Subject: REVIEW: Klondike AGA, Version 1.1
From: [email-masked] (Bruce "Yoda" Baltzer)
Date: 19 May 1994 17:52:14 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Klondike AGA, Version 1.1

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	The Klondike solitaire card game we all know, with music and HAM-8
graphics.

	The game is available by anonymous ftp from any Aminet site, in the
directory /pub/aminet/game/think.  Currently, the filenames are
AGA-Klondike1-3.lha, AGA-Klondike2-3.lha, and AGA-Klondike3-3.lha.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:		REKO Productions
	Address:	Leerambachtstr. 10,
			3312 LJ Dordrecht,
			The Netherlands

LIST PRICE

	None.  The author asks that you make cards.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		An Amiga with the AGA graphics chip set.

		The documentation implies that the program runs on a
		stock Amiga 1200, so it will certainly run with 2 MB of
		Chip RAM.

		2 MB free hard disk space required.

	SOFTWARE

		Requires Workbench 3.x. (goes with the AGA at this time...)

COPY PROTECTION

	None.  Installs on a hard disk.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	Amiga 4000/030, 2 MB Chip RAM, 12 MB Fast RAM.
	External 880K floppy, 1.76MB internal floppy.
	Internal 130MB Seagate and 245MB Quantum IDE hard drives.
	1950 Monitor.
	Kickstart/Workbench 3.0.

INSTALLATION

	The program installs using the standard Commodore installer
program, and did so without errors.

REVIEW

	Klondike is the classic "Solitaire" game played with one person
(hence, "Solitaire") and a deck of cards.  The player deals out 7 piles
containing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 cards respectively, with the top card in
each pile face up.  The object of the game is to build "chains" of cards,
descending from King down to Ace with alternating red and black cards, and
then collect all cards into stacks by suit.  If you can do this, you win.
The complete rules for Klondike Solitaire can be found in just about any
book of card games.

	After doing the installation, I read the docs. :)  This is necessary
so you can understand how the preferences text file works.  Preferences
settings are stored in a text file in the same directory as the program, and
you edit it with any text editor.  I am quite familiar with this kind of
customizing myself, but there are other people who would prefer some sort of
GUI for this purpose.  The default settings work, but you might want to
choose another display mode since the default is "PAL interlaced."  Available
display modes are PAL LACE, DBLPAL, and Super72.  The docs clearly explain
how to change this, and the preference file also contains comments
explaining things quite clearly.

	My first attempt to run the program didn't work too well... actually,
not at all.  After tinkering with it off and on for a week, I found that the
medplayer.library in my LIBS directory was smaller than the one in the first
of the three archives.  After extracting the library and placing it into
LIBS, the program worked!  It seems that the Install script checked that I
had the right version, but didn't check file lengths.  (Understandable....)

	After 'ooh'ing and 'ahh'ing over the default deck of cards and
playing to try and see all the cards, I installed six other decks from the
Aminet ftp site and started up again.  All of them, beautiful!  Inspiring!
(I'm working on a deck now, myself. :))  The filenames on Aminet are
animeCards.lha, ArtCards.lha, Cindy-cards.lha, faces-cards.lha,
hajimecards.lha, and woman-cards.lha.

	Now, less about my own experiences and more comments on gameplay.
During the game, you can change card sets by pressing a number between 0 and
9, making ten card sets available at any time.  Card sets are assigned to
these keys in the preferences file, and how to do this is clearly explained.

	You can change screen modes with a keystroke and toggle the music on
and off with another.  It's nice music, but after an hour, ANY music wears
thin.  The same is done for restarting the game, and pressing escape
immediately exits the game.  This is good and fast, but you also have to
watch that nobody and nothing touches any part of your keyboard during a
game, as a single keypress can cause the game to exit, restart, or change
card sets (some sets you might not want some people to see... ;)).  While
playing, you can double-click cards to move them to the stacks at the bottom
of the screen (Ace, two, three, four, etc. of a suit).  You can also grab
multiple cards and move them from one column to another by clicking the
highest card in the column you want to move, then clicking on the
destination.  If you're a little shaky (caffeine, or the morning after a
night of drinking... :)) and click the wrong place, the game highlights a
box around the cards you are about to move so you can see exactly which
cards your operation will affect.  Cards may be drawn from the draw pile
singly or in threes, depending on the skill level you chose in the
preferences file.

