Backgammon for the Psion Series 3a ---------------------------------- To contact the author: email ----- 100021.3354@compuserve.com (Internet) millar@cix.compulink.co.uk (Internet) 100021,3354 (Compuserve) Postal Mail ----------- Mr M. Millar 18 Sutherland Ave Roundhay Leeds LS8 1BZ UNITED KINGDOM Backgammon for the Psion S3a ---------------------------- Backgamm is a backgammon game for the Psion S3a, it allows you to . Play against the computer . Play against another person There are currently 4 different styles of play, ADAM, BOB, CHRIS and DIANA. CHRIS and DIANA use the double cube more aggressively than ADAM or BOB, while BOB and DIANA take more risks than ADAM and CHRIS. I leave ranking the quality of the play of these 4 to you! HOW TO REGISTER --------------- To register, use CompuServe's SWREG service (GO SWREG), ID# 6553 (this costs $25) or take advantage of this special offer, and send a cheque or cash to the value of (USD) $20 to: Matt Millar 18 Sutherland Avenue Roundhay Leeds LS8 1BZ United Kingdom If you have any enquiries, either address them as above, or email millar@cix.compulink.co.uk or on CompuServe 100021,3354 Disclaimer ---------- Matt Millar can accept no responsibility for any loss or damage to data resulting from the use of this program or any files connected to it. How to play Backgammon ---------------------- Backgammon is played between 2 players, the object of the game is to remove all your pieces (or stones) from the board. The board is divided into 4 quarters each containing 6 of the characteristic triangular markers, known as points. Pieces can land on any of the points no matter what the colour. When the game is started "BACKGAMM" automatically sets the board up with Black playing anticlockwise, and White playing clockwise. For the purpose of this brief introduction I will assume that Player is playing Black, the Computer playing White and American rules. (the defaults) There are 2 other notable areas on the board, other than the points, these are the home area, to the right of the board between the points and the dice, and the bar, this is the area that divides the board in half. White's home area is the top right of the board, Black's is the bottom right. To start, both players roll one of the dice each, until the dice rolls are different, the player with the highest roll now starts with the showing dice as their first move. The pieces are moved the value on the dice in turn, this means that if a player rolls a 3 and a 2 then he must make a move of 3 and a move of 2 not a single move of 5. Pieces may land on any point that is not occupied by 2 or more of their opponent's pieces. If there is a single piece of their opponent's pieces on the point then this piece will be "knocked onto the bar". If a piece is knocked onto the bar, then it is moved to the centre portion of the board, away from any point. On the next move that player must move the piece off the bar before any other moves are made. The piece re-enters play in the opponent's home area, starting from the right hand side of the board (i.e. a 1 will enter play on the point to the far top right of the board for Black) If a double is thrown then 4 moves of the value shown on the dice can be made. The number of available moves is indicated between the dice on the right hand side of the screen. When a player has all his pieces within his home area (bottom right quarter for Black) he may begin to bear off. This is the same as normal play except pieces are removed from the board onto the space on the right of the board, before the dice. The first player to remove all their pieces from the board wins. Controls -------- Basic gameplay controls: Absolute movement: Left, right, up and down move in the relevant directions. Relative movement: Right always moves toward your home, left always moves away from your home, up and down move as for absolute movement. Enter, Tab, Space pick up and set down a piece, only legal moves are allowed. You must also make as many moves as are possible, no matter how bad the position this leaves you in! The number of legal moves available is indicated by the number inbetween the dice. Normally this will be 2, however there is a special case, if a double is thrown the number of moves is doubled, i.e. if a double 3 is thrown, 4 moves are available. In the endgame, "B" will pick up a piece and bear it off in a single keypress. New Game Starting a new game will resign your current game. Options available upon starting games are: Rule variant: (Default American) This choses between American or British style play, in British style play a maximum of 5 pieces are allowed on a point. American places no limit on the number of pieces on a point. Computer Plays: White - computer plays white, you play black Black - computer plays black, you play white Both - computer plays black and white, pressing Esc will offer a dialog to quit the current game, relative statistics are displayed at the end of each game, play will continue until you quit the game. Neither - this allows play between 2 human players Player This allows you change the name of the current player, statistics are stored separately for each player. Statistics This displays the current statistics for the current player. Sound Switches sound on and off Set preferences Animation - switches on/off computer move animation. Movement - switches between absolute and relative movement Double Cube - switches double cube "money play" on and off Frequently Asked Questions -------------------------- Q: Why does the computer think before my move? A: The computer checks how many moves are available for you to make, this is shown between the dice. Q: Why do doubles take so long? A: As doubles have 4 moves to generate, the number of possible moves that can be made is the number that are typically made with different dice, squared. Unfortunately as there are typically about 100 different possible moves this means there can be of the order of 10,000 moves for doubles, careful pruning of moves allows this to be reduced to about 1000 moves, but it is still about 10 times the length of a normal move. HISTORY ------- v1.80 Added DIANA Reworked the internal memory handling to avoid the problem with the occasional out of memory errors. A couple of bugs quashed, including some non win recognitions. v1.70 Added BOB and CHRIS to the standard distribution. v1.60 Tuned Core play loop more finely (fractional savings in play time - noticable on Double ones) v1.50 Added solid white pieces. v1.49 Fixed the "false" backgammon if you resign bug v1.48 Fixed the problems with moving files between drives. v1.47 Fixed problem with impossible move detection added for v1.02 (!) v1.46 Added quick bear off key. v1.36 Fixed display of double cube on saved game, added stats scoring to double games v1.35 Fixed bug in loading saved values. Rewrote "Computer Player" section. v1.34 Added doubling cube, player hints and show last move, tweaked opening screen. v1.23 Fixed problem with less than 2 SSD's for loading modules, fixed "Black" when white can't move (95/8/13) v1.22 Added loadable player modules (ADAM.PLR) and speeded up double play by computer fixed lack of end game with computer v computer play. (95/8/12) v1.02 Added catch to detect impossible moves, when exiting from bar. (95/8/3) v1.01 Added delay in animation to prevent overlap of piece and dice sounds. Added catch to allow playtesting of 2 computer player. Fixed bug with player swapping giving spurious played games values. (95/7/25) v1.00 Candidate release (95/7/22)