
	Patience - a solitaire game for those with plenty of it
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What is so special about this game of Patience?
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- There are five different sets of rules according to which the
  cards can be laid.
- It is possible to `undo' an unlimited number of moves (in the
  extreme case, all moves back to the beginning of the game).
- The current state of the game can be stored and loaded again at
  a later point - perhaps the came will come out better than.
- Suggestions for possible moves can be made if requested.
- You can play against the computer in a kind of battle solitaire.
- If it is already clear that the game will come out, there is
  no need for tedious marathon clicking; the program will
  independently distribute all the cards to the piles.
- Those who really want to can cheat.
- A demonstration (for each set of rules), which gives a rough
  idea of how the game could be solved, is available.
- The cards - a French deck - are displayed on a playing
  surface of size 640*400 screen pixels, but there are also a few other
  card fonts available.
- The whole thing is programmed in Tcl/Tk, so it can be installed
  on any computer with tcl7.0 and tk3.6 (or newer) in about 10 seconds.
  The installation is described in the Installation Guide (INSTALL-english)
  and in the manual (manual/pat-english.ps), section 5.
- There is a rule editor with which new sets of rules can be
  compiled (and stored); these new games can then be played in
  addition to the five games provided.
- The program is localized; dependent on a resource there is a
  german or english user interface.


And what innovations are to be expected in the coming versions?
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- an enhanced help system
- better and more tactics for the calculation of the hints, since
  there are still not considered combination of rules.
- Battle solitaire against another player (maybe on another computer).

Installation for the impatients
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- unpack the tar file in e.g. /usr/lib/X11
- cd patience-1.7
- edit the Makefile and check lines 15, 16 and 24
- edit app-default, uncomment line 14
- make install
+ Complete installation guide in INSTALL-english

Have fun, Krischan

krischan@cs.tu-berlin.de

Christian Krone
Varziner Str. 12
D-12161 Berlin

