koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm) (11/16/89)
Submitted-by: linus.mitre.org!nixbur!mboening.pad (Martin Boening)
Posting-number: Volume 8, Issue 63
Archive-name: drachen.eng
[Aha! Sun "Mahjongg," or ST "Shanghai." -sg]
Recently I sent 'Drachen' to Steven and he was kind enough to post it
very promptly. He did put in a remark however, that he didn't know what
it was all about and that the texts were in German. He is perfectly
correct, and therefore here is a translation of that first text screen
you see when you start the program. As an aside: 'Drachen' means dragon
and I'll just use that as from now on. Nearly everything is a direct
translation. For the explanation of the dropdown menus I used the string
as it appears and appended the translation directly below it in
parentheses. The stuff in square brackets are remark by me to clear up
what I thought it might lead to misunderstandings. These remarks are
concluded by my initials.
---- start quote: note that I didn't write this, just translated it -----
Dragon is a game from China, over 2500 years old. 144 pieces are set up
on a board in 5 levels to form a Chinese dragon. The purpose of the game
is to remove all pieces from the board. To achieve this at any time two
identical pieces may be removed, iff there is no other piece on the
lefthand side or the righthand side of either piece on the same level. Easy,
isn't it.
Some further remarks about the pieces themselves. There are 34 types of
pieces and of each type there are 4 pieces. The only exceptions are the
sets of pieces labelled BAM, MUM, ORC and PLUM and SPR, SUM, AUT and WIN.
The pieces from either set are regarded as identical to any other from
that set when removed.
To make the whole thing more interesting, you play against the clock. The
10 best players are recorded in a high score.
And now, some remarks about the Drop-down menus:
'Spielwiederholung' a new time record cannot be set!
(repeat last game)
'zeige Zug' all moves possible at this stage are shown one at
(show next move) a time in random order (this is the only help
allowed).
'Zug zuruecknehmen' this is cheating, so timing is stopped.
(cancel last move)
'Stein wegnehmen' take away any one piece - of course, this is cheating
(remove a piece) too, so timing stops.
'Demo' iff all 144 pieces are still in place the demo
(schnell == fast, langsam == slow) will show the
best way to remove them all.
[The remarks in tiny print: (M.B.)]
This game is public domain and to be copied as often as possible! If you
like this game, you can of course show your appreciation by sending in a
10 D-Mark bill [to the address given below. This is about 5 $ (M.B.)] For
20 Marks [10 $ (M.B.)] you can get the source code written in GFA basic
[probably with German remarks. BTW, GFA basic is one of the fastest Basics
around for the ST. There is now Version 3.0 available with compiler (M.B.)]
[and then there was the address of the author, bordered by side- and front
view of the game setup (M.B.)]
Dirk Woitha
Hebbelstr. 11
5630 Remscheid 11
[ West Germany, of course (M.B.)]
---- end quote -----------------------------------------------------------
So, if you want to send in 10 Marks, do so to the address in the quote
(since I DIDN'T write the stuff).
The description of the dropdown menu pertains to the rightmost menu entry
only, as far as I can see. BTW, 'Datei' is 'File' and 'Ende' is 'Quit',
if you didn't find that out by trial and error already.
To select a piece just move the mouse pointer to int and click the left
button once. The piece is inverted upon that and you can go to the
corresponding piece with the pointer and click that too. If the pieces
match, they disappear. If they don't match, the piece selected first
is freed and the piece you clicked last is inverted.
But what am I telling you. Simply play around a bit, look at one or two
demos and you'll get the gist of the game fast enough.
So have fun playing.
Martin
--
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