YA-Mancala (Yet-Another Mancala) is, as the name suggests, an implementation of the classic board game Mancala. This Readme file describes the game in general as well as the specific features of this program. YA-Mancala is Shareware: if you enjoy the program, and wish to keep it, you are legally and morally obligated to register it for the oh-so-low price of $10, but you knew that right? See the Distribution and Registration section below for details.
2. About Mancala:
Mancala is one of the oldest known board games. Its origins are obscure, but it is thought to have originated in ancient Egypt. It is also known to have been played in other cultures throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa. The rules of the game are simple, but like all good games, the subtleties can be difficult to master.
The game is traditionally played with a set of stones and a carved board, or a set of cups. The board consists of twelve small cups, six on each side, and two larger cups at the ends. Players sit on either side of the board. The six small cups on their side of the board are theirs. The larger cup to their right is their scoring cup. The game begins with four stones in each of the small cups and none in the scoring cups.*
A move in Mancala works as follows. The player whose turn it is picks up all of the stones from one of the cups on his or her side of the board and places one each in every subsequent cup moving counter-clockwise around the board, skipping the opposing player's scoring cup if it is reached.
There are two special conditions. If the last stone a player deposits goes into his or her scoring cup, that player gets to move again. Alternately, if the last stone is deposited in an empty cup on that player's side of the board, any pieces in the cup directly across from it are captured. Captured pieces are moved directly to the capturing player's scoring cup.
The object is to get as many stones as possible into one's scoring cup. The game ends when one player can no longer move. Any remaing stones on the other player's side of the board are moved to his or her scoring cup. Whichever player has the most stones in his or her scoring cup is the winner. Ties are possible, of course.
*There are variants of the game with different layouts of cups and/or different numbers of stones, but this is the most common version. Or, at least it is the version that I have encountered most often. In any case, the mechanics of game play are usually similar, so people more familiar with other versions of the game should have little difficulty adapting to this implementation.
3. About this Program:
This program implements the game of Mancala as described in the previous section. It should run on all Macintosh models that support Colour Quickdraw. It currently does not run on machines that do not support Colour Quickdraw (for example the Mac Plus), although a separate b/w only version that will suport those machines is in the works at the time this document is being written. Contact the author at the support address below for details. The usual disclaimers apply. Your mileage may vary. Please note that it is a 68k binary, although it should work fine under emulation on PowerMacs.
All of the features of this program are controlled via the Game menu. This section describes the effect of each entry on that menu. The menu is broken into three sections. The first section contains commands. These are menu items which directly cause something to happen, like starting or stopping the game. The middle section contains modifiers which alter the program's behaviour. These are checkable items which can be either on or off. The final section controls the complexity of the artificial player which will be your opponent.
The first item on the Game menu is the Play Game command. It starts the game. Once this command is selected, a virtual coin toss decides which player gets the first move. If the artificial player wins this coin toss, it will make its move immediately. Otherwise the program will wait for the human player to make his or her move. To make a move, simply click on the cup which contains the stones you wish to move.
Below the Play Game command is the Abort Game command, which naturally enough halts the game in progress and restores the board to its initial state. The final command is Instructions which presents a series of dialogs describing the rules of the game.
The three modifiers are Use Sound, Slower Moves and Less Predictable. The function of the first modifier is probably obvious, it activates or deactivates the sounds made by the stones as they hit the board. The default setting of this option is ON. The other two modifiers are perhaps less obvious.
Slower Moves adds a delay before each move made by the artificial player. This option is recommended for the novice, as it makes it easier to follow what your opponent is doing. By default, however, it is OFF, so as not to slow down game play unnecessarily.
The Less Predictable option introduces a probability (which decreases with the difficulty setting) that the artificial player will choose its move randomly, instead of using the move generated by otherwise mostly deterministic algorithms. This option has two purposes. First, it essentially doubles the number of skill levels that the artificial player can have. For instance, the Medium level with the Less Predictable option on is slightly easier to beat than the same level without that option, but harder to beat than the Easy level. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly in the long run, turning this option on can prevent the game from devolving into monotony.
The artificial player is essentially determinstic. Given the same board setup, it will generally choose the same move every time. This means that it is quite easy to develop patterns where you will play the same small set of games over and over again. If you turn the Less Predictable option on, you will never be sure what the next move will be. Hopefully, this will keep the game fresh, and permit you to enjoy it for a long time. This option is OFF by default.
