home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Loadstar 128 14
/
q14.d81
/
t.crazy boot
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
2022-08-28
|
3KB
|
64 lines
C R A Z Y E I G H T S
by Jon Mattson
There's a reason why CRAZY EIGHTS is such a popular card game among
college undergraduates and I think it's because it has so many variations.
It's not as regimented as other card games such as Bridge or Cribbage. When
I suggested to Jon Mattson that he try his expert hand at an 80-column card
game he immediately thought of CRAZY EIGHTS. But which rules should the
game play by? Everyone seems to play by different ones.
Leave it to Jon to come up with a game that lets you choose how you
want to play. The opening menu screen offers five different variations of
the rules and lets you choose how many points will constitute a game.
From this main menu you can read the general instructions for CRAZY
EIGHTS by pressing I. Press A through E to toggle the variations on or off
and F to set the points needed to win. The default value is 100, which is
about a half hour game. Each of the game variations is explained in a black
box below the menu. I recommend going through these so you'll know what
variations are allowed. There may be some you hadn't heard of before.
One of them involves deuces. If you play a deuce and your opponent
doesn't have one, he plays a card (if he can) then draws TWO cards. If he
does have a deuce, then he can play it and if you don't have another one,
you may play (if you can) then draw FOUR cards. If you have another deuce,
you can play it and he has to draw SIX cards. This is a variation that I've
always played differently than Jon does. I played that if you played a
deuce and your opponent didn't have one, then he drew two cards and THEN
could play (if he could). This is a subtle difference, but it's one you
should keep in mind if you've played a lot of CRAZY EIGHTS and played it one
way or the other.
Other than that the game is quite straightforward. All prompts are on
the screen. You play a card by pressing the letter key below the card. You
draw a card by pressing the UP ARROW. If you draw a card that plays, you
can play it right then, but if not, then you press the UP ARROW again and
your turn is over. Whenever you play an eight, the program asks you to
choose the suit. You may press the S, H, D or C keys (for spades, hearts,
diamonds or clubs) or you can press SHIFT-A, -S, -Z or -X.
I've played a variation of CRAZY EIGHTS where, if you can't play, you
keep drawing until you can. I consider this an inferior variation and I'm
glad Jon didn't choose to implement it. It IS possible to build up a lot of
cards in your hand but it doesn't happen very often. The screen has room to
display 16 cards but if you have more, then they are "off-screen". To see
them use the > or < keys (the comma and period keys) and you can scroll your
hand to see the off-screen cards.
Everything you need is on the game screen. The number of cards in the
stack is displayed below it. The current suit is displayed below the
discard pile. There's a running dialog box in the middle that tells you if
you've tried to play an illegal card. It also displays messages from the
computer.
The game is fast and fun, just as we expect from Jon Mattson. Don't
get hooked on it, though -- there's a lot more to see on this issue of
LOADSTAR 128.
FT
**** End of Text ****