Hearts

Hearts v1.3 Document File. Sections. 1. Introduction 2. Installing or Updating 3. Playing and using the program 4. Differences between registered and unregistered games 5. Registering 6. Other Info 7. New features in v1.3 1. Introduction Hearts is a card game for the Psion Series 3a. Other people might know the game by its other names, Black Maria or Chase the Lady. 2. Installing or Updating The game consists of the following files.. Hearts.opa Hearts.pic Hearts.hlp Logo.pic Logo2.pic Card.wve Game.wve Moon.wve Queen.wve To install, copy Hearts.opa into your app directory on any drive. Then make make a sub-directory called hearts in the same app directory and copy all the remaining files into this. All the wve files are optional, these can be removed if you don't want any sounds. The game can then be installed from the system screen from the Apps/Install menu. The whole installation takes around 60k of memory. When running the game needs around 60k free memory. Upgrading. If you are upgrading from version 1.2, you only need to update the files Hearts.opa,Logo.pic and Hearts.hlp . Do not try to continue a saved game from a previous version. Start a new game when v1.3 is first run. 3. Playing The object of the game is to score as FEW points as possible. When one of the players scores over 100, the game is over. There are four players in the game. Three are controlled by the Psion, the other by a human player. The game is started by the player with the 2 of clubs. The player with this card must lay it. Each other player then takes a turn until four cards are laid. Each player must follow suit if possible. If they can't then they can lay any card they like. When each player has laid a card the computer checks to see who won the 'trick'. The trick is won by the player who followed suit with the highest card. The computer then checks to see if any points were in the trick and scores accordingly. Points are gained when a trick is won that contains penalty cards. These are as follows.. All Hearts Scores 1 point each. Queen of Spades Scores 13 points All aces are high. As each hand progresses, players may not be able to follow suit. This is their opportunity to discard the penalty cards in their hand. That is why higher cards are best laid early in the game. The skill is knowing what you can get away with laying without incurring points. If your cards are all high, it might be worth trying to 'shoot the moon'. This means trying to win ALL the penalty cards. If you succeed, all other players score the full 26 points and you score 0 points. If you fail though, you can end up a loser! Play continues until all the cards are played. If someone has scored over 100 points the game is over, otherwise the computer deals another hand. At the start of each hand each player is given 13 cards. Before actual play, each player must select three cards to pass to the next player. This is when you can get rid of some of the really nasty high cards. Beware though, one of the computer hands will pass three cards on to you! When it is your turn to play an arrow will appear above your cards. Just use the cursor keys and the enter key to select which card to play. Before the game, you might like to give each player a more familiar name. Just select edit from the menu to change the existing names. These name are remembered, and will then appear whenever the game is re-run. Most of the other menus are self explanatory. 4. Differences between registered and unregistered games With the Unregistered version of the game, when the human player wins the queen of spades they score 75 points instead of 13. Also it is not possible to 'shoot the moon'. The player scores the full value of all penalty cards. 5. Registering Registration for Hearts is 8 pounds or foreign equivalent. Payment can be made by Cheque, Euro cheque, Money order or foreign currency. Users of Compuserve can register the game via the SWREG service.SWREG id codes for Hearts, Dungeon or both are.. Hearts id code 13000 price $15 Dungeon id code 13001 price $15 Both id code 13398 price $22 Alternatively, send 12 pounds and receive also the registration code for my other game Dungeon, the only Doom type game on the Psion! Once you've registered, you will receive a personal code to free the game from all restrictions. There is no need to re-install. People who have already registered Dungeon need only send a further 4 pounds or equivalent, to register Hearts. Send registrations to.. Nick Dawkins 26b Sussex Terrace Lower Flat Brighton Sussex BN2 2QJ England. Please enclose your full name and address. If you have an e-mail address enclose that as well for a speedier reply. 6. Other Information Hearts took me about three months to program. I thought at first it would be an easy game to write, but the computers gameplay was a lot more complicated than it first appeared! I think the computer plays a pretty good game and at quite a reasonable speed. Let me know what you think. Please send all e-mail to ndawkins@pavilion.co.uk Your comments are very welcome. Or visit my web pages for up to date info on this, and future work in progress at.. http://www.pavilion.co.uk/users/ndawkins Hearts may be freely copied and distributed as long as no files are added, removed or edited, including this readme file. Registered users must keep their personal codes secret. 7. New Features in v1.3 The players cards are now displayed in a black/red/black/red order. This follows requests from registered users about making the cards easier to distinguish. A small bug was removed that caused second and third place winning positions to be reversed in the score info. When picking cards, the player can now press Psion-left cursor or Psion-right cursor to jump to the far ends of their hand. Disclaimer. This software is supplied as is. No responsibility can be taken for any loss of data or adverse effects when used on your machine. This is though, extremely unlikely. The game has been tested, and shows no signs of naughty behaviour!