The difficulty section should be pretty much self-explanatory. There are three mutually exclusive settings: Easy, Medium and Hard. The novice player should be able to play at the Easy setting without getting frustrated too quickly. The average player should find the Medium setting reasonably challenging. The Hard setting should prove challenging to even fairly sophisticated Mancala players. A good human player with first move can beat it fairly convincingly, (first move is actually a pretty significant advantage in Mancala) but make one mistake, and you will probably find yourself at a disadvantage.
4. Distribution and Registration:
This program is Shareware. You are entitled to use it for evaluation purposes for no more than thirty (30) days, after which you must either register it, or dispose of it. It is distributed in fully functional form, it contains no time bombs, and does not even annoy you with exhortations to register it. Nonetheless, you are expected to pay for it if you like it and wish to keep it. This program may be distributed by any non-commercial means, so long as it is un-altered, and this Readme file accompanies it. Commercial distributors should contact the author at the address below to discuss a distribution agreement. (I am highly unlikely to refuse any reasonable offer.) See the Legal Stuff section below for details.
The registration fee for this program for Canadian residents is $10 in Canadian funds, preferably by cheque. Credit card orders cannot currently be accepted. Those outside of Canada have a choice. You can either send Can$10 by cheque drawn on a Canadian bank or money order, or the equivalent of Can$12 in your local currency, rounded however is convenient, provided the total is
equal to or greater than Can$11 at current exchange rates. The surcharge is to cover transaction costs I have to pay to exchange currency, and is not intended to be punitive.
In addition to the legal right to keep and use this program, registered users will be entitled to free upgrades and support from the author. I can't promise to fix any bug or incompatibility, but I can and do promise to try. They will, if they so desire, receive notices of upgrades and new products. Most likely (although I don't wan't to make any legally binding promises at this point) they will be entitled to discounts on registration fees for future products. Note that I do have a couple of other projects in the works that I hope will be even better than this one, so this might actually be worth something...
To register, complete the form below and send it to:
I solemnly pledge that any information you send me in order to register this program will be held in the strictest confidence. In particular, in no circumstance will your name, address or email address be given or sold to direct marketers of any type, with the possible exception of any that are distributing my products if you request notifictation of new products. However, I would appreciate it if you would send me the information I have requested for my own records. Having said that, anonymous cheques for any amount will be gladly accepted, so long as they are valid. ;-)
Now I don't want to harp on this too long, but please register this product if you like it. Also, if you don't like it, I'd appreciate knowing why, especially if you are someone who likes the game of Mancala in some other form. In My own Humble Opinion, I believe this to be the best implementation of the game for the Macintosh currently available as Shareware and if there is something I can do to improve it, please let me know.
Registering the program is a win-win situation. It's good for me, since I get encouragement to continue to produce games for the Macintosh. (And one of the first things I'll do if this game makes any money is buy a PowerMac, so it's not as if I'm going to be blowing your registration fees on tequila and prostitutes...) Also it's good for you since you'll get support (if any is necessary) as well as preferential access to the new games that I'll be encouraged to produce.
As a special note to anyone who has bothered to read this far: if you do like the program, but for whatever reason don't want to pay the registration fee I've asked for---maybe you're on a limited income, or maybe you just don't think it's worth quite that much---send me an offer and an explanation of why you don't want to pay the full amount. If the offer is more than zero, the chances are that I'll accept it. Heck, I might well give you a restricted license (i.e. you wouldn't be entitled to future discounts) for FREE if you ask for it and have a better reason than 'I want something for nothing.' We can probably work something out. But I would prefer to hear from you than for you to just steal the game.
5. Bugs (There aren't any right?):
Actually, as I am writing this, there is at least one known bug in this program. It gets unhappy if you change the colour depth while the program is running (this can't be 'fixed'; just don't do it. It should run happily in any colour depth as long as you don't change it while you're playing and you give it enough memory.). If I get any flashes of inspiration, this may be fixed before I release the program, but since neither of them seem to be pathological, I probably won't worry about them too much.
Addendum: Well I've released the program, and upgraded it once without fixing that problem. Nobody complained about it, so I figured nobody cared. One of these days I'll get around to figuring out why it doesn't work, and I'll fix the problem. Anyone who cares a lot about having a fix should let me know to motivate me to do it.
