Amiga Games 1996 July

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******************************************** * * * A.Green Lizard Productions present * * * * P O K E R M A N I A V1.0 * * * * Written by A N D Y G R E E N * * * * All code, graphics and sounds (c) 1995 * * * ******************************************** *** How to view this document *** Press the left mouse button to advance a line and the right mouse button to return to the title screen. *** System requirements *** Poker Mania should run on ANY Amiga with at least one meg. of memory. If you have an external drive (like me), disconnect it to stop the annoying clicking of the drive the Amiga does every few seconds to test if there is a disk in the drive (make sure your Amiga is turned off before you do this though!). Control is entirely by mouse (both buttons used). The ESCAPE key is the only key used - see Pontoon section. The average playing time is, er, anything from an hour upwards!! Please also ensure the Poker Mania disk is left in the drive at all times whilst playing (for accessing pics). *** POKER MANIA - What is it? *** 1 Replace the reels of fruit machines with playing cards 2 Add fruit machines extras (jackpot, nudges, repeat, etc.) 3 Throw in one of many card games (Poker, Pontoon, Higher-Lower, etc.) 4 Mix thoroughly, and you have Poker Mania - a game of skill (and luck). Poker Mania has all these features:- Poker (ahem), Higher-Lower, Find the Ace, Jackpot, Repeat facility, Chase the Ace, Skill Cash, Nudges (yes - nudges!), Cashpots, Random bonuses, Pontoon, Gamble facility, and other little extras... *** What's the aim of the game? *** Whilst fruit machines are infinite, Poker Mania does have a distinctive goal. Starting off with one pound, your first aim is to attain ONE HUNDRED quid or more by playing Poker and its many sub games. If you succeed, you will then be transported to the second part; Pontoon, and use your winnings against the computer in the hope of accumulating another HUNDRED pounds. Only then will you have defeated Poker Mania and declare yourself rich beyond your wildest dreams...! >>> Playing Poker Poker is played with one complete pack of fifty-two cards that are shuffled. Having placed your stakes from a minimum of ten pence to a maximum of one pound (if you have it!), you will then be dealt five cards. The object is then to exchange any number of your cards for new ones in the hope of obtaining the highest winning combination shown below. If you are lucky, you will then be paid the stakes placed, times whatever the the odds are for that particular win. For example; The odds for Four of a Kind are 20 to 1. If you placed stakes of 80p, then the payout would be; Stakes X Odds = Winnings. In this case, you would win £16.00! >>> Winning combinations (in descending order of rank) No Hand Description/Example Odds ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Royal Straight Flush Five cards in sequence of the same suit and headed by an Ace only, ie 20 - 1 Ace King Queen Jack 10 of Clubs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 Straight Flush Five cards in sequence of the same suit but NOT headed by an Ace, ie 15 - 1 9 8 7 6 5 of Diamonds, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 Four of a Kind Four cards of the same value regardless of what the fifth card is, ie 10 - 1 2 2 2 2, 10 10 10 10, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Full House Three cards of one denomination and two of another, ie 8 - 1 K K K 10 10, A A 4 4 4, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Flush Five cards of the same suit but not in sequence (order), ie 6 - 1 A 7 3 K J of Spades, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 Straight (or run) Five cards in sequence regardless of suit, ie 2 of Diamond, 3 of Spade, 5 - 1 4 Spade, 5 Club, 6 Club ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7 Three of a kind Three cards of the same value providing (sometimes called the other two cards are not equal, ie 4 - 1 a prial) Three Kings, Three Fours, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 Two Pair Two cards of one denomination and two of another, ie 3 - 1 Two Fours and Two Queens, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- All winnings on the above combinations are automatically transferred to your bank and are safe(!). You will then be given the chance to win extra money in a sub game. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 Pair Two cards of the same value, ie Two Kings, Two Threes, etc. ? - 1 If you should obtain a pair, which will be quite often, you will enter a cash gamble zone. Use your skill (and luck) to determine how much you will win by Gambling your way up the scale. If your feeling unlucky (or scared), selecting Collect will reward you with the amount shown by the fixed Joker. Earn yourself a bonus if you reach the top... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> Placing Stakes Rather than opt for the simple `10p a go' type of thing, I decided to implement the Stakes features, which allows you to place bets from ten pence to a maximum of one pound. Stakes are placed at the beginning of each new round, and it's a simple case of using the Up and Down buttons to raise or lower this amount, then pressing Start when satisfied. Your Stakes will then be deducted from your cash accordingly. Stakes have an effect on many areas of Poker Mania. Apart from the Odds payout on winning hands, it can also determine how hard or fast a sub game will be. It's up to you to balance between placing high stakes and playing hard sub games (but winning loadsa cash), or lower stakes and marginally easier games (winning not so loadsa cash). Bear in mind that you will only have reached your first goal (getting over a hundred quid) if this amount is in the BANK, so constantly placing high stakes will rapidly reduce your chances of getting anywhere near this goal! >>> Using Nudges Now I know what you are all thinking, "How the hell can you have nudges in a card game??? It won't work!". Well, surprise surprise, it does work, and there's quite a lot of skill involved as well! Nudges become available only when you didn't have a winning hand. It doesn't come up very often, but when it does, that loser of a hand could be turned into Three of a Kind, or even a high Straight! If you're fortunate enough to get nudges, you must first determine the exact number you will get (1 to 5) by hitting the STOP button. When your cards are redisplayed, select the card you wish to nudge (by pressing the corresponding hold button), then hitting the Up or Down arrow. So if you `nudged' a card up, a Six of Clubs for example, this will be replaced with a Seven of Clubs, and vice-versa. Note that you are not restricted to just one suit, if a card was an Ace of Clubs; nudging this card down will turn it into a King of Spades (see the information line on screen for suit orders). Remember though, you can only nudge a card up or down PROVIDING you do not already have the next card in your hand! For example, your hand consists of the following:- 4 of Spades, 5 of Spades, King of Diamonds, 8 of Clubs, 2 of Clubs You couldn't have a pair of fours or fives because nudging the four of Spades up or the 5 of Spades down will inform you that "You already have that card!" and the card held will flash. So please bear this in mind. In other words, duplicate cards are NOT allowed! This is where careful planning is required before you proceed nudging! During nudges, if you think you have a winning line, oops, I mean hand, then press Start and you will paid accordingly. If you selected the wrong card to nudge, then selecting Cancel will reactivate the Hold buttons. So there you have it, it may seem strange, but once you've used it a few times, you'll find it a real bonus! *** SUB GAMES in Poker Mania *** You can only enter a sub game if you have a winning hand. Sub games have varying degrees of skill and luck involved. Some are hard but rewarding, while others simply bump up your bank slowly. As above (using Stakes), these can affect the final payouts, or level of difficulty, so eventually you will know which ones to avoid or play. Higher-Lower - Guess whether the next card in sequence will be higher or lower than the previous. You'll only win if you get all five cards correctly. Ace counts as high or low. Find the Ace - Briefly; be VERY quick or you'll regret hanging about. If you find the Ace, your winnings will be based on your reaction speed. Chase the Ace - Kerboom! Skill cash - Stop on a winner... Cash accumulator - Hard but very rewarding... Hey, I'm giving too much away here! Play these for yourself!! When you have over fifty pounds in the bank, you may get the option to select a sub game yourself... *** Repeat facility *** Occasionally, after playing a sub game, and depending on the outcome, the repeat facility will be activated. All ya gotta do is time when to hit Stop, and hope the rapidly moving Joker will stop on YES. Oh, watch out for the Bank Zapper... *** PONTOON *** Right, you've finally succeeded in winning over a hundred pounds, so er, congratulations! You'll now play Pontoon where you'll gamble your winnings against the computer in the hope of accumulating ANOTHER hundred pounds (again, this must be in the bank) and beating Poker Mania! If you don't succeed (and the computer plays a mean game), you'll return to Poker with any money you have left in the bank and resort to trying again! >>> Using Stakes / Winning Stakes in Pontoon are played a bit like Poker except you can have a maximum of four quid (see below)! This is deducted from your available cash and entered into a `cashpot'. Again, the Stakes placed determine how much you will be paid (assuming you win). The payout is as follows: Pontoon - Cashpot times Four Five card Trick - Cashpot times Three Normal win bonus - Cashpot times Two Dealer wins - Cashpot deducted from your BANK (assuming you've any!) No one wins - Cashpot carried forward to next round >>> How to play The object of Pontoon is simply to secure a combination of two or more cards totalling 21 or less (16 minimum). The Ace in Pontoon can count as either 1 or 11, and each court card (Jack, Queen, King), counts as 10. All the other cards carry their own values. Pontoon is played as follows:- The dealer deals to you your first card. Depending on its value or your chances of getting Pontoon, you will then place your stakes from a minimum of 10p to a £1.00. So if you get an Ace, 10, or a court card (Jack, Queen, King), as your first