DOCUMENTATION

	The game comes with a fairly good documentation file.  It isn't an
AmigaGuide document, but it conveys the basics in short order such that
AmigaGuide isn't really needed.  Taking into account that English is not the
writer's native language, the documentation is very good.  It gives
step-by-step instructions for installation, setting preferences, and
creating your own deck of cards.  Everything you need to know is conveyed
succinctly and clearly.  The only thing it does not describe is how much
hard drive space a full installation takes up.

	The documentation assumes little beyond being able to use a text
editor to edit the preferences file, which is a reasonable assumption, I
think.  The instructions for making a deck of cards assume quite a bit of
knowledge and uses acronyms for software that might not be clear to someone
unacquainted with the software mentioned.  However, I think that if you
can't understand the instructions, you probably won't have the know-how to
make a deck anyway.

LIKES

	The stunning graphics!  Now THIS is a product that shows off AGA!
The card sets I've downloaded from Aminet so far look GREAT (see review soon
to come of the card sets on Aminet to date) and sometimes are so visually
distracting that it affects my gameplay....  (It depends on the deck. ;))
The speed is great, the gameplay is great (follows my favourite variation of
Klondike by default), and it has the 'niceties' expected in a solitaire card
game for card stack manipulation.

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

	I didn't like the way that the Install script wasn't able to tell me
there was a problem with the library.  However, being a programmer, I can
understand how it would be hard (impossible?) to detect that your program
has suddenly leapt beyond the end of the library's code and started trying
to execute random memory contents.... :)

	I am particular about Install scripts that put files into my system
directories without asking me first.  Klondike's Install script put a file
called REKO into my C: directory without asking.  This program is needed to
generate a set of cards from pictures, and would have been fine in the game
directory as it would rarely be used by all but the most productive artist.

	The means of configuring the software works for me, but could be
improved.  Perhaps a configuration window that opens from within the program
via a menu would be nice.  I can't complain about support for other display
modes, which is something I think some people do by reflex. :)  If you have
an AGA machine, you can easily use one of the display modes available, and
using NTSC would only make the cards less detailed.

	I think it would also be a good idea to require the user to hold
down the Amiga (qualifier) key when typing commands at the keyboard.  It's
not any harder for a user, and it makes it easier to keep from changing
something accidentally during play.  The use of qualifier keys would also
allow for more decks of cards to be used in one configuration file (i.e.,
Amiga-<0-9>, shift-<0-9>, and control-<0-9> for up to thirty decks!).  A
move could also be made to menus, but I don't think that's necessary and
would be happy with the use of qualifying keys.  I'd just like some way of
having more than ten decks (hoping the number existing will soon surpass
that number... :)).

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	To date, I haven't used any other solitaire card programs on the
Amiga.

BUGS

	Just a couple, and both have to do with the sound.

	1) When you press 'm' to turn the music off, it completely disables
any and all sound output from your Amiga!  I wanted to use my mod player to
play some different music, but no go....

	2) The docs say that if you try to change screenmodes to one you
don't have installed, the program will exit.  This it does...  however, it
leaves the music playing.  Reloading the game didn't allow me turn the music
off, and I had to reboot to turn it off.

	I have not yet informed the authors of these bugs, as they only gave
a postal mail address in the documentation, and it's in the Netherlands.
Perhaps someone who lives there reads this review? :)

VENDOR SUPPORT

	Haven't attempted to get any.

WARRANTY

	None.  Doesn't need one... :)

CONCLUSIONS

	This card game is a must for any AGA Amiga-owner.  Even if you don't
like Klondike solitaire, you'll still enjoy the eye-candy aspect of it.

	I give the game **** (four stars out of five).  If the configuration
were a little friendlier, it had support for more decks in one config file,
it had an AREXX port (just kidding! :)), and those bugs were fixed, it would
easily earn the fifth star.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

	Copyright 1994 Bruce Baltzer.  All rights reserved.  Distribute this
in and and all forms you like; just leave my name on it....  :)

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