David Skelly
All rights reserved.
©2000
5/20/2000
General:
This is the classic card game Hearts that I decided
to program for the Macintosh. This version of Hearts
is freeware, however I would like some feedback. Any
comments, questions or bug reports should be e-mailed
to dskelly@kagi.com with "Hearts" as the
subject line. My homepage is http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hub/2137/.
Hearts has been deliberately kept small for the moment
to use little memory and disk space while still delivering
quality output. It also helps those with 14.4 modems
:)
Hearts Rules:
Hearts is a card game for 4 players. The object of
the game is have the lowest score when one person gets
more than 100 points. The game starts by dealing 13
cards to each player. Players then choose 3 cards from
this hand to pass to the person on their left. The
person with the 2 of clubs leads on the first trick.
Play is standard trick-taking* without trumps until
the hand is gone. Players may not lead hearts until
they have been "broken" (already played on
a previous trick), unless hearts are the only suit
left in the player's hand. Playing the queen of spades
also breaks hearts.
Scores are calculated at the end of each hand. Every
heart taken is worth 1 point. The queen of spades is
worth 13 points and the jack of diamonds -10. If a
player manages to take all 13 hearts and the queen
of spades (called "shooting the moon") then
instead of adding 26 points to their score, they subtract
26. Or they may choose to take 0 points and give each
of their opponents 26 points.
The game ends when one person gets more than 100 points.
The winner is the player with the lowest score. If,
however, at the end of the hand a player has exactly
100 points, they are declared the winner.
*Standard trick-taking is described as follows: Players
must follow the suit of the card lead. The player who
plays the highest card (aces high) of the suit lead
takes the trick. If a player does not have a card of
the suit lead, they are free to play whatever card
they want. The player who takes the trick then leads
the next trick.
Manual:
Hearts can run using very little memory. If virtual
memory is turned on, this requirement is even less.
Hearts requires System7, color quickdraw, and at least
200k of memory to run. Hearts will still run on a monochrome
monitor as long as color quickdraw is available.
The menus in Hearts should be pretty self-explanatory.
Before exiting the program, users are asked if they
want to save their player. A player's game statistics
and options are stored in this file. Players that have
a file are automatically saved thereafter before quitting.
The Player Left, Player Right, and Player Across menus
only change the name of the players being played against.
Hearts games can be customized using the options dialog.
NOTE: Some options do not become active until the game
a new game is started. For instance, setting the Jack
is 0 Points option will only affect games that are
started after it is checked/unchecked.
---- game customizations ----
Disable Sound- this turns off the sounds in the game
Keep Background - the black background window will
not disappear if you switch to another
application
Clear Trick W/Mouse - at the end of each trick, the
cards stay on the table until the mouse is
clicked (useful if you need more time to examine
the cards played)
Disable Checkering- the game attempts to keep your
cards arranged by suits
black/red/black/red, and if this option is checked
then cards are arranged
spades/hearts/clubs/diamonds
Auto Rearrange Hand - this centers the hand after each
card is played (may go slow on older
machines)
Hilight- Striped/Inverted/Outline - the hilighting
style of a playing card that is clicked on
---- rule customizations ----
Rotate Lead - the lead rotates between the players
instead going to the 2 of clubs
Jack is 0 Points - the jack of diamonds counts as 0
points, not -10
Don't Pass 3 - at the beginning of a hand, no cards
are passed
Taking 0 Tricks is -5 - if you haven't taken any tricks
at the end of a hand, you get -5 points
Queen Doesn't Break Hearts - playing the queen of spades
does not break hearts
Allow Bleeding on the First Trick - players can play
hearts or the black lady on the first
trick
Game To - sets the score that ends the game
CPU Pause Time - the delay in ticks (1/60 of a second)
between the computer players' moves
Messages - the delay in seconds before the message
on the screen disappears
Clicking the default button will set the dialog to the
'standard' rules.
Choosing Finish Hand from the game menu will play out
the rest of the hand as a computer player would. This
can be canceled by choosing Finish Hand from the game
menu again. Control-clicking a card will also play
out the rest of the hand.
The statistics window shows the stats for the current
player. QJ Same Trick/Hand is the queen of spades and
jack of diamonds taken on the same trick/hand. Sortof
an interesting statistic. Cover/Didn't Cover is used
with the jack of diamonds. If you are 3rd to play in
a trick and you play a diamond higher than the jack
and the player to your left has the jack in his hand,
you 'covered'. If you are 3rd to play in a trick and
you have a diamond higher than the jack in your hand
but you don't play it and the player to your left plays
the jack, you 'didn't cover'. Clicking on the 'Average'
button calculates each stat divided by number of games
played.
Shooting the Moon- When you shoot the moon, you will
be given the choice between subtracting 26 points from
your score, or adding 26 points to everybody elses
score. The computer will usually choose to subtract
26 points from its score.
System Requirements:
Hearts requires a 68k or PPC Macintosh running System7,
color quickdraw, and at least 200k of memory. Hearts
will still run on a monochrome monitor as long as color
quickdraw is available. Hearts may/should work on System6
as well, however, it has not been tested on this system.
In fact, I have not been able to test Hearts on that
many older systems at all. If you find any problems,
please give me an e-mail and I will try to fix it.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to my (semi) beta tester JP for testing this
thing out. Thanks to Troy Gaul for his floating windows
Windoids. Thanks to Macintosh C: A Hobbyist's Guide
to Programming the Mac OS in C for helping me get Troy's
windoids to actually float. This program was written
in C with Codewarrior.
Legal:
This program is distributed as is. I, the author,
am not responsible for any direct or indirect damage
this program might do to your computer. This program
may be distributed (on CD's or other media as well)
as long as this notice and any other files accompanying
the program original are included. All rights reserved.
©2000 David Skelly
Extra:
By using ResEdit or any other resource editing program,
you can change the player names in the menus to ones
you like. Also, you can add your own card designs by
pasting in pictures. Change the ID of the picture so
that it is greater than 200, but there are no gaps
between ID's greater than 200 and your ID. (e.g. if
there are pictures with ID 200,201,202, make yours
203). Change the name of the 'PICT' resource to something
descriptive and then run the program. If you don't
name the picture, it will not be shown in the menu.
Your picture should now be available in the Card Design
menu. Always remember to work with a copy before editing
resources. If you do alter the program in any way,
do not distribute the altered copy.
David Skelly
HardScrabble Rd
Lyme, NH 03768
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