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Royal Cotillion Version 1.11 Copyright 1991-92 By Randy Rasa 18215 Troost Olathe, KS 66062 What Is It? ___________ Royal Cotillion is a two-deck solitaire in which the chances of winning are approximately one in five games. It requires a bit of skill and a bit of luck, along with a good measure of concentration. Program Requirements ____________________ Royal Cotillion requires about 400K of memory, EGA or higher graphics capability, and a Microsoft-compatible mouse. If you are not sure you have the right hardware, just run the program. If there's a problem, the program will let you know. In addition to the program file (RC.EXE), the game requires that the card definition files (CARDS.CD1 and CARDS.CD2) be in the current directory. These files contain the bit-maps for each cardface in the deck. Using The Mouse _______________ The mouse pointer will appear as a white arrow with black edges. In general, the left button is used to select the object being pointed to (a card or an on-screen button). If you have a three-button mouse, the middle button will blank the screen. This can also be accomplished by pressing the left and right buttons simultaneously. The right mouse button is used to peek into the deck or the wastepile. How To Play ___________ Royal Cotillion uses two standard 52-card decks (no jokers) dealt together. The game is begun by dealing twelve cards in three rows of four cards each, forming the left tableau. The right wing of the tableau is formed by dealing four rows of four cards each. The Royal Cotillion Documentation Page 2 foundations are formed in two columns between the left and right tableau. Foundations are formed in the following sequences for each suit: A,3,5,7,9,J,K,2,4,6,8,10,Q 2,4,6,8,10,Q,A,3,5,7,9,J,K In the left wing of the tableau, only the bottom card of each column is available for play, and spaces are never filled. In the right wing, all cards are available, and spaces are filled immediately from the wastepile, or, if there is none, from the deck. Cards are turned up from the deck one at a time, and may be played either to the foundations or the wastepile. The top card of the wastepile is always available for play. The game is one if all eight foundations are completed, or lost if a block is reached. It is advisable, if you have a choice, to play from the left wing first, thus freeing up additional cards. In the right wing, you should not make a move merely because you can. It is better to wait to make a space until a desirable card to save turns up. Royal Cotillion has a "semi-automatic" mode that you can invoke by clicking on one of the foundations when no card is selected. The program will then look through the left and right wings of the tableau, plus the wastepile and top card of the deck, and make any moves it can to the foundation you select. Take care when using this feature, though -- the program may not always make the optimal choice. Royal Cotillion also has a "peek" feature, which can be used to view the contents of the deck or wastepile. Simply position the mouse pointer over the deck or wastepile and click the right mouse button. Buttons _______ Along the bottom of the screen are a number of "buttons", which may be selected by pointing and clicking with the mouse. The buttons are: Options: This button brings up the options menu, which you can use to set your preferences for the following: Sound: Select "Off" to disable the beeps, clicks, and various other noises the program makes. Select "On" to enable the sounds. Royal Cotillion Documentation Page 3 Automatic Dealing: If this is set "On", then cards will be turned from the deck automatically. Otherwise, if this option is "Off", you must click on the deck to turn up new cards. Session Statistics: When this option is set to "On", the program will keep track of your statistics (games played, games won, change in average score) throughout the game and then display them when you quit. (Note: During play, you can also display the session statistics by clicking on the score box.) Move Alert: When this option is turned on, the program will alert you to any available moves by displaying a message next to the deck saying "Move". Note that this is only an information message -- you are not required to make a move when one is available. Background Color: Click on the up-arrow and down-arrow to step through the available background colors, until you find one that suits your tastes. Card Back: Click on the card back to bring up a dialog box which will show you all the available card backs and allow you to choose one. Once you've set things to your liking, you may click on the "OK" button to save your preferences to disk, or on the "Cancel" button to exit the Options menu without changing anything. Help: This button will bring up several pages of help screens, which you can view by clicking on the "Next" or "Prev" buttons to move from page to page. When you are finished reading the help, click on the "Done" button to exit. Undo: This button simply "takes back" one move (deck-to- wastepile, tableau-to-foundation, etc.). The number of times that this can be done is essentially unlimited, though a command-line option can scale this back to conserve memory (see the "Command-Line Options" section for more details). New Game: This button will end the current game, update your statistics, and start a new game. Quit: Click on this button to exit the program. If you have started a game, the score will be recorded and the statistic file updated. Another way to exit the game is to press the "Abort" key (F10). If you press F10 (and select the "Exit This Program" option in the pop-up dialog box or press F10 again), the program will quit to DOS without saving the data file (and thus not giving you a low score if you have to quit the program in the middle of a game). Of course you realize this is cheating, don't you? Royal Cotillion Documentation Page 4 Running Under Windows _____________________ This program will run properly under Microsoft Windows in real and standard modes, but appears to have trouble with 386 Enhanced mode. The program exhibits two problems when running in this mode: 1. The mouse coordinates are shifted eight pixels down and to the right. This causes clicks on the upper left corner of an object to be ignored, and clicks slightly below or to the right of an object to be misinterpreted. 