If you discover any other bugs or incompatibilities, please let me know about them whether you are a registered user or not. In fact, I hereby state that any person who alerts me to a bug that I do not already know about when I receive their message will be entitled to a free registration of the program, or an equivalent credit towards any future product I might release, at their discretion. (Any extra transaction fees will be paid by the user; heck I'm not going to pay you to play the game...) I'd prefer if you'd send bug reports via email to: krose@mips2.phy.queensu.ca. If this is not possible for whatever reason, send them by snail mail to the address given in the Distribution and Registration section. As a last resort, you could try posting to comp.sys.mac.games.misc since I read that group reasonably often. If it is say 1997 or later, I might have moved, and this information might be out of date...
6. Acknowledgements:
I would like to publicly thank those people who have helped me get this program to its current state. First of all, these would include every member of my family, who helped me test the original version (v0.9) of this program in 1994. In particular, I have to thank my brother Brian, with whom I've played Mancala many times in 'real life'. Also, I must also thank my Great Uncle Stuart Beatty, who introduced me to the game as a child, and my longtime friend Dan Singleton, with whom I have also played the game many times. Having said that, the version they played then never saw the light of day, and there are other people who helped me get the program from that state to a distributable form. First among these, mostly by chance, is Dean Haslip, who was the primary playtester for the v1.0 artificial player, and also made some requests that lead directly to some features that appear in v1.0 that were not present in v0.9. The other main victims/beta testers were Lorne Erhardt and Chris Jillings.
In addition, thanks also go to Adam Horvath and Ingmar Ragnemalm for their comments/complaints about v1.0. In particular, Ingmar's advice on how to make emulated programs run acceptably on PowerMacs lead directly to some of the changes in v1.0.1 (I just hope they work). By the way, for those of you who don't recognize the name, Ingemar is also a developer of shareware Mac games. If you've never tried his games, you should. (Who says competitors can't be friends?)
7. Technical Notes:
In case anyone cares, the original version of this program was deveolped on a Macintosh LCIII, in Think C 7.0.something. Development was then transferred to a Macinstosh Quadra 605, under Think C 7.0.4. The artwork was done in ResEdit 2.1.1 & 2.1.3, and ClarisWorks 1.something & 2.1.
Playtesting was done on various Macintosh LCs and Quadras including the previously mentioned machines, an LC, and a Quadra 800.
8. Legal Stuff:
A) This document constitutes a legally binding agreement between the user of the software, heretofore refered to as 'The User', and the holders of the copyright to the software, heretofore refered to as 'The Owners', except in jurisdictions in which provisions in this agreement are specifically disallowed. In such jurisdictions, any provisions in this agreement which are not explicitly disallowed shall be considered to be in effect.
B) The User is entitled to use the software program and its accompanying documentation, heretofore refered to as 'The Software', for a period which shall not exceed thirty (30) days, beginning upon receipt of the software, for purposes of evaluation. After that period has expired, The User is obligated to either become a 'Registered User' as defined in section C below, or destroy all copies of The Software in his or her posession. A specific exemption from this provision is granted to copies of The Software which are maintained solely for the purpose of distribtution to other Users.
C) Any User who has received a notice in writing, either on paper or in electronic form, from The Owners declaring The User to be a 'Registered User' shall be recognized as such. All other Users are to be considered 'Unregistered Users'.
D) A Registered User is entitled to maintain an unlimited number of copies of The Software for use by the Registered User, or members of his or her immediate family, only. Any other Users who have access to any of these copies shall be considered Unregistered Users.
E) The User may distribute The Software in any form, provided that The Software is not modified in any way, and that The User receives no profit by doing so.
F) The User may not distribute The Software on any other basis without explicit permission in writing from The Owners.
G) The Software is provided 'As Is', with no guarantee of fitness for any task. The Owners assume no responsibility for any damages, either consequential, incidental or indirect, caused by the use of, or the inability to use The Software. Because some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of consequential or incidental damages, the above limitations may not apply to you.
H) Any rights to The Software not specifically granted to The User are retained by The Owners.
9. Version History:
v0.9 - beta version, nerver released publicly.
v1.0 - first release version
Featured a much improved AI, and an improved user interface.
v1.0.1 - maintenance release
Changed animation routines to improve performance on PowerMacs, and hopefully make
it smoother on all Macs.
Added low memory warnings, so users running at colour depths greater than 8 bit would
