Electrum Dominoes

The First All Fives Game for Your Palm^TM Handheld

The Game

Electrum Dominoes is a variation of All Fives, using a 28-piece set consisting of one bone with each possible combination of pips from 0-0 through 6-6.

At the beginning of a new hand, each player draws seven bones. The player with the heaviest doublet plays it as the spinner. (A doublet is a bone with the same number of pips on each side; the heaviest one is the one with the most pips.) The other player must play a bone that matches the spinner on one side. For example, if the double six is played first, the next bone played must have a six on one side, and is placed to the east or west of the spinner. The next bone must match either the spinner or the last bone played. Once the east and west sides of the spinner have been played, bones may be played to the north or south. Doublets are placed perpendicular to the direction of play.

If a player has no bones that match the outermost ends, bones must be drawn from the boneyard until a match is found (and the matching bone is played) or the boneyard is empty and the player passes. Bones may be drawn even if the player already has a match, as long as there are bones in the boneyard. If the boneyard is empty, a bone must be played if possible.

If, after a bone is played, the number of pips on the outermost ends add up to a multiple of five, that number of points is added to the player's score. If an end bone is a doublet, both sides are counted. The spinner is counted this way as long as it is at one end (or the only bone; the double five scores the player ten points when played as the spinner). When a player empties his hand, he is awarded the sum of pips remaining in the other player's hand and a new hand is begun. If neither player has a bone that can be played and the boneyard is empty, the pips in each hand are added and the player with the lower number of pips is awarded the difference. The game continues until one player reaches 150 points.

In this version, the hands are drawn and the heaviest doublet is played automatically. If neither player has a doublet after the draw, the hand is void; a new boneyard is built and another draw takes place. Void hands do not appear on the display.

The Game Display

The traditional appearance of an All Fives game is something like this. Your hand appears in the foreground, your opponent's at the back, the boneyard to one side, and the played bones in the middle. Handheld devices aren't suitable for this type of display; their screens are much too small. Even if the boneyard and opponent’s hand were not shown, the possible expansion of the player's hand and the meanderings of the played bones would require so much scrolling as to render the game unplayable. So we came up with a better way.

We collapsed the lines of played bones so that only the ends are seen next to the spinner. We moved the rest of the bones to a panel that also contains the bones in your hand. The played bones are added from right to left, bottom to top; the bones in your hand are added from left to right, top to bottom. There's just enough room so they never overlap, and there's almost always a gap between them. And you have just about the same information available to you as you would if you were playing against a human. For purposes of explanation, let's say the display consists of a status area, a multi-purpose button, a playing area, and a bone panel. The status area shows the players' scores, the number of bones in each player's hand, messages indicating scoring, whose turn it is, etc., and the number of bones remaining in the boneyard. The playing area contains the spinner and four end buttons. The end buttons show which bone was last placed on each end, and are used to indicate where a bone is to be played. You can use the end buttons even when you can't see them; that is, when no bone has yet been played on a given end (as long as the move is valid).

The bone panel contains a button representing each bone in your hand. In order to play a bone, tap it; the colors are inverted to indicate the selection. You can tap a different bone if you change your mind. When you are satisfied with your selection, tap an end button to indicate where the bone is to be played. The pictures below show what would appear if you first tapped the one-five bone, then the north end button (the one with the three-five bone).

Note that no bone has been played to the south of the spinner. The south end button is there, though, and could be used if you had a bone with three pips on one side that you wanted to play.

The multi-purpose button will be labelled 'Draw' when it's your turn, and tapping it will cause a bone to be drawn from the boneyard to your hand. When it's your opponent's turn (we call him 'Nestor'), this button will be labelled 'OK', and tapping it will enable him to take his turn.

If Nestor draws, a message to that effect will appear and you must tap the 'OK' button again to enable him to either play or draw again. If the boneyard is empty when it's your turn, this button will be labelled 'Pass'; tapping it indicates that you are unable to move, and Nestor will take his turn. If he is also unable to move, the hand will be ended as described above.

If you empty your hand, the bones in Nestor's hand are displayed in the bone panel with the colors inverted, and the multi-purpose button will be labelled 'New Hand'; tap it to begin a new hand.

