Thomas Warfield (Support)
Moderator
Username: Support
Post Number: 73
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 4:13 pm: | |
Goodsol Newsletter #58
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<http://www.goodsol.com>
Valentine's Day Card Set
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<http://www.goodsol.com/pgs/cardsets.html>
Our latest new card set, the Valentine's Day Card Set, is now available. This card set features card face and back designs for Valentine's Day. This card set is for registered users of Pretty Good Solitaire (or FreeCell Wizard or Spider Wizard) only. You can download the Valentine's Day Card Set from <http://www.goodsol.com/pgs/cardsets.html>.
New Version of Spider Wizard
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<http://www.spiderwizard.net>
A new version 2.0 of Spider Wizard is now available! It can be downloaded from <http://www.spiderwizard.net>. This is the first of what will be many new releases of our games in 2003.
Spider Wizard is a collection of 16 Spider type games, including Spider, Spider One Suit, Spider Two Suits, and more.
Spider Wizard is essentially a small version of Pretty Good Solitaire with just Spider type games and is intended for people who just like Spider and not other types of games.
Version 2.0 brings Spider Wizard up to our latest technology. You can now use Pretty Good Solitaire card sets in Spider Wizard (by default it uses the traditional card set).
Two games in Spider Wizard have changed. The Black Widow and Tarantula games have been replaced with the games Spider One Suit and Spider Two Suits. These are actually the same games, except that Spider One Suit has all spades cards and Spider Two Suits is all Spades and Hearts. Otherwise they play exactly the same as Black Widow and Tarantula and are easier versions of Spider.
Spider fans can download the trial version of Spider Wizard from <http://www.spiderwizard.net>.
We Do Euros
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<http://www.goodsol.com/orderonline.html>
We take orders by credit card on our web site in five different currencies: US dollars, Euros, British Pounds, Canadian Dollars, and Australian Dollars. Recently the US Dollar-Euro exchange rate has made buying Pretty Good Solitaire the cheapest it is has ever been in Euros. At last check the price was 22.38 Euros, a nice discount to the regular US$24 price. The exchange rate changes every day and there is no telling whether it will go up or down, but there is no question that this is a great time for Europeans to buy Pretty Good Solitaire. Our order pages will normally detect your locale and price in the appropriate currency automatically, but if not you can just go to <http://www.goodsol.com/orderonline.html>, and click on Euros in the non-USA section on the right side of the page.
Goodsol Forum
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<http://www.goodsol.net/forum>
Our new Goodsol Solitaire Discussion Forum is off to a great start. Join us and discuss all things solitaire at <http://www.goodsol.net/forum>.
Featured Game - Scorpion
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Scorpion is an interesting one deck solitaire game with similarities to the games Spider and Yukon. At the start of the game, 7 cards are dealt to 7 tableau piles. In the first 4 piles, the first 3 cards dealt are dealt face down, all other cards are dealt face up. This gives a tableau of 49 cards in 7 piles, with 12 cards face down. The 3 remaining cards are set aside face down for later use.
Building in the tableau is down by suit. Groups of cards are moved like in the game Yukon. You can move groups of cards in the tableau regardless of any sequence. This means that any face up card, no matter how deeply buried, can be moved by picking it and all the cards on top of it up together. Empty spaces in the tableau can be filled only by a King, or a group of cards headed by a King. If all play is blocked, the remaining 3 cards are dealt to the first 3 piles to add more possibilities.
There are no foundation piles in Scorpion. Instead of moving cards up to foundations, all building takes place in the tableau. The objective is to arrange all the cards into 4 piles of 13 cards each, in sequence from King down to Ace in suit. This is much like the game Spider, except that the completed sequences are not removed from play.
The strategy to winning Scorpion is like that of Yukon. It is very important to uncover the face down cards, because only the face up cards are in play. Once a card becomes face up, it can be accessed, so getting the cards face up is the key.
A good player can win Scorpion about 20 or 25% of the time. Because it is difficult to win in pure Scorpion, often it is played without the rule requiring a King to start empty piles, and instead is played allowing any card to start a tableau pile. This makes the game much easier, and in fact it can be won every time this way. This rule is set in the Options menu in the game.
Scorpion is not in any of the solitaire books from the early 1900s, but appears in Albert Morehead & Geoffrey Mott-Smith's book _The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games_ in 1949. They state that it is a well known game, but that they named it Scorpion because of its Spider like properties.
There are a few variations of Scorpion. Scorpion II is the same game with only 3 piles of 3 face down cards instead of 4. This makes the game easier. Double Scorpion is the same game with 2 decks.
Scorpion is one of the 500 solitaire card games in Pretty Good Solitaire at <http://www.goodsol.com> and one of the 16 games in the new version of Spider Wizard at <http://www.spiderwizard.net>.
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Thomas Warfield - Software Designer - support@goodsol.com
Anne Warfield - Order Fulfilment - orders@goodsol.com
©2003 Goