Christian Jung

Software Development & Sales

Fax: 0049-6894870948

E-Mail: 100414.673@compuserve.com

HomePage: http://members.aol.com/ChJung/enghome.htm

_______________________________________________________

presents:

Mau Mau

for Windows95

Cordially welcome to Mau Mau, the famous German card game. We’ll give you all necessary tips and hints to get along with this game.

- The basic rules of Mau Mau

- Laying down and drawing of cards

- Adjustable rules of the game

- Program settings

- Sound settings

- The calculation of the points for the high score

- The size of the cards

- Mau Mau and the ASP

Important: Mau Mau is a genuine 32bit program, this means, it will work only with Windows 95 and Windows NT. It is not executable under Windows 3.1.

Last but not least I would like to thank Wilfried Lottermoser, Ellsworth Hall, Josef Nell and all others who have been of great help.

Christian Jung


ASP
 Mau Mau and the ASP

This program is produced by a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP). ASP wants to make sure that the shareware principle works for you. If you are unable to resolve a shareware-related problem with an ASP member by contacting the member directly, ASP may be able to help.

The ASP Ombudsman can help you resolve a dispute or problem with an ASP member, but does not provide technical support for members’ products.

Please write to the ASP Ombudsman at 545 Grover Road, Muskegon, MT 49442-9427 USA, Fax 616-788-2765 or send a CompuServe message via CompuServe Mail to ASP Ombudsman 70007,3536.


The size of the cards

If you use a resolution of 640x480, the cards in the lower row can not be seen in full. You can solve this problem as follows:

Draw the button-bar that you find under the menu to an other place of your choice. Click the edge of the bar with the mouse and draw it e.g. to the right side of the screen.

Therefore all cards move to the top and all can be seen.


Operation of the program
Laying down and drawing of cards

There are two possibilities to lay down a card:

- Click it with the left mouse button and draw across the deck

- Click it with the right mouse button

To draw a card of the deck just click on the deck.

It sometimes happens that a player has to pause. To do this just click the symbol with the Eight on the toolbar or check the function „Next Player“ in the „Game“ menu.


Rules
The rules of Mau Mau

Maybe you know already the rules of Mau Mau, but as there are a lot of variations, let me briefly explain mine.

You are playing against three other partners who are under the control of the computer. You have to try to be the first who has put down all cards. Whoever puts down all cards first is MAU and has won the round.

Each player who is Mau receives a certain amount of points which are established by the points held in hand of the remaining players.

The one who reaches the allotted amount of points first is the winner.

By the laying down of cards you have to stick to the following rules:

The card to be put down has to match in color (Clubs, Spades, Diamonds, Hearts) or type (Ace, King, Queen, Jack ....) the card on top of the deck.

If a Seven lies on the deck you have two options: Either you draw two cards and it’s the next ones turn or you also put down a Seven, which means your successor has the choice of drawing four cards or putting down a Seven. The number of cards to be drawn is determined by the number of Sevens who have been put down (two cards for each laid down Seven).

If an Eight is on top of the deck, you either have to pause one round or put down an Eight (this depends on the preset rule).

The player who puts down a Jack is allowed to select which color card the following player has to lay.

Roughly this is all you need to know.

In the fullversion of Mau Mau you have the additional possibility to change the rules of the game.


Calculating points
The calculation of the points

The scores of the cards

The player who has put down his cards first gets all the points from the cards left in hand of the remaining players. Therefore the following point effectively counts:

Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten: 0 points

Jack: 20 points

Queen: 3 points

King: 4 points

Ace: 11 points

Additionally you get:

50 Points, if you finish first.

20 Points, if you finish second.

10 Points, if one was not exactly the last one.

You therefore should try to get rid of the highscoring cards as quickly as possible as otherwise the others may get too many points if they finish first. On the other hand it naturally is not too bad an idea to keep a Jack tucked away (as his value is 20 points). Here only a shrewd tactic works.

The high score

The winner is the one who reaches the allotted amount of points first. Then you can determine if the result should be registered in the scoring list. The high score stores the points reached from all four players. Rank 1 always holds the player which reached the highest score of all games played.

You can reset the high score anytime by calling the same name function in the menu „High Score“


Select Players

Mau Mau can be played with up to four players. It is not to wise to play with four people since one can see the cards of each of them. But it works...

Besides for the name of each player, you can also determine if there should be 2 or 4 players (tick „Playing“) and if they should be handled by the computer (tick „Handled by computer“).


Set rules
Change the rules of the game

To adjust the rules you can use the following window. Click the separate elements in order to obtain the meaning of them.


Change settings

To change the settings of the program you can use the following window. Click the separate elements in order to obtain the meaning of them.


Here you can preset the amount of points the game may reach. The first one who reaches or passes this goal is the winner.


If you have a fast computer, you may diminish the speed of the cards. Therefore select one of the three speeding levels. This function only has an effect if the movement of the cards is switched on.


Here you preset how many cards each player gets delt at the beginning of the round. Valid values are 3-6.


This value defines how much time each computer driven player gets for a draw. This indeed has no influence on the quality of his decision, but merely serves the purpose for you to see which card has been put down.


Mark this box in order to switch on the movements of the cards. Therefore the cards move slowly across the screen, which looks much better. If you have a slow working computer this function may be turned off. The cards jump then immediately from the starting point to the end point.


If this box is marked, a player may lay down another card after he had drawn one.

If it is not marked, after drawing a card it’s the next player’s turn.


Mark this box if you intend to put down an Eight on a laid down Eight. If it’s unmarked, you have to pause by a laid down Eight even if you hold an Eight in hand.


If this box is marked, you practically always may put down a Jack (except of course someone puts down a Seven or an Eight in front of you). If it’s not activated, a Jack must match the color on the deck.


With this box you determine what happens if the first card on the deck is a Jack.

Mark this box to establish, that any card may be laid on a Jack. If it’s not marked, the card to be put down has to match in color or type to the Jack.


If this box is activated, the round ends as soon as one player has laid down all cards.

If it’s not activated, the game carries on until there is only one player left.


Sound settings

To change the sound settings you can use the following window. Click the separate elements in order to obtain the meaning of them.


If this box is ticked, the sound and a little bit of voice output will be switched on during the game.


Tick this box in order to switch on the background music. Therefore you need your sound card correctly installed under Windows. By the way, the sound file will be played once only in the shareware version. In the registered version you can hear your sound files constantly.


You may select which music file will be played, by entering the name of any MIDI file in this field. Should this not be filed in the folder of Mau, you have to state the complete path. Should the file name be unknown to you just click the button „Browse“ and select one file of your choice.


Press this button, in order to select a background music. Therefore a window will be opened which indicates all existing MIDI files. Simply select a file from there.