Yahtzee Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, --------- September 2007. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * Why I wrote this program ? | * Installing and Using this Program | * Uninstalling this Program | * Yahtzee Rules | * The Future | * Special Thanks | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Yahtzee is for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, etc. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. This is my special version of the fun and highly addictive dice game, called Yahtzee. A wealth of information is provided below to help you play Yahtzee and use this program. Developed using 32-bit Delphi. This program will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x (even with Win32 installed). Why I wrote this program ? -------------------------------------------- I wrote this program because I thoroughly enjoy playing the game Yahtzee, and I was pretty sure that my mother would also like playing this game. The problem was that I couldn't find any really good versions of the game as shareware or freeware on the internet. And, because I had written other computer based versions of Yahtzee before (in command line, character based C++), it was the right time for me to do a nice, polished Windows version of the game. My version of Yahtzee is a program I have wanted to have for ages. It has many advanced features - such as High Score Table merging, etc - that are NOT found in any other computer version of Yahtzee that I can find. Installing and Using this Program : ----------------------------------- The steps for using the program are : - Step 1 : Install the program. Unzip the program to a directory on your PC. Such as: C:\Program Files\Yahtzee\ Using Windows Explorer, open the directory where you extracted the contents of the ZIP file (above), and copy the dice font file (Yahtzee_Font_TRPGDRG_.TTF) to the Windows Fonts directory, which is usually: C:\WINDOWS\FONTS\ - Step 2 : Run the Program : Using Windows Explorer, open the directory where you extracted the contents of the ZIP file (in 1. above), and double click on the YAHTZEE.EXE file torun the program. Now, you are ready to play Yahtzee. See "Yahtzee Rules" below for details of how play Yahtzee in general. To start a new game of Yahtzee, click the "Start Game" button, and the dice will automatically be rolled. You can discard any unwanted dice (by clicking on them) and re-roll the dice (by clicking the "Roll Dice" button) up to 2 times, select a scoring category by clicking a button (such as "Ones", "Twos", .... "3 of a Kind", etc), and then click the "Roll Dice" button to start your next turn. N.B. You can also press the "R" key to re-roll the dice. To see what the current roll of the dice would score in each available category, simply look at the numbers next to each score box. (Provided you have "Show Potential Scores in each category" turned on / checked - see below). When all scoring categories are filled, the game is over. Click the "Start Game" button to start a new game. To help you work with dice, various little buttons are provided near the dice (provided you have "Show Dice Invert, Off, On buttons" turned on / checked - see below). These buttons are as follows : - Invert button turns reverses the selection of the dice. i.e. all dice selected for re-roll and now kept, and all dice that were kept are marked for re-roll. - Off button - turns all dice off. i.e. it selects them all for re-roll. - On button - turns all dice on. i.e. it keeps all dice - none are selected for re-roll. - Show previous dice - for this current roll. Which lets you see what dice you had before the current re-roll and which dice you selected to re-roll. I used this button a lot during testing / development, but it was so useful that I decided to leave it "in". Under the "Edit" menu, you can : - Change / View Program Settings * Sort Dice into Ascending Order ? I much prefer the dice to be sorted, but some people may prefer otherwise. This provides various dice sorting options. * Show Dice Values or Faces Whether the values of each dice are shown or whether the face of each dice is shown. * Show Max Scores for each Total Type If this option is "checked" (i.e. turned on) then the maximum Upper, Lower, and Grand Total scores will be displayed in the headings. e.g. If checked, then you will "Upper Total (Max=140)", but if this option isn't checked, then you will see "Upper Total". * Show Potential Scores in each category If this option is "checked" (i.e. turned on) then the score for each available scoring category will be shown next to each scoring box. * Show Dice Invert, Off, On buttons This shows / hides little buttons next to the dice that allow you to work with the dice in more advanced ways. If you don't use these features, then you may like to turn them off and reduce some clutter. * Enable Game Sounds Self explanatory - turns game sounds on or off. The sounds consist of various sounds, some are recordings of my voice, and others are electronic or bird sounds. - View High Scores Self explanatory. - Merge in another High Score's File (** Registered Users Only **) This option allows Registered users to merge in other high score tables. This is very useful if you are playing Yahtzee on multiple computers and you want to merge all of these high scores into a single high score table. - Erase All High Scores (** Registered Users Only **) This option allows Registered users to erase all high scores. If you want the program to run automatically when Windows starts up, then select this option under the "File" menu in the program. If you would like to be able to run this program by clicking on an icon in the Windows Start Menu, or on the Desktop, etc then you