Minor addition to the stats window. I found every time I won a game I was
wondering if this would increase my win precentage, and if not, how many
games I'd have to win to do so. Now I've added an extra field that displays
how many games are needed to win in order to increase the win percentage.
Fernand in Montreal, Quebec, Canada asked for a statistic of the number
of errors in a game (groups missed). Although I thought of this before
when I was first developing the game, he put a new twist on it: only display
the number at the end of the game. My thought was to include this as one
of the stats that get updated in real time, but the problem with that is
a person could just watch that counter and back up each time it incremented.
Fernand's way eliminates that, as the stat is shown only after the fact.
Related to the above addition, I have added a special option called Training
Mode that, until you have played 100 games, will give you a beep each
time you miss a valid 10-20-30 group and deal a card to the next pile.
Also related to the statistic of the number of groups missed in one game,
I have changed the program to provide further detail on just which card
groupings are missed. This will be very useful in honing your skills,
and to those players who routinely miss several groups in each game. Players
new to the game also have the benefit of seeing the Groups Missed window
in real time in Training Mode (as long as the number of games played is
less than 100).
As a result of adding the training mode I decided I had to modify the Undo
so that it is now possible to back up into a pile that had cards removed
from it. It is still not possible to undo a card group that has been
removed, or to back up past a pile that has had a group removed.
Made a minor change to the way some options are in the default condition,
ie., when the program is first installed. The options for sounds, warning
sounds, etc. were set to be off in the default condition; now they are
on as default.
Added the ability to change the game's background color as per a suggestion
made by Jana in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jana has been awarded a free registration
as per the suggestion policy
for this suggestion.
Minor change to the behaviour of selecting the bottom three cards in a
five-card pile. Now if you click on the middle card of the five cards that
card and the other two below it are also selected. Before this you had
to click on the second from bottom card, then on the middle card, to select
the bottom three cards.
Added card move animation. This is a feature I've felt has been
sorely lacking, and finally decided to tackle the project. (I found
this change to be the "straw that broke the camel's back" as it were, adding
to the problems of card flickering and difficulty in refreshing the cards
after coming back from minimized and such. All of this was due to problems
of keeping the cards refreshed in the window because I was using a card
image support file, QCard32.dll. Although this dll file provided some conveniences,
it didn't work well when the card images were mixed with other shapes such
as the card markers. What I have done is replaced the QCard32.dll card
images with card images I have made myself, and this has cured a great
many of the problems that have plagued me from day one in this program.)
Minor tweak to new player name process. It used to be that the new
player's name was set at Default# and then the player had to manually change
the name after that. Now the change name dialog box comes up automatically
when a new player is created, with Default# automatically filled in, and
the user able to change the name right there or leave it as is. Also, if
the name is left at Default and only one player is defined, the change
name dialog box will come up each time the statistics window is opened
from the main window's menu.
New in version 2.1
Auto-play
Let the program automatically finish the game once you have only one pile
with cards left.
Card pile counters
Gives you actual card counts in each pile of cards. A free registration
went to Lenny S. from Ithaca, NY for this suggestion and for a change
to the register reminder form.
Games won
Added display in stats form of how many games you have won in a row.
Added the ability for the program to remember when you shut the program
down after just winning a game.
Register Reminder and Enter Serial Number forms
Integrated both forms into the main exe file. This makes it easier to enter
your serial number after registering, as it takes effect immediately -
no need to restart the game.
Added online registration links to the Register Reminder form. A free registration
went to Tony C. from Spokane, Washington for this suggestion.
Register Reminder form no longer displays when program is minimized, only
when it's shut down. (No longer displays at all after registering, as before.)
A free registration went to Lenny S. from Ithaca, NY for this suggestion
and for card counters.
Fixed bugs
Corrected wording of statistic for number of piles not emptied on lost
games from old wording of piles emptied.
Fixed problems with refreshing cards after the game was minimized or after
another window was in front of a game in progress.
Undo Deal wasn't working past a pile of less than 3 cards.
The statistics window wasn't staying closed if the form was closed with
the Windows environment button (the 'X' in the upper right corner) instead
of the menu choice of File, Close.
New in version 2.01
Fixed install bug present in version 2.0.
New in version 2.0
Statistics
Handles multiple users.
Keep the statistics window open and watch your statistics increment as
you play. (Statistics will increment if you close the window too.) New
records for your play are highlighted.
Copy your statistics to the clipboard, then email them to friends to compare.
Added ability to shut off warning sounds while leaving other sounds enabled.
Fixed bugs
Card markers smaller than the cards with 640 X 480 resolution.
After changing card backs during a game the cards wouldn't refresh.
Clicking on the second or third card from the bottom in longer piles wasn't
working properly.
New in version 1.1
Back-up from previous move. Many times as I have played the game
myself on the computer I have seen a set of three cards I could remove
- an instant after clicking on the deck to move to the next pile. I've
now added the ability to back up from a deal.
Modified the low-deck warning sound effects. The sounds are now
triggered on a sliding scale of how many cards are left in the deck, with
the sounds coming more frequently toward the end of the cards in the deck.
Now it takes 5 cards dealt with no cards picked up instead of 3. The selection
of which sound played has changed as well. The sound used to be fixed according
to how many cards were left in the deck, so frequently when cards were
picked up and dealt back out a particular sound would keep repeating. Now
the sounds cycle through all warning sounds in a random order; the random
order also being set differently each new game. There are more sounds now,
too: an increase from 5 to 21 sounds.
Bug List.
File *.ocx or *.dll failed to self-register during install. This
is sometimes the result of newer versions of other related support files
already being installed on the computer. This software is tested on a computer
with a fresh install of Windows 95/98 to eliminate preventable problems
in this regard. First try manually registering the file after install by
typing regsvr32 [path\filename] at the Run command. If this succeeds you
will get a message pop up telling you so. If that doesn't work please
let me know which file it is and if it affects the operation of the
game and I will investigate further.
Marie Anne from Petawawa, Ontario
suggested the ability to play more piles than just four. Initially
I thought that this would be not very popular, since I already have had
comments about the win ratio in this game being lower than in other solitaire
games. Now I decided that playing eight piles with two decks would give
the same probability of winning, but still add some variety to the game.
In addition, starting with eight piles with one deck gives those who like
more challenge what they want. Marie Anne has been awarded a free registration.
Card movement animation when dealing or removing cards back to the
deck.
One person asked for the ability to save a game and then restart
from where they saved. This is complicated by the saving of statistics,
since it could be possible to save a winning game and then skew the stats
by retreiving the winning game over and over.
One person suggested picking a random color for the background on
the register-reminder window each time it runs.
Due to comments from one person I'm considering modifying the register-reminder
window to no longer stay on top, possibly to only stay on top if
the program is still unregistered after 30 days use.
Do you have suggestions for me on improvements to
any of my programs?
You may qualify for a free registered copy of
the program. Read my suggestion policy.
Send
me your suggestions.
If you find any problems with this website, or suggestions on improvements,
please
let me know.