2. The sound is sort of short and stuttering. Eventually, after you lose a game and the "lose" sound is played, the game slows down to where it is unplayable. I have tried using a PIF file and experimenting with all the available settings, but with no success. However, I am not an expert on Windows, so if anyone can figure this out, please let me know. In the meantime, here are three alternatives if you want to play this game under Windows: 1. Run Windows in real or standard mode. 2. Turn the sound off in the "Options" menu. You'll still have the mouse problem, but at least the program will run at full speed. 2. Run the program with the new "/W" (Windows Compatability) command-line option. This option simply shifts the mouse coordinates back to where they should be and uses a different "lose" sound that doesn't appear to cause problems. I recognize that none of these are optimal solutions, and I hope to improve the situation in the future. Command-Line Options ____________________ /NC -- "No Cheat" option disables the F10 (abort) key. Use this if you find yourself unable to resist temptation. /LCD -- This option may improve the screen display on monochrome LCD displays. This option simply changes a few color combinations to improve contrast on LCDs. /Rxxxxxx -- This option is used to convert a shareware version of the program to a registered version. Refer to "A Note To Registered Users" at the end of this document for more information. /SW -- This option is used to convert a registered version to a shareware version. Royal Cotillion Documentation Page 5 /W -- This option forces the program to run in "Windows Compatability" mode. Refer to the "Running Under Windows" section of this document for more details. /Unnn -- This option sets the number of undo levels that the program will allocate memory for. If the program crashes with an "Error 07 ..." message, it means you ran out of memory. Try using this option to reduce the number of undo levels, thus causing the the program to require less memory. The undo levels can be set from 1-200. filename.ext -- This option is for alternate data files (see discussion below). Statistics __________ Royal Cotillion keeps track of the score (the number of cards you've moved to foundations), the total number of games you've played, the number of games you've won (expressed as both a number and a percentage), and your average score. At the end of each game, the statistics are written to disk, either in the default RC.DAT or in the data file specified on the command line. The data file also contains the preferences you set in the options menu. To specify a data file on the command line, start up Royal Cotillion with the following syntax: RC filename.ext This allows several different people to use the same copy of Royal Cotillion on the same machine, yet keep separate statistics for each person. For example, suppose three people (Tom, Dick, and Harry) played the game at various times on the same machine. They could each easily keep personalized data files, containing their scores and preferences. Tom would use his data file by typing: RC TOM.DAT Likewise, Dick and Harry could have data files called DICK.DAT and HARRY.DAT. Note that the "DAT" extension could be "SCR" or "HGH", or whatever, as long as it is three letters or less. Legalese ________ Royal Cotillion is shareware. As such, you can play it, copy it, and give it away as you wish. In fact, you are encouraged to distribute the shareware version of the program to friends, family, and strangers alike. This includes distribution via electronic bulletin board systems (BBS), user's groups, and disk-distribution services. All that I ask is that the program remain unaltered, and be distributed in an archive consisting of: Royal Cotillion Documentation Page 6 RC.EXE ............. the program RC.DOC ............. documentation CARDS.CD1 .......... card definition file #1 CARDS.CD2 .......... card definition file #2 Registration ____________ Royal Cotillion is shareware. If you enjoy the game, please support it. There are three registration packages available: 1. Basic Registration ................................... $5.00 This minimum registration will get you the latest registered (no shareware "beg" message) version of Royal Cotillion on a diskette of your choice, along with a registration code good for all future updates. 2. Package Deal #1 ..................................... $10.00 This package consists of the latest registered version of Royal Cotillion, plus shareware versions of my other programs, along with a menu program to tie them all together. Note that all of the additional programs are unregistered versions (with shareware "beg" screens). You will also receive a registration code good for all future updates of Royal Cotillion. 