Tiles/LX Version 1.01b
by Rob Tillotson
A CQ Codeworks Production

Copyright 1996 Rob Tillotson
Portions Copyright 1995 The PAL Group

Visit the HP Palmtop Pages at the following URL:
     http://www.io.com/~rob/hp200lx/

Questions or comments?  Send Internet e-mail to rob@io.com .


DISTRIBUTION

This program is shareware.  If you like it, you are encouraged to
register it by sending $10 to the address below.  A few non-essential
features are disabled as an incentive to register, but the core game
itself will play the same whether you are registered or not.

To register, send $10 to:

    Rob Tillotson
    P.O. Box 15252
    Fort Wayne, IN 46885
    USA

If you have an e-mail address, please include it so that I can more
easily send your registration number to you.  For the time being I can
only accept registrations by paper mail, but I am considering accepting
registration payments by Ecash and/or First Virtual -- if think either
of these payment systems would be easier for you to use, send me
e-mail so that I can get an idea of whether these options are worth
pursuing.  (I can't afford Compuserve right now, so SWREG is out of
the question.)

When you register, you will receive a code which will enable the
additional features.  I hope you'll also get the satisfaction of
knowing you've helped out a fellow HP LX owner.  I've got a lot of
other ideas for palmtop applications, and registering will encourage
me to develop them and help me afford useful tools like the HP
development kit.  Please register if you can (but only if you like the
game, of course). 


GAME DESCRIPTION

Tiles/LX is a palmtop adaptation of a popular game you'll probably
recognize.  I'm not sure what the original game was called -- some
electronic adaptations call it "Mah Jongg", although that is probably
an incorrect title mistakenly applied because of the choice of playing
pieces.  Regardless of the name, the game itself seems relatively
universal.

The game is played using a set of Mah Jongg tiles.  Such a tile set
contains 144 tiles, which match in groups of four.  The tiles are
further divided into suits, which are important in Mah Jongg but not
in this game.  All that matters here is that there are four copies of
each tile, with two exceptions:  the four "seasons" and the four
"dragons".  These groups of tiles match one another even though the
symbols on their faces differ.  [In this version, the "dragons" are
represented by pieces of computer hardware - a mouse, a serial cable,
and two kinds of floppy disks.]

The tiles are dealt onto the board in a pyramidal structure.  The
object is to remove matching pairs of tiles from the board -- when
there are no tiles left, you win.  There is a catch, though:  a tile
can only be removed if it can be slid sideways out of the pile without
disturbing any other tiles.  Since we're not using actual tiles, this
means simply that a tile may only be removed if it has nothing on top
of it, and nothing blocking either its left or right side on the same
level.

That's all there is to the rules... strategy is another matter, which
I leave to you to discover.  Not every deal of the tiles produces a
winnable game, and it's very easy to get stuck, so don't feel bad if
you have to quit or use the undo buffer a lot.


INSTALLATION

Tiles/LX is a DOS application written using the PAL library.  To install
it, simply place TILES.EXE, TILESLX.CFG, and TILES.ICN in the same
directory.  You can run TILES.EXE like any other DOS application,
or add it to the Application Manager.  To do that, do the following:

  1. Press the blue [&...] (MORE) key to start the Application Manager.

  2. Press F2 (Add) or select Application/Add... from the menu.

  3. In the Name field, enter "Tiles" or any other name you like.

  4. In the Path field, enter the full path to TILES.EXE, followed
     by "|100".  For example, if you put TILES.EXE in A:\GAMES, the
     Path field should read:
         "A:\GAMES\TILES.EXE|100"

  5. In the Comments field, enter an upside-down question mark by
     pressing [Fn]+[3].

  6. Press TAB until the Icon box is highlighted; the supplied icon
     should appear.  If it doesn't, make sure TILES.ICN is in the same
     directory as TILES.EXE, or simply use one of the default icons
     available for DOS programs.

  7. Press F10 to save this information.

You can run Tiles/LX on the desktop using CGAGRAPH.COM from the PAL
distribution, or through the Connectivity Pack.


PLAYING THE GAME

To remove a pair of tiles, select them both by moving the cursor to
them and pressing ENTER.  If they match and are both able to be
removed, they'll disappear from the board.  If they don't match, or
you press ESC, your selections will be canceled and you can try again.
If one of them is blocked, you'll hear a beep.

To undo the last move, press the backspace key.  You can go all the
way back to the beginning of the game if you have to.

To see what moves are available, press F6.  If any tiles can be
removed, the pairs (or groups of three or four) will be highlighted
one by one as you press ENTER.  (Press ESC to stop looking at moves
and get back to the game.)  If pressing F6 does nothing, there are no
moves left and your only choices are to quit or back up.

Pressing F5 will open a window showing what tiles are left on the
board, sorted into groups.  Press any key to close this window.

In the registered version, you may save the game by pressing F10.  If
you haven't saved before, you will be prompted for a name (the
extension .TIL will be added automatically); otherwise, the same name
will be reused.  (If you want to save the game under a new name,
select File/Save As from the menu.)  Saved games may be loaded by
pressing F9.

If you're playing on a desktop PC, you can open the menu by pressing
ALT-F10.


WHAT'S NEXT

Here's what I'm working on for the next version(s) of this program:
  - tile graphics editor, loading and saving of tile sets
  - additional board layouts
  - better handling of file names in load/save game
  - a scoring system
  - faster screen redraws

Look on the HP Palmtop Pages (http://www.io.com/~rob/hp200lx/) for the
latest on this and other CQ Codeworks releases.  Coming soon: more
games; a desktop DOS file manager with Filer communications,
directory tree synch, and 4DOS description file support; and a couple
of other things I've just started to work on.


VERSION HISTORY

v1.01b	October 25, 1996
	Now allows space bar to select tiles.

v1.01a	October 16, 1996
	Load and save now use standard-style file selection dialogs.
	Compiled with latest (prerelease) PAL library.

v1.00a	September, 1996
	Initial release.
