PsL Monthly 1994 January

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Board Games Contents: -----Chess Games -----Chess Tutors & Tools -----Checkers -----Battleship -----Othello -----Game Sets -----GO Related Games -----Backgammon -----Mahjongg -----Other ================= -----Chess Games: [CHESS88] Chess88 is an amazing game. The program is only 9k, which is very tiny by today's standards, yet it has great graphics and plays a decent game for all but hardened tournament players. It first appeared in 1982 and for years remained the best pd/shareware chess game available. [EDCHESS] Ed's Chess 2.3 (Hendricks, David and Bell, John T.; $15) was at one time the very strongest pd/shareware chess game available. It can give a hard time to the retail-only game Chessmaster and to most tournament chess players. PowerChess seems to be just as strong and has excellent graphics. Ed's Chess is still a good game and its board makes very good use of ASCII graphics. Since it does use ASCII, it will run on any type of video. The game has many features, including saving/restoring games, move take-back, choice of colors, varying levels of play, recorded time for each move in saved games, board and game editing, printed game reports, and much more. [PWRCHESS] PowerChess (Wild, W. and Heiss, H.; $35) is a powerful, full-featured chess program with excellent graphics. Features include save/restore games, board edit, opening move library, take back moves, print move sequences, play black or white, hints for learning game, set up checkmate puzzles, and the ability to adjust the computer's playing strength by varying its response time from 10 to 300,000 seconds. We experienced some oddities on our VGA system: the first time we ran it, the Hints and the Information screens were both blank. The next time we ran it, they displayed information, but both screens were the same. We had no problems with the actual play of the game, however. The author is no longer at the address listed in the documentation. [TRID] Star Trek Tridemensional Chess (Rutan, David E.; $0) tells you how to construct a 3D chess set like the one on the old Star Trek series and how to play the game. [TELCHES] Telechess lets two people play chess over the phone. The opponent's move is automatically displayed on the screen. [WAXMAN] WaxMan 1.1 (Bacigal, Ivan; $10) is a surprisingly strong pop-up chess game. Since it is a TSR, you can pop it up at any time to play a few moves. Its use of ASCII characters to represent the pieces is clever and very well done. -----Chess Tutors & Tools: [CHESSCLB] ChessClb 2.55 (Wharry, Stephen; $5) keeps track of a chess club's roster and statistics for two rating systems. Each rating system includes a club rating for each member, the total number of points accumulated, and the total number of games played. CHESSCLB will also keep track of who played whom, when, the result, their ratings at the time and how many rating points were earned/lost. The roster and statistics lists can be sorted by ratings, total number of games, total points scored, ID number, name, or address. The program is fast, menu-driven and easy to use. (CHESSRP) Chess Replay 3 (Chessrpl Software; $20) allows you to store chess games on disk and have the PC display them on screen move-by-move. Sample games are included. Requires VGA. [CHS_GEMS] Chess Gems & Jewels (Pep-Cal Software; $15 each) Gems is a collection of 12 chess games from the world's best players that illustrate and teach Chess tactics. The Jewels section contains 12 lessons from the best short games of postal chess players. [CHSSCORR] Chess Corresponder (Pep-Cal Software; $15 each) will keep track of all your postal chess games. It maintains a game board showing the up-to-the-minute position for an unlimited number of games. You can search on a number of different index keys. [CHSSNDXR] Chess Indexer (Pep-Cal Software; $15 each) catalog chess games - yours or others of interest to you. You can enter up to seven search keys, such as the name of the opening variation, type of end-game, etc. [CHS_QUIZ] Chess Quiz Series (Pep-Cal Software; $0) is a set of quizzes designed to help make learning the game of chess fun. Quizzes include an introduction to chess, the Sicilian defense, king pawn openings, queen pawn openings, and the English opening. [CHSSPERL] Chess Pearls (Pep-Cal Software; $15) is a set of 12 lessons drawn from the best short games of the old masters of Chess. [CHESSEDT] Chessedt (Wharry, Stephen; $10) will allow you to build a personal database of chess games, checking for notation errors as you go. You can store the chess games as files and bring them back into the program and examine them at any position in the game, which is especially useful for postal chess players. Besides printer output, the game and annotation can be output to a normal ASCII file that can then be imported into the text editor of your choice. You can build a table of openings and your success/failure with these openings. It will allow you to build a list based on openings, score, tournament, color, date, opponent, ratings, and more. In this list you may include as few as one and as many as every game you have ever played. The program will allow up to 100 moves and replies and up to 50 annotation strings per game. Now the tricky part - it took quite a bit of head banging to figure out how to enter moves. The documentation is sketchy on this and gives no examples. To move a pawn, just give the target square, such as "e4". To move a piece, first give the letter of the piece "in uppercase", then give the target square "in lowercase". Example: to move White's King's Bishop to Queen-Bishop-4, enter "Bc4". To capture with a Pawn, enter the starting "column" and the target " square". Example: "ed5". [CHESSAVE] Chess Saver (Pep-Cal; $15) allows you to record and play back any game of importance to you. Each move can also be annotated with remarks. It precludes having to set up the chess board every time you want to replay a selected game. Also on the same disk: [CHESTAC] Chess Tactics provides examples of tactics and maneuvers seen in expert games of Chess. [CHSSTUTR] Chess Tutor (Pep-Cal Software; $15) familiarizes you with many of the opening lines of chess. It is not a tutorial on those openings, just an overview. We recommend it for anyone just starting to study chess seriously. [DNC] DNC 1.02 (Pawn Promotions, Inc.; $40) is an excellent system for recording chess games and analysis. You can enter comments and alternative lines of play. The moves are displayed on an attractive graphical on-screen chess board as you enter them. Descriptive or algebraic notation can be used. You can load a database and step through a game a move at a time, seeing the moves displayed and reading the analysis and alternative moves. You can also add your own alternative moves and analysis to the database at the same time. [DIACHES] DiaChess 1.0 (TNT Software; $20) allows you to record and print complete chess games with a diagram for every move. It's a valuable teaching and study tool for serious players and ideal for printing a permanent record of tournament games. [TCCR] The Correspondence Chess Recorder 1.0a (Churchill, Eric; $15) helps you keep track of postal or Email correspondence chess games. Features include game printing, several options for stepping back through a game, three different forms of chess notation, and more. [FISCHR] Fischer-Spassky 1992 (Pep-Cal SoftWare; $15 each) lets you replay all the games that were played in the Fischer-Spassky chess match in Yugoslavia 1992. The games are heavily annotated, making this a good learning tool as well. Also included is COACH, a tutorial on the rules of Chess. [K_VS_K] Kasparov-Karpov 1990 (Pep-Cal Software; $15) displays the 24 games of the 1990 World Championship of Chess. This is Garry Kasparov's and Anatoly Karpov's monumental and decisive match in which Kasparov won. The program lets you step back and forth through each move. The games are heavily annotated. [KASPRV] Games of Garry Kasparov (Pep-Cal Software; $15) contains the best and recent games of the current World Champion Garry Kasparov. The games reflect his current ideology and position about the various openings and how he plays them. All games are annotated. [NIGEL] Games of Nigel Short (Pep-Cal Software; $15) is a replay of recent chess games played by the August 1993 world challenger, Nigel Short. [PERCENT] Percentage Chess and Chess Tactics (Pep-Cal SoftWare; $15 each) Percentage Chess is a study aid for developing the playing skills of Chess and a winning Praxis (method of play). The program traces the most common opening moves, 1.e4 and 1.d4. [QUEENS8] Queens8 (Hack, Sidney; $7) is an ancient chess puzzle that requires placing 8 queens on a chessboard in such a way that none threatens another. (Two queens on the same row, in the same column, or on the same diagonal `threaten' each other) You don't have to know anything about chess to try to solve the puzzle. All necessary instructions will appear in the form of messages and prompts. [TAKEN671] TakeNote 6.7.1 [Katelansky, David; $10] is a study tool for chess. It allows you to enter multiple lines of play in one game and easily switch among various lines. You can also add notes and go through notes of the game without losing the original position. A tutorial is included. [TRANSLAT] Chess Translator (Pep-Cal; $15) translates opening moves into both the descriptive and the algebraic equivalents as well as showing the moves on screen. The Pep-Cal chess programs use ASCII characters to display the board and pieces, so they do not look impressive, but they will work on any monitor. -----Checkers [BLITZ] Blitz 3.6 (PC Solutions; $24) is a very strong game of checkers with many options. You can resize the checker board, alter the response time, show movable pieces, select two-player mode and more. [CHECKJM] Checkers 1.61 (McCranie, Judson ASP; $15) is the best checkers game we have seen for the PC. It has excellent graphics and plays a good game. You can select colors and the level of strength at which the computer should play. [CHKR_PF] Checkers (Franchuk, Peter; $0) lets you play checkers against the computer. The program is not very strong, but the complete Turbo Pascal source code is included. If you are a TP programmer, you may have more fun with the source code than with the game. EGA compatible video is required. [CHEKKER] Chekkers 1.7 (Shewchuk, J.D.; $15) is an excellent version of checkers. It features several levels of play, your choice of Hoyle or Huff jump rules. Sound can be toggled on/off. You can flip the board to change sides and record game and board information. [CHEXO] Chexo 1.0 (Soleau Software; $12) is a strategy board game similar to checkers except that you can only move a piece by jumping over another piece of yours or the opponent's. If you jump the opponent's, that piece is removed. The object is to remove all the opponent's pieces. Requires EGA/VGA and a mouse. [DYNAMO] Dynamo Draughts 5.9 (PC Solutions; $24) is the European version of Draughts, a variant of checkers. Draughts is played on a 10x10 board, although this program allows you to resize the board. One major difference between Draughts and Checkers is the way a king moves. Kings can move along an entire diagonal, leaping opponents, landing on any space beyond the opponent, and then taking further leaps in different directions. You can select the board size, number of men, response time, auto-play, computer IQ, corner shapes and more. -----Battleship [BATLSHIP] BattleShip 2.3 (SimoneSystems Software; $15) is a computerized version of BattleShip with a twist. It features islands, mine sweeping, submerge submarine, moving spy ship, and more. Requires 286+ and mouse. [WARSHIPS] Warships 2.5 (Tag Software; $15) is a computerized version of the game Battleship. You play against the computer, trying to sink its ships before it sinks yours. It features sound effects, nice EGA/VGA graphics, and mouse control. -----Othello: [ANTIC] AntiC 1.11 (Cascoly Software ASP; $20) is a cross between Othello and Life. The object of AntiC is make the pattern a single color color using the fewest number of transformations. Each square is one of three colors and sends its color to neighboring squares in the network. If only one color comes into a square, it takes that color. If two colors come in, they cancel and the square assumes the third color. Each time you change a square, all squares in the pattern are recalculated and redrawn. Requires EGA monitor and mouse. [APPLES] Apples & Oranges (Expert Source Code, Inc.; $15) is the game of Othello using apples and oranges rather than the usual black and white pieces. Unfortunately, the program plays a rather weak game, but the graphics are unbeatable. So it's not that much fun to play, but it's great for showing off your video. Three levels of play are offered. Requires EGA or VGA, 355k RAM and a mouse. [BLOCKAD] Blockade 1.9 (PC Solutions; $15) is a strategy board game similar to Othello. Each player takes turns placing his pieces on the board, but unlike Othello, your piece must be placed adjacent to both one of your pieces and one of your opponent's. The effects of such a placement differ from Othello as well. An interesting game. [CAPTRCW] Capture 2.0 (CurtWare; $10) is similar to Othello. The main difference is that you can select a greater number of squares, up to 400. You can play a friend or the computer, or let the computer play itself. There are three skill levels, but the strongest is not as strong as other Othello type games in the PsL. The program is easy to use and has lots of features, such as being able to save a game. [DOUBOLO] DoublOlo (Soleau, William; $10) is the best thing to happen to Othello since the two-colored disc! While many programmers have written "yet another rendition" of the classic game of Othello (some of them with excellent graphics and/or playing skill), William Soleau, who has been writing a lot of terrific games recently, has come up with another winner. In this variation, the board varies in size and shape and location of obstacles on the board with each game. This endless variety and different challenges is sure to please anyone who has ever enjoyed a game of Othello but who has grown bored with the same old game all the time. Requires EGA/VGA. [FLIP_IT] Flip-It 4.7 (PC Solutions; $15-$24) is an interesting variation of Reversi/Othello. You can select various grid patterns and sizes for the board. There is also an unusual play-to-lose mode. Function keys can provide help and rules or invoke an auto-play feature. [HEXES] Hexes 0.93 (Foltz, H.D.; $0) is an Othello game played on a hexagonal board. [OTHL_EW] Othello 6.2 (Waud, Earl; $20) is an good implementation of Othello for EGA or mono systems. It has seven levels of play; can be played by one or two players; has mouse support and a "boss screen". This is not the strongest Othello we've seen, but the user interface is above average and the program is strong enough to beat the non-expert. (The author is no longer at the address listed in the documentation.) [REVERSI] Reversi 1.8 (Parson, David; $15) is an excellent version of Othello that supports CGA or EGA/VGA compatible video. It may be the strongest of the bunch. [TRIBOLO] Tribolo (Soleau, William; $12) pits you against two computer opponents in a game of three way Othello. The regular rules of Othello apply, but having three participants creates drastically different playing strategies. Tribolo has excellent EGA graphics and mouse support. -----Game Sets [TEGL1, TEGL2, TEGL3, TEGL4] The Big Games Package (TEGL Systems Corporation; $35) is a set of five different games for EGA/VGA: Monopoly, Mahjong Solitaire, Klondike Solitaire, Mille Bornes and Big2. [KIRSTA] Kirsta Games (Kirsta Computers Ltd.; $30 each) is a set of four popular card and board games including Backgammon, Cribbage, Checkers, and Patience. These versions make you quit the program and restart it after every game, going through a shareware registration screen. The Checkers game is pretty weak, but fun for novices. The Backgammon game plays a decent game, but lacks a doubling cube; however, it has one of the best interfaces of any backgammon game we've seen. -----Backgammon [BACKGMM] Backgammon is just an electronic board and dice with which you can play a human opponent. The computer will not play you. [BACKTDM] Backgammon 5.1 (The Dream Machine; $12) is a challenging version of the ancient board game. It offers a multitude of playing options and includes 10 levels of difficulty. Pieces are moved by typing in the position number you want to play. You can save and recall games, switch sides during play, take back moves, use a doubling cube, have the computer suggest moves, and much more. The program does not offer mouse support, and it can be a nuisance to type in numbers to move a piece. During testing, it aborted to DOS when trying to save a game. Despite these flaws, we believe it is the strongest backgammon game in the library. [BG] BG is a very good backgammon program. Moving the blots is not exactly difficult, but it could have been made easier to do. The author warns you to expect to get crushed, but it was not the strongest game in our testing. [BACKGAM] Backgammon is a backgammon game that is very awkward to play, but which comes with complete C source code. Even if you are not a programmer, it is interesting to look at the source and read the comments. If you ARE a programmer, you should find the code to be educational. [BACK_JG] BackGammon (BACK (Gatewood, Joe; $0) is a CGA version of BackGammon, with doubling cube, graphics and running game score. It plays a decent game, but no option is given for turning off the annoying sounds. [EGAGAM] EGAGammon 2.0 (Evans, Daniel R.; $10) is a beautifully done version of Backgammon for the EGA/VGA. You play the computer or a human opponent. Mouse or keyboard may be used by the first player. [PCGAMMON] PC-Gammon IV 1.1 (Repstad Computer Consultants ASP; $25) is the best shareware backgammon game to date. (We called to register as soon as we finished reviewing it!) It plays a very good game, but really shines when it comes to the user interface. In addition, you can save and restore games, write a log of all moves to disk, and customize set-up positions. Other features include three user-selectable playing strengths, three levels of AutoMove, and modem play. -----Mahjongg: [HKMJ] Hong Kong Mahjong (Fitch, Julian; $15) is a version of Mahjong as played in Hong Kong. It has excellent graphics because it is written to run only on the VGA. Directions are provided when you run the program. VGA required. [MAH_PK] Mahjong 4.1 (King, P. E. ASP; $20) is the game of Mahjong solitaire. [MAHJNG] Mah Jongg 4.1 (Anderson, Nels ASP; $10) is a solitaire game played with Chinese tiles. The "Boss Mode" allows you to Shell to DOS to run other programs. A list of all pairs of tiles played so far is available by hitting the F2 key. You also have the ability to load different tile sets. One additional set, "Flags of the World", is included along with a tile editor utility. [MJLAPTP] Mah Jongg LapTop 1.1 (Balewski, Ron; $15) is a version of Mah Jongg written with black and white graphics so that the tiles can be easily identifiable on laptops and other systems without color monitors. This is a fun way to pass time at the airport, or wherever else you have to sit around with nothing but your laptop for company. Of course, it is equally as much fun on any kind of computer, but the color EGA versions are usually more enjoyable on desktop systems. [MOREJONG] Moraff's Morejongg 3.0 (MoraffWare; $0) is a unique implementation of the ancient tile game Mahjongg. It contains tile sets with monsters from the Moraff's World games, letters of the alphabet, three