Shamrocks Instructions
Version 1.01 (Feb 10 2000) Copyright © 1999-2000 Andrew Pipkin
Overview
At first glance, victory in Shamrocks solitaire appears easy to attain. The
layout contains 18 building stacks, which accept cards in both
ascending and descending rank regardless of suit. However, a stack can
accept no more than 3 cards and removing all cards from a stack takes
it out of play, which makes the game considerably more challenging.
Layout
There are two types of stacks on the screen
- Building Stacks
All stacks in the layout except for those in the leftmost column are
building stacks. A building stack accepts cards in both ascending and
descending rank. No cards can be added to a building stack if the stack
contains 3 or 0 cards. The stacks are arranged so that a king will be below
all cards with the same suit as the king.
- Suit Stacks
The suit stacks are located in the left column of the layout and are initially
empty. They accept cards of the same suit in ascending order.
Moving Cards
To move a card, click on the card (which will highlight it) and then click
on the destination. Only cards at the top of a building stack can be moved.
The following are valid moves:
- An ace can be moved to its suit stack. (This will usually be done
automatically.)
-
A card can be moved to its corresponding suit stack if the rank of the card
at the top of that stack is one less than the card's rank (Kings have a rank
of 13, queens 12, jacks 11 and an ace has a rank of 1).
-
A card can be moved to an occupied building stack if the stack contains less
than three cards and the rank of the card is one more or one less than the
card currently at the top of the stack. The suit of the card is irrelevant.
No cards can be added to an empty stack.
A card will be automatically moved to the suit stacks from the the building
stacks if the cards which might be placed on top of it are already in the
suit stacks. Cards at the bottom of a stack will not be moved automatically
to prevent the undesired removal of the stack. Clicking undo will retract an
automatic move.
Tips
- Do not remove the final card from a building stack, making the
stack unusable, unless you are sure the stack is no longer needed.
- Try to arrange the stacks in descending rank if possible because it
will make moving cards to the suit stacks much easier.
Buttons
Clicking on these buttons will perform the following actions:
- New Game
- Begin a new game after shuffling the deck
- Restart
- Return to the original state of the current game
- Undo
- Return to the condition before the previous move was
made
- Options
- Bring up a window with the
following options:
- Automatic card moving
- When this box is set (which is the
default), a card atop a stack will be moved to its suit stack
automatically if there are no
cards available which might be placed on top of it.
History
- Version 1.01 (2000/02/10)
- Fixed bug which prevented placing cards on an ace in a building stack
- Version 1.0 (2000/02/08)
- First public release
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