card, you would be advised to place maximum stakes (but I'll leave that up to you). Right, you've placed your stakes, so, after pressing START, your stake money is deducted accordingly and is entered into the Cashpot. You are then dealt your second card. If you get Pontoon at this point then you can relax as your turn has now ended and its now the dealers go. Otherwise, you can now choose whether to Buy, Twist, or Stick (stand). If you choose to Stick (stand), and providing your cards add up to sixteen or more, your turn will end and it is now the dealers go to try and equal or better your hand. Twisting simply deals you another card at no cost, making no effect on the cashpot. Buying allows you to place more stakes (providing you have the money!), and effectively buy the next card dealt to you. This will in turn increase the cashpot and the final amount paid out. For every card you buy, the maximum stakes are increased by one pound, ie the first card is £1.00 max, the second is £2.00 and so on up to £4.00. Bear in mind that if you did buy and bet the maximum on each card, it would cost you £10.00 just for one round!. But, if you DID win on say a five card trick, you would win the total cashpot £10 x 3! ...So bet wisely! Please also note that it is always in the dealers favour to win if both yours and the computers cards add up to the same value! Don't despair if you keep losing! Remember to place LOW stakes if you think you're gonna lose and twist (not buy) the next cards. Don't expect to defeat it on your first go, patient is a necessity! Having loads of money before playing Pontoon does NOT necessarily increase your chances of beating Poker Mania! For those who think the computer is a little unfair, or you're unsure of what hand beats what, here's a breakdown:- Player Dealer Who wins --------------------------------------------------------------------- Pontoon Pontoon Dealer Pontoon Normal score Player Pontoon Five card trick Player Pontoon Bust Player ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Normal score Pontoon Dealer Normal score Normal score Highest score/Dealer if equal Normal score Five card trick Dealer Normal score Bust Player ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Five card trick Pontoon Dealer Five card trick Normal score Player Five card trick Five card trick Highest score/Dealer if equal Five card trick Bust Player ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bust Pontoon Dealer Bust Normal score Dealer Bust Five card trick Dealer Bust Bust Cashpot carried forward ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: If you think you will not be able to acquire a hundred pounds in the bank and have insufficient cash (dosh) to do so, pressing ESCAPE when the message "Select Stakes then press Start!" appears will abort Pontoon and return you back to Poker, collecting any winnings on the way. *** You've completed POKER MANIA???!!!! *** If you DO win the required hundred pounds in the bank, make a note of the final amount won (try and beat it another time), sit back, view the end piccy, and listen to my rather crap music composition entitled `World Revolution' (at least I'm honest!). Due to the music module eliminating the data files in memory, you will be required to reset your Amiga to play another game - sorry! That's all the instructions... play and enjoy! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *** TECHNICAL BLURB *** >>> My set up One Amiga 500 1.3 (was 1.2) with 1 meg which I've had since '86, with a Cumana external drive. This is connected to a CM8533 colour monitor. Sound outputs through a well old (but wicked) Sanyo C5 carrying compo. Endless program listings was printed through my trusty Star LC-200 colour printer. I also now have a A1200. Other bits include a couldn't-do-without Amiga Action Replay MKIII and Microdeals sampler cartridge. >>> Poker Mania Code Poker Mania was programmed (as if you hadn't guessed!) entirely in AMOS Professional V2, and then compiled using AMOS Professional Compiler. Although I have been programming in BASIC since the ZX81/Spectrum days, this is my first completed project and took roughly four months from start to finish. The actual AMOS source code (contact me if you want to see it!) consists of some 1814 lines and 2330 instructions, and is over 62294 bytes long. The sprites, sounds and playing cards is 186128 bytes long. >>> Graphics ALL graphics and pictures were drawn entirely in Deluxe Paint III. Playing cards:- Each suit has its own IFF 32 colour screen (making four in total), with each card being a massive 56 x 82 in size! These were then grabbed using the AMOS Pro Object Editor and saved as a BOB bank. Since this ended up being a large file and only five cards were displayed on screen at any one time I decided to implement the Squashed Bob Procedure (found on AMOS Pro Productivity Disk Two). This neat routine compacts all the bobs into a fraction of the original space. When a card was needed, the PBOB procedure simply unpacked it back into a hidden screen and grabbed as a BOB, ready for use! These took three days to draw the complete set. Buttons:- These are held on one IFF 64 colour screen. Originally Poker Mania was to be in 32 colour mode but I wanted to give the flashing buttons a more `on' look, so I took advantage of the computers Half Bright mode. I think you'll agree the buttons look much more convincing! Pictures:- The GLP logo is drawn in 64 colour mode. This lizard was originally intended for a graphic maze adventure game I had written called Dracula's Tomb, which never materialised. The lizard on its own took about three days to do and was copied from an illustration by Malcolm Barter (from the Forest of Doom book) - hope ya don't mind! The title pic is in 16 colours, the main game in 64 (see below), and all the mid and end screen in 32. These took roughly a week. The main game screen took around another two days and many more hours twiddling with bits and bobs (I'm a right fussy git!) to give it a realistic look(!) and is in 64 colours. Another 48 colours make up the rainbows behind the playing cards and the information line - a total of 112 colours on screen! >>> Sounds All samples were edited in OctaMED Professional V3 (CU coverdisk version - by Tenijo Tinnunen of Amiganuts). Samples were taken from Soundtracker disks supplied from 17 Bit Software (who provide a blindingly fast mail service - well done!). Those fortunate enough to have stereo linkup (like me), you'll notice that samples are played according to button positions. ie, press the far left hold button, and the sample will be played out the left speaker; press the middle button, and the sample will play out of both speakers!! (Just thought I'd mention it...) >>> Fonts (text) The fonts were created using the RSI Font Editor (again supplied by 17-bit) and took roughly an hour to do. There are two fonts; one for the information line (large text and numbers), and the other for the credits (cash, stakes, bank - small numbers). >>> Music The only music in Poker Mania is when you have finally completed it. This is due to vast amount of memory being taken up by the playing card graphics. Parts of it may sound `out of tune' to you, as I'm tone-deaf and wear hearing aids, I think you'll forgive me! (note: you'll need to reset your Amiga if you do complete Poker Mania in order to reload all the data files - sorry about this!). >>> Other programs Although Poker Mania is my first complete project, I have written loads of other stuff that has either been abandoned, or were just simple programming teaching exercises:- 1) A Wordsearch program that allows you to set up a random or definable grid using your own wordsearch lists or play the ones already made. You can have a maximum of 40 words played on a 18 x 18 grid. Of course, you can also save and load these grids via the pull down menus. I didn't release this purely because the screen was in hi res mode and would become a strain on the eyes. Also, complex grids (with long words) took a while to generate (up to five minutes, even with the fast Compiler!) 2) Dracula's Tomb - (A maze adventure) The code and basic graphics (control interface and 3D rooms) are there, but I really want a random maze generator (20 x 20 and increasing in size for each level). 3) For pure family entertainment I've written a couple of basic compendium type games with crude graphics. These are; Conundrums (for two players); one player enters a word, the computer jumbles it up, and the other player has to guess what it is within a time limit. Noughts and Crosses (for 1 or 2 players); played on the ol' standard 3 x 3 (but extremely large) grid. There are two levels of difficulty against the computer played over a chosen number of rounds. Hangman (for 1 or 2 players), the code and the control interface (no typing in this version) there, but as there were already several other Hangman games already out on the PD circuit, so yep, I quit. >>> Reference Books The Pan Book of Card Games by Hubert Phillips Amiga Game Maker's Manual by Stephen Hill ---------------------------------------------------------------------- *** Contact me!! *** That about wraps it up for now. Please, Please contact me as to any bugs (no ones perfect!), improvements, ideas, etc. Don't be scared to tell me if you didn't like Poker Mania, or you think there's room for improvement, because, after all, this IS my first complete game and without your views I just won't know if you'd like to see more projects!! As of 03/02/95, I am currently unemployed (I'm 26 years of age and skint) and as getting a job is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, I decided to write this game. So, if anyone requires help with AMOS Pro or coding, or needs graphics/sounds, I can't exactly say I haven't got the time to help you out, can I??! All letters will be personally answered by me. Here's my address: Andy Green 37 Charlecote Road (off Wood Lane) Dagenham Essex RM8 3LD Telephone:- 081-517 0294 PS Has anyone got a copy of Spindizzy Worlds? I played the original Spectrum Spindizzy years ago and loved it! I know it's not available in the shops anymore but if anyone is willing to part with their copy, I'll pay you handsomely (with what money I have - providing its in good nick)! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- End of text - press the right mouse button to return to title screen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings and thanks to Chellie, Gemma, Gary, Kelly, Sandra, mum and dad and everyone else I know...