UG: Patience (Rev #2)

Patience is probably one of the best-known solo card games, sometimes known by its alternative name Solitaire.

Starting Patience

Patience is in the Diversions directory on your hard disc or network. To start the application, double-click on the !Patience application.

To start the game, click on the Patience icon on the icon bar. The Patience window appears on the screen:

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There are seven columns of cards, with the bottom card in each column turned up. The columns range in length from seven cards (on the left) to one (on the right). The rest of the pack is in a face-down ‘pile’ on the right-hand side of the screen. At the top right-hand corner of the game area are four card outlines, each marked with the symbol for one of the suits. The infobar across the top of the window shows the number of games won, and the number of face-down cards in the pile.

The rules

The object of the game is to place all four suits on top of their symbols in ascending order, starting with the Ace and finishing with the King. To do this, you must reveal all the hidden cards by going through the pack and building chains of cards.

Here are the basic rules:

• The chains you build downwards from each column must be in descending order (King, Queen, Jack, Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, and so on) and must alternate between Red and Black suits (Ten of Hearts, Nine of Spades, Eight of Diamonds, Seven of Spades, for example). If you try to place a card incorrectly, Patience will refuse to move the card.

• When you move the top card from one column to another, the next hidden card is automatically turned over. You can drag all or part of a chain to another column.

• There are only seven columns allowed in the game. If you have used up all the cards in one column you can only start a new column with a King (unless you have changed the default choices).

• Once you have placed a card on one of the suit symbols (in ascending order) at the top right-hand corner of the screen it cannot be taken off again.

Playing Patience

To play the game, proceed as follows:

1 Look at the cards which are revealed at the bottom of each column. If a card can be moved, use the mouse pointer to drag it to the correct place. When you release the button, the card will be in its new place and the next card turned up in the column where it came from. Continue this procedure until you have no more cards that can be moved.

2 Click on the pile of cards on the right to reveal the next card (by default, every third card in the pile is turned over). If you can use it, drag the card to the appropriate column. You may now be able to move one or more cards from one column to another. If you can’t, click on the pile of cards again. If you can’t use a card, continue clicking on the pack until one is revealed that you can use. When you use a card from the pack, the card beneath it is again revealed.

3 As soon as an Ace is revealed, drag it to its place at the top right-hand corner of the screen (alternatively, clicking Adjust on a card that can be added to one of these stacks automatically moves it to the correct stack). You can then start building (in ascending order from Ace to King) as the cards that follow come up.

4 Continue going through the pack and moving cards. The number of cards left in the pack will continue to be indicated in the infobar. An empty space indicates that you have gone through the pack once; click on it to go round again.

5 If you can’t go any further and want to see where the hidden cards were, click Menu and choose Resign. If there are any cards left in the pack, you can see what they are by clicking on the pack; this will display each card in turn. If you want to start a new game, choose Deal from the menu. If you do not wish to continue playing Patience, choose Quit from the icon bar menu.

Patience menu

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In addition to the Resign and Deal items, which control finishing and starting a game, the Patience menu has two other items. Selecting Remember position stores the screen position of the game window, which will open in the same place the next time you run Patience. Selecting Help opens a help file.

Choices

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You can vary the game rules and settings. To open the Choices dialogue box, select Choices from the icon bar menu.

• Only Kings start a new column means that no cards other than Kings can be placed in empty columns. Switching this off makes the game very much easier; you can now move any card into an empty column.

• Reverse deal refers to the process by which cards are turned over from the pack. The default is that when a group of three cards is turned over, their order is reversed as they are moved. This means that if you run through the pack twice, you will see two-thirds of the cards. Switching this option off means that the cards are not reversed, so you will only see one-third of the cards, making the game much harder.

• Deal three or Deal one refers to the number of cards dealt from the deck on to the pile with each click. Choosing the first option makes the game harder.

The Sound option determines whether Patience beeps to indicate an illegal move.

To save your changes, click Save. To return to the game with no alterations, click Cancel.