Patience Version 2.4.1 beta

Patience is a collection of solitaire card games for the Palm Pilot.

Version 2.4.1 ß

• shrink data structure sizes
• Make global game datastructure static rather than allocated
• Add card count to deck in some games

Version 2.4 modifies the UI by making the table have a unique color, and also adds two new games, Canfield and Eight Off. Eight Off is similar to Towers, except has more stocks and fewer tableaus. As a result, it plays a bit easier on the tiny screen. I've changed the UI for Yukon; tapping a card now moves that card rather than attempting to move some random subset of the stack. Yukon now has hints as well.

I've added a 'examine' mode where tapping a card shows the whole card; dragging shows other cards. Hitting the next-page button while holding the pen on a card switches back to play mode so you can play the selected card. While in examine mode, a small black square is displayed in the lower right corner of the screen.

I've added 'always auto-play' mode. In this mode, each time a card is played, any auto-play moves are made afterwards.

I've added left-handed layouts for games where it matters.

I've discovered a problem when hackmaster is running and using some of the application heap space -- patience was using too much for undo history. I've moved the undo history to global memory, increasing the maximum undo count to 1024 and reducing local heap usage by a lot.

Version 2.3 fixes occasional crashes under OS 2.0 and adds animation to make the play quite a bit easier, especially when the stacks get long. It also correctly attributes the source of the help text and the Tabby Cat game (from Solitaire Till Dawn by Rick Holzgrafe for the Mac. Thanks Rick!).

Version 2.2 fixes some problems with version 2.1:

• Didn't run on OS 1.0
• Didn't redisplay sometimes after a dialog box

The Games

• Aces High
  This is a very simple solitaire, infrequently winnable and pretty much determined by the deal rather than the play.

• Calculation
  Keeps your mind working with modulo 13 arithmetic

• Golf
  Count up and down, try to end with fewer than four cards showing.

• Klondike
  The classic; in draw-three style (sorry, no Vegas rules)

• Montana
  Line up all four suits from 2 to King. Tap empty spaces to highlight the card which goes there. Tap cards to highlight where they go.

• Seahaven Towers
  Similar to FreeCell, but a bit easier to play.

• Spider
  My favorite double-deck solitaire; more playable in version 2.0, but still cramped.

• Spiderette
  A single-deck version of Spider. It seems to be less affected by skill than spider.

• Tabby Cat
  Similar to Spiderette, but suits don't matter, and you get this fine tail to play with.

• Yukon
  Looks like Klondike, but is more complicated.

The Play

All of the games have the same controls; most of the time tapping on a column will move some cards in a useful manner. When that doesn't work, drag a card where you want it to go. Hints and 256-level undo are always available.

The Legal Stuff

Patience is made available without fee. If you have a favorite solitaire that you think will work well on the Pilot, send along a description of the game and I'll see about incorporating it into the next release.

Keith Packard
keithp@ncd.com
http://www.reed.edu/~keith

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