*** CORNY WARE ***

presents

" MahJongVDC "

FREEWARE

Irv Cobb

5107 N. 15th Street

Omaha, NE 68110

VDC upgrade by Jim Robbins

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Before we begin,

This version of Irv Cobb's "Mah Jong" runs under GEOS V2.0 for the 128 ONLY, in 80 column mode ONLY, and you MUST have 64K VDC RAM available for use in your 128 computer.

Have no fear, the program does a 64K RAM test, and a Kernal test. If your machine and version of GEOS is not compatable you will be retruned to your desktop application.

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Welcome to Mah Jong for Geos.

This program borrows a great deal from other peoples' work. In particular, I refer to a number of public domain software authors whose icon graphics I have used. I'm no artist, and this game would be a lot uglier if I had done the artwork. I trust that these individuals will view my use of their work as a bit of free advertising and not thievery.

I must also give a great deal of credit to Richard Smith, whose compiled Basic version of this game can be found on Q-Link. The visual format of this game is taken directly from Richard's work.

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Game Play

Mah Jong will present you with the game "board". You will be able to see 88 of the 144 graphic squares or "tiles". You must use your imagination a bit to be able to "see" how these tiles are arranged. They have been "stacked" in a pyramid shape. There are 87 tiles on the bottom (gray) layer of the pyramid, 36 on the 2nd layer, 16 on the 3rd (red), 4 on the 4th (light red) and 1 on the 5th (gray again).

Note: I know the colors aren't the most beautiful, but they are functional, and they look as good as any I could find on my amber screen, while still looking halfway decent in color.

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Possibly a graphic will help with this concept. Consider the fragment below, taken from the lower left corner of the game board (sorry there's no color -- anybody want to write GeoWrite 3.0?):

Actual game board How it would

look in 3-D

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The 144 tiles consist of 36 sets of four. You must try to clear the entire pyramid by matching pairs of tiles, which will then be removed from play. Only those tiles with nothing on top of them and an empty space adjacent to them horizontally on their level are playable. Thus, many of the tiles you see are cannot be played.

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If you click on a playable tile, it will invert and you will hear a bell. If you click on a nonplayable tile, it will not invert and you will hear a "bing" (higher pitched than the bell). Click on a second tile. If is playable and a match for the first tile, you will hear three quick bells and both tiles will be removed, making other tiles playable. Continue in this fashion until you have cleared the board or have no more playable matches.

In keeping with Richard Smith's implementation of the game, there are no bells and whistles if you "win". I guess your reward is simply the satisfaction gained.

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The Icons (to the right of the playing board)

The deskTop icon:

aborts play and returns you to the DeskTop.

The New icon:

reshuffles the tiles and starts a new game.

The cornfield icon:

shows the author box, and starts a new game when you click the mouse.

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The Tiles

(In no particular order)

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Selection of icons for Mah Jong was done in a very professional manner -- my wife told me which ones she liked. Inclusion of an icon in this game reflects nothing but her personal taste.

I believe all of the programs listed on the past pages are available on Q-Link, with the exception of GeoText II.

If you are an author of one of these programs and are bothered that I have used your work, please accept my sincere apologies. Let me know and I will remove your work from any future releases.

All other tile pictures come from programs I have written.