At the end of a game, Nestor's hand will be displayed (if there are any bones in it) and the multi-purpose button will be labelled 'New Game'. You can probably guess what happens when you tap it.

The Game Menu and the Colors Menu

From the Game Menu, you can go to the Settings Display, undo a move, begin a new game if you chicken out, or display 'About' information. On color devices, the Colors Menu appears with more selections which enable you to set the color of the background, the foreground (the pips and outlines on the bones), the text, the multi-purpose button (and buttons on the Settings Display), the bones in your hand, the bones you have played, or the bones Nestor has played. Select 'Default' to return to the default colors. Some important notes on the Undo function: Each time you play or draw a bone, the game status is saved before the action is performed. By selecting the Undo function from the Game Menu, you restore the game to the way it was just before that action. This will work even if a new game has started, as long as you have not yet played or drawn another bone. In order to keep memory requirements as low as possible, only one buffer is used to preserve the game status. This means that using this function more than once in succession will have the same effect as using it just once. Also, you cannot undo a move that was made before another application was used. The Undo function was provided so that, if you should accidently tap a button, you can undo the action without adversely affecting a good game. It would be possible, however, to use it in such a way as to cause less desirable bones to be drawn into Nestor's hand, to take a random sampling of the boneyard before settling on a pleasing draw for yourself, or to partake of other unscrupulous activities that would taint the outcome of the game. That said, we entrust this tool to you in the hopes that you will use it in an ethical and responsible manner.

 The Settings Display

This display enables you to alter some settings and shows the number of games each player has won. The difficulty setting controls how hard Nestor tries to thrash you. Possible choices are 'Beginner', 'Easy', 'Not so easy', 'Tough', and 'Brutal'. If you're a beginner, even the 'Beginner' setting might seem hard until you get used to the scoring, and the amount of chance in the game means that you'll beat the harder settings some of the time. In any case, you should be able to find a setting that is challenging enough to make the game enjoyable. Some people like to begin a hand with seven bones; some prefer five. You can choose by setting the number of bones to draw. Similarly, some people like to play to 150, some to 200 and some to 250 points. You can choose by setting the number of points to win. The Auto-OK setting allows you to speed up the game a bit by causing the multi-purpose button to be tapped automatically whenever it reads 'OK'; that is, when it's Nestor's turn. If you select this option, status messages that would normally appear after your move will not be visible, and you'll have to keep an eye on the 'My Bones' field to determine whether Nestor has drawn. We suggest you leave this off until you're pretty familiar with the game. If you're new to the game or had a rough day, use the Pip sum setting to cause the number of pips on the ends to be added up and shown at the lower left corner of the Game Display. The Nearest 5 setting causes points awarded at the end of a hand (from pips in the opponent's hand) to be rounded to the nearest multiple of five. This makes the scoring the same as it would be if you were using a cribbage board with each peg position representing five points. If you have trouble following Nestor's moves, turn on the Flicker setting. Each time Nestor plays a bone, the end button he plays it on will flicker a little to draw your attention to it. The 'Return to game' button takes you back to the Game Display. The 'Clear totals' button resets the game counts to zero.

Notes

In order to select his move, Nestor has the same information available to him as a human player would have. He 'knows' only the bones in his hand, the number of bones in your hand, the number of bones in the boneyard, and the bones that have been played. Honest.

We try to keep memory requirements to a minimum so that the game can be played on older devices with relatively small amounts of RAM. For this reason, there is no documentation provided as part of the executable. If you find that you need to take the documentation everywhere you go, we suggest that you have the text of this file tattooed on your forearm.

This game is shareware. If you like it (or use it for more than thirty days), visit Handango or PalmGear to obtain the registered version, which is nag-free and preserves the game status and settings when you use other applications. Registered users will receive new versions via e-mail as they are released. No user information will be made available to any third party unless required by law.

Electrum Dominoes can be installed on any device that runs Palm OS® version 2 or later. On non-color devices, the display appears in glorious monochrome.

Please read the accompanying information in license.txt and install Dominoes.prc only if you understand and accept the terms and conditions therein.

Questions, comments, and suggestions about Electrum Dominoes may be directed to support@electrumsoftware.com.au.

Visit Electrum Software for the latest trial version and information.

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