3. Package Deal #2 ..................................... $15.00 This package consists of the latest registered version of Royal Cotillion, plus registered versions of my other programs, along with a menu program to tie them all together. Note that all of the additional programs are fully registered versions (no shareware "beg" screens). You will also receive registration codes good for all future updates of Royal Cotillion and the other programs. Basic registration is available on a 5.25", 360K disk or on a 3.50", 720K disk. The package deals are available on two 360K disks (with the programs ZIPped (with the PKZIP compression program) to pack as much as possible onto each disk), one 720K disk (ZIPped), or one 5.25", 1.2M disk. If you do not have access to PKZIP, you'll need to order the package deals on a 1.2M disk. No matter what option you choose, you'll be getting a lot of quality software for just a little dough. Please consider registering. The programs that you will get with the package deals are: Midnight Oil: An EGA solitaire card game, otherwise known as La Belle Lucie and Three Shuffles and a Draw. In this game the Royal Cotillion Documentation Page 7 deck is dealt into seventeen fans of three cards each. Cards are moved from the fans to four foundations, which are then built up in suit from Ace to King. Midnight Oil is one of the best solitaires, affording great opportunity for skillful play. The game keeps statistics in a disk file, and has a special auto mode that makes the game especially easy to play. Monte Carlo: An EGA-based solitaire card game in which you try to remove pairs of cards from a 5 x 5 matrix. This easy-to- play game offers hours of relaxing fun. It keeps statistics in much the same way as Royal Cotillion, has selectable card designs, and a "hint" button that makes the game especially easy to learn. Calculation: This EGA-based solitaire card game is a real brain- teaser in which you build up four foundations, each in a different sequence. It requires skill and logical thinking to win, but on-screen assistance makes learning and playing the game a snap. It keeps a statistic file like Royal Cotillion and has selectable card designs. Osmosis: In this EGA solitaire card game you have four foundations to build, but a card can only be played to a lower foundation if it has also been played to an upper foundation. This addictive game is simple to play but difficult to win, with success often depending as much on luck as skill. It keeps statistics on-disk, offers selectable card backs and has a "peek" option to give you an extra edge. Idiot's Delight: An EGA version of "Aces Up", a simple but addictive game of luck and skill. This is one of those games that leave you saying "just one more game" time after time after time. As in my other EGA games, it keeps a statistic file and offers selectable card backs. Concentration: An EGA graphics version of the classic memory- stretching solitaire. It keeps a statistics file, features selectable card backs, and offers a unique multi-player mode. You can print the registration form from the initial shareware screen. Simply select the "Print Registration Form" button, then select a destination, either to a printer or a file. If you elect to send the form to a printer, make sure it is on-line and ready. The form should print on any standard 80-column printer. If you want to save the form to a file, the file "RC.FRM" will be created in the current directory. You can then print out the registration form by entering the following command from the DOS prompt (with your printer connected and ready): COPY RC.FRM PRN Royal Cotillion Documentation Page 8 Then just fill out the form and send it, along with cash, check or money order, to: Randy Rasa 18215 Troost Olathe, KS 66062 Revision History ________________ 1.00 02-24-91 First public release. 1.01 03-12-91 Added registration procedure. 1.02 03-23-91 Modified registration procedure. 1.03 04-23-91 Added option to print registration form. Changed card definition filenames to CARDS.CD*. 1.04 05-17-91 Fixed problem with equipment test. 1.05 05-23-91 Added "peek" feature. Added abort (F10) feature. 1.06 07-08-91 Fixed problem that displayed mouse coordinates. The program now exits to DOS after running the registration procedure, and the program date and time are set correctly. Added command-line help ("RC ?"). 1.07 09-02-91 Rewrote mouse initialization routine. 1.08 10-28-91 Added dialog box to select card back. Improved parsing of command-line arguments. Modified the "abort" sequence so that pressing F10 once will bring up the abort dialog box, and pressing F10 again will exit the program. 1.09 11-24-91 Added "Move Alert" option. Increased number of available card backs to seven. Added "/LCD" command-line option. 1.10 01-05-92 Added "/NC" (No Cheat) command-line option. Added "undo" function and "/U" command-line option. 1.11 02-14-92 Added "/W" (Windows Compatability) command-line option. Royal Cotillion Documentation Page 9 A Note To Registered Users __________________________ The registration procedure allows previously-registered users to update to the new registered version of the program by entering a special 'registration code' that was included as part of your order. Run the shareware version of the program with the "/R" command-line switch, followed by the registration code, like this: RC /Rxxxxxx You would, of course use the proper registration code in place of the "xxxxxx". Note also that there should be no space between the "R" and the registration code. After running the program with /R switch and the proper code, you'll have a brand-spanking new registered version of the program. What this essentially amounts to is unlimited, free updates with each registration. The registration procedure comes with the following limitations: 1. The name your EXE file must be RC.EXE. 2. You cannot perform the registration procedure on a compressed version (ie: an EXE file processed with PKLite, Diet, or LZEXE). The EXE file may be compressed after the registration procedure, but not before. 3. Please do not distribute registered versions of the program. 4. Since the registration procedure is a new feature, there are a number of people who have registered earlier versions that won't be able to take advantage of it just yet. But if you send me a self-addressed stamped envelope, I'll be happy to send you the registration code. Note: You can also change the program back to the shareware version by using the "/SW" command-line switch. This function is subject to the same limitations as with the registration procedure (ie: the program must be properly named and uncompressed). Please use this option to "un-register" the program if you wish to pass it along to anyone. Also, please include all of the files listed under the "Legalese" section of this document. Thanks.