the left mouse
button on the card or button, or by using the F1 - F10 function keys.   When
you are bidding, you can cancel a bid by clicking the right mouse button on
the selection to delete.

       You can change the rules or your preferences at any time during a game
by pressing the "menu" button.   Similarly, pressing the "review button"
lets you review the Bids made in that hand, Replay the cards played in that
hand, or shows you the Score Card with the last 15 scores in your game to
date.   These options are also available at the end of a hand, to let you
review it.  When you review the cards played in that hand, you can control
the speed at which the cards are displayed.

       To stop playing the game and return to Windows, return to the Main
Menu, and press "quit".







 RULES:

       FIVE HUNDRED is a well loved card game with a myriad of local house
rules (some are accommodated here via the "rules" menu).   The object of
the game is to collect 500 points and avoid collecting -500 points.   The
game is played in teams with you and your partner (sitting opposite you)
playing against the players sitting facing each other.   Cards are ranked in
order of Ace down to 5 in the black suits, and 4 in the red suits,  except in
the suit that has been designated the TRUMP suit for that hand, in which the
order is - Joker, right bower (the Jack of the trump suit ), left bower (the
Jack of the other suit of the same colour), Ace, King, Queen, 10, 9, etc.

       The game starts with each player bidding for the number of tricks they
think they can win (with their partner's help) with a particular suit as
trumps - 6 is the minimum bid, and the order of the suits is spades, clubs,
diamonds, hearts, no trumps.   The highest bidder wins the bid and endeavours
to win at least as many tricks as he/she bid; if successful he/she gains the
points for that bid otherwise he/she loses those points.   250 points are
awarded for all 10 tricks (if the bid is less than 250 points), and the non-
bidding team gets 10 points for each of their tricks.

       MISERE (or it is sometimes called NULLO) is a bid in which the bidder
tries to lose all 10 tricks (the bidder's partner does not play).   CLOSED
MISERE is worth 250 points and can only be bid after a 7 bid has been made,
while OPEN MISERE is worth 500 points and must be preceded by an 8 bid.
OPEN differs from CLOSED only in that the bidder displays his hand to the
other players after the first lead.   An 8 bid is higher than a CLOSED MISERE
bid (in the "misere" menu you can choose whether you want 8 spades to be
higher or not), and 10 no trumps is the only bid to beat OPEN MISERE (10
hearts is of the same points value as OPEN, so OPEN cannot be bid after 10
hearts).   MISERE has a different balance of luck to skill from other bids,
so some card schools outlaw it.   You can choose to have no MISERE, only
OPEN, or both OPEN and CLOSED.   You can also set the enthusiasm the players
have for bidding MISERE, to match your own.

       NO-TRUMPS with no suit as the trump suit is a legitimate bid.   The
Joker is the sole trump.

       In both No Trumps and Misere, the Joker may be led as the first of a
suit (ie you can nominate that it is a particular suit if that suit has not
been played already).   It can also be played as the last card you have in a
suit (ie if Spades has been led a few times and you have followed suit every
time, but now you do not have any Spades left, then you may use the Joker as
that suit).   In all cases the Joker wins the trick.   If you have "thrown
off" on a suit, you cannot later play the Joker as that suit.   If the Joker
is the last card in your hand, there is no restriction on its use (otherwise
you may not be able to play it).

       The winning bidder gets the 3 card kitty to supplement their hand, and
chooses which 3 cards to "throw out" again.

       Each player plays consecutively in a clockwise direction, with the
winner of the last trick leading.   Each player must follow the suit led if
they can (otherwise it is called reneging).





 INSTALLATION:

       500WIN is distributed in a form which makes installation easy for you.
Like all Windows programs, its installation is more complex than DOS
programs, but the SETUP.EXE utility takes care of all this for you.    This
way, it can ensure that you have the correct Windows System files that it
needs to run properly, without you having to do any work.

       After installation, you should have these files in the \500WIN
directory -
     500WIN.EXE -  base program
    500WIN.TXT -  this information
    REGO.FRM   -  user registration form
    SCORES.500 -  game scores and set-up info
    *.WAV      -  27 sound files.

       In addition, it will make sure that you have VBRUN300.DLL and other
Windows files in your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.


       If you received this software from a Bulletin Board, it will be
compressed into the one file, eg 500WIN22.ZIP.   Before running the
installation program you will need to decompress it.   Create a temporary
directory, eg C:\500TEMP, and decompress all the files into it.   The
software is now ready to install, as if you had bought it on a floppy disk.

       Now start Windows, and run the SETUP.EXE program.   The easiest way of
doing this is choose "RUN" from Windows File menu  (type Alt F R ), and
type in the drive, directory, and SETUP.EXE name.   Alternatively, you can
run it from the File Manager.

       The installation program prompts you to enter the directory name in
which to store the files.   The installation program does NOT interfere with
any of your standard set-up eg, AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, *.INI,  path.   It
places the icon to start the 500WIN game in a group called "500 for
Windows" that it creates in the Program Manager.   If you want, you can
easily move this icon to a different group (by the usual method of dragging
and dropping).

       If  you created a temporary directory, eg C:\500TEMP,  you can  now
remove it.

       The total space that this program takes up on disk is about 980
Kbytes.

       If you run 500WIN and find that it does not fill the whole screen, the
answer is probably the screen resolution that you have chosen for Windows.
You can change this via the Windows set-up in the Program Manager's "Main
Group".   It works best with a standard 640 x 480 resolution.




VERSION 2.2:

       This version has a number of bug fixes and improvements, including
supporting multiple screen resolutions, a better setup file, larger cards and
better sound.   It is based on the FIVE HUNDRED CARD GAME v6.2, which runs
through DOS, but 500WIN has a number of improvements in both appearance and
features.




 REGISTRATION :

       As discussed above, if you are still enjoying this game after two
weeks you should support the  Shareware concept and register your copy by
sending a minimum donation of $27.   For an extra $6 postage I will send you
some extra goodies (choose any number of the following for the same $6 total
postage - ie you could have all of them for $6):

    - the latest, updated registered version (with even better
         card playing skills).
    - if you want it, I will include a registered copy of the 500
        CARD GAME to run through DOS (latest version).
    - if you want it, I will include a copy of STRIP500 (500 card
         game with naked women playing).
    - if you want it, I will include an unregistered copy of 500BBS,
        which allows you to play 500 with other people over Modems,
         or Networks.

       An additional incentive to register is that the registered copy does
not make you endure the initial "nuisance" screen when you run it.

SPECIAL BONUS -  The registered copy also has a much more pleasing picture as
the background to the Main Menu (ie. you do not have to see me and my
family).  It also allows you to put in YOUR OWN background to this menu, so
if you have a pleasing Bit Map Picture, or even a scanned-in picture of
yourself, this can be in the background every time you run it.

       Dealer enquires are welcome.  Corporate licenses are available.




_________________________________________________________________________

                    FIVE   HUNDRED   for   WINDOWS


        Name:     _________________________________  Date: ____/____/____

        Address:  _______________________________________________________

        City:     _______________________  State: _____  Code: __________

        Country:  _______________________

        Version:  _2.2__  My Copy From: ______________________

        Windows ver: __________   Floppy (preferably 1.44MB): _________

        Registration ..$----- ($27)
        Postage .......$----- ($6)
                total  $----- ($33)

Please send me: (mark your needs)

_______ registered copy of the latest version.
_______ registered copy of the 500 CARD GAME to run through DOS (latest
        version).
_______ a copy  of STRIP500 (500 card game with naked women playing).
_______ an unregistered copy of 500BBS, to play 500 over Modems, or
        Networks.


I will be grateful for any suggestions, comments, or information on problems
with the game you may have.


_________________________________________________________________________

        SEND THE FORM TO:
                              G.M.McKAY
                               29 Melissa St.
                                Strathmore
                                 Victoria , 3041
                                  Australia

                                 ph 03-9379-7696