can use the "Create Shortcut ..." options under the program's File menu. If you want this program to be "Always On Top" of other Windows, then select the "Always On Top" menu option under the "File" menu. I hope you find the program easy to use and useful. Uninstalling this Program : --------------------------- Before deleting the program, you should turn off the auto-running of this program under Windows - if you have previously enabled it. Simply, run the program and re-select the option under the File menu to achieve this. Exit the program - so it is no longer running. Using Windows Exmplorer, open the directory where you extracted the contents of the ZIP file (in 1. above), and then, simply delete the directory to where you extracted the ZIP file. e.g. C:\Program Files\Yahtzee\ Simple as that ! Yahtzee Rules : --------------- Each game of Yahtzee consists of 13 rounds. In each round, you roll the five dice (and you can also re-roll any or all of the dice up to twice more) and then you score the dice in one of the 13 scoring categories. For each game, you must score once and only once in each scoring category. This means that towards the end of the game you may have to settle for scoring zero or a low score in some scoring categories. The score is determined by the dice that you have rolled and by the category that you have scored it in : - Ones : the sum of all dice with a face value of 1 e.g. 1,1,2,4,6 would score 2 points if scored in the "Ones" category. - Twos : the sum of all dice with a face value of 2 e.g. 2,2,2,4,6 would score 6 points if scored in the "Twos" category. - Threes : the sum of all dice with a face value of 3 - Fours : the sum of all dice with a face value of 4 - Fives : the sum of all dice with a face value of 5 - Sixes : the sum of all dice with a face value of 6 - 3 of a Kind : The sum of all dice, provided you have 3 or more of one of the dice. e.g. 1,4,5,5,5 would score 20 points. - 4 of a Kind : The sum of all dice, provided you have 4 or more of one of the dice. e.g. 1,1,1,1,5 would score 9 points, and 1,5,5,5,5 would score 21 points. - Small Straight : 30 points (4 consecutive numbers). e.g. 1,2,3,4,6 or 1,2,2,3,4. - Large Straight : 40 points (5 consecutive numbers). e.g. 1,2,3,4,5 or 2,3,4,5,6. - Full House : 25 points. A Full House is 3 of a Kind AND a Pair. e.g. 3,3,3,5,5. - Chance : The sum of all dice. e.g. 1,3,3,5,6 would score 18 points. - Yahtzee (5 of a Kind) : 50 points You also get a bonus of 35 points, if the total of all the dice in the Ones to Sixes scoring categories is greater than or equal to 63 points. Prior to computer versions of Yahtzee, physical dice were rolled, people added up the dice in their head, and scoring was done on paper. Computer versions of Yahtzee, such as my program, mean that you can enjoy Yahtzee without having all of this hassle. In addition, my program enforces the Yahtzee rules, sorts the dice, maintains high scores, and provides many other features and options to improve the game-play experience. The Future : ------------ In the future, many improvements could be made to this program, such as : - Support for various versions of Yahtzee - such as "Multi-Yahtzee". e.g. 50 for the first Yahtzee, and 100 points for each subsequent one. - Support for multiple human players in a single game. - Support for human Vs computer play. - More / better sound effects. - Anything else ? If you would like any of these improvements, or would like to suggest more, please email me and let me know. How much more work I do on this program depends entirely on what support I get, how many people use the program, how many people have registered, etc. Special Thanks : ---------------- - My mother for the encouragement and helpful suggestions during development. - This WEB site for the great Dice Font : http://www.trpg.net/user/Hg/font.html Unfortunately, this web page is in a language that I don't understand, so I cannot see who developed this font. In addition, there are no contact or email addresses that I could find anywhere on http://www.trpg.net/user/Hg/ web pages, such I could not ask for permission to use this font. As far as I can tell, the font is FREEWARE - there are no copyright notices. Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : ------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0 23-Jan-2004 First Public Release. (65,016 lines of code / comments.) 1.1 3-Feb-2004 Temporarily disable the "Roll Dice" button after each roll so that the user cannot accidentally twitch and press it twice. If the user has pressed "R" (to Roll the Dice), but no game is in progress, then let's start a new game. (65,050 lines of code / comments.) 1.2 23-Apr-2004 Make the "Lower Total" edit-boxes read-only. Add more detail into the "Show previous dice - for this current roll" button's report. Make the "Roll Dice" button selected after each roll - so that the cursor isn't sitting in a score box and blinking. Show your score's ranking when you return to the main screen. e.g. Game Over - your score was 33 out of 100. Stop the ability to select dice for rolling after you have chosen a scoring category. i.e. between choosing the scoring category and proceeding with your next roll. (65,144 lines of code / comments.) 1.3 29-Apr-2004 If you get a high score, then make the appropriate row of the high score table visible. i.e. scroll the display down / up to reveal the row of the high score table where you just entered your score. (65,621 lines of code / comments.) 1.3f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is possibly an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my WEB page - see below. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose ____________________________________________________