letter words, and traditional oriental tiles. You can customize the colors of the tiles and background, and virtually all video types from Hercules to Super-VGA are supported. Mouse is optional. [SOLITILE] SoliTile (Everett Kaser Software; $15) is a game of solitaire played with tiles, based on the ancient Chinese game of Mah-Jong. Features include multiple tile sets, a built-in tile set editor, background patterns and GIF pictures, optional music and sounds, and much more. Layouts are provided with anywhere from 4 to 168 tiles, and the program can read and use tile sets created for Nels Anderson's Mahjongg. The slick user interface supports both mouse and keyboard input. EGA/VGA is required. -----Other [AGRESS] Aggression 1.05 (Expert Source Code, Inc.; $15) is a unique graphic board game that combines some of the aspects of checkers and backgammon. The object is to get all of your pieces from their starting side to the opposite side before your opponent does from a random starting pattern. Requires mouse, EGA/VGA. [CCHECK21] Chinese Checkers 2.1 (ImagiSOFT, Inc., ASP; $20) is a colorful game based on the old traditional played by kids and adults. The graphics and play of the game are excellent. If you have the inverted-T cursor pad on your machine, you will need to turn off NumLock and use the number pad to play the game, as the 1-3-7-9 keys are needed for diagonal moves. Requires EGA/VGA and a mouse. [DOMINO] Domino 4.2 (Ball, B. J.; $15) is an excellent implementation of a two-person, single-spinner game of dominos that you play against the computer. Graphics are required. [MEGAPOLY] Megagopoly (Visual Data Communications Corp.; $18) is an investment strategy game. The object is to reach financial independence. The game simulates an investment environment in which a player may test his skills by interacting with economic parameters, standard financial algorithms and portfolio analysis. Save/Retrieve game options are available. (The author can no longer be reached at the address provided in the documentation.) [MUGGINS] Muggins 1.0 (Young, Scott; $8) is a challenging domino game in which you play the computer. The dominoes go up to 9-9 instead of the usual 6-6. The play of the game and the graphics are very good. EGA/VGA required. [PACHISI] Pachisi (Leotti, George; $5) is a version of an ancient game on which is also based the modern game of Parchesi. One to four people may play with the computer optionally playing any unmanned positions. EGA\VGA required. [PIRATE] Pirates (Tracker Software; $5) is a series of challenging puzzles in which you move from gold bag to gold bag without retracing previous moves. It is based on Hiroimono, which is a 14th century Japanese classic involving Go stones. [PROPRTY] Property Dealer (Clafton, David E.; $5-$10) is a Monopoly-like game where the general idea is to buy property in order to charge rent and thus deprive the opposition of their money. Up to six players can compete, and features include customizing the board size, saving and restoring games, and much more, including a complexity beyond the original Monopoly game. EGA is required. [REDHOOK1, REDHOOK2] Redhook's Revenge 1.0 (ImagiSOFT, Inc. ASP; $23) You will sail the seas as a bloodthirsty pirate in this fantastic animated board game. You roll the dice to see whether you will fight a city, discover treasure, get lost in a storm, answer a trivia question, and much more. It combines the elements of classic board games like Risk, Trivial Pursuit, and Life with beautiful graphics/animation and entertaining theme music and sound effects. Up to three people can play, and the player with the most gold at the end of the voyage wins. Games can be saved, and two of the scurvy bucaneers can be controlled by the computer. Old Redhook himself pops up on occasion with some endearingly salty pirate sayings. Requires 640K and VGA. An AdLib or Sound Blaster compatible board is required to hear music. [SCOOT] Scoot-A-Long (Zimmerman, Ray; $25) is a simple board game along the lines of Parchesi. The first player to get all four game pieces to home position, wins. Requires EGA/VGA, a hard disk and 512K RAM. [SCRABFAQ] Everything You'd Ever Wanna Know About Scrabble 1.0 (Steven Alexander, reg. fee: $0) is a collection of facts about the game of Scrabble. It includes information about tourney rules for U.S. and Canada, tips on playing a better game and lists of Scrabble-related books, periodicals, and software. [SKIMMER] Skimmers (Just For Me Software; $17) is a two-player game somewhat like Parchesi. One player moves pieces to the right and the other to the left, according to the value of the dice. The first person to get all their pieces across the board wins. The catch is that after each set of moves, if opposing pieces are in the same column, those with with lowest total value get sent back to square one. Skimmers is easy enough for young kids to learn, but challenging enough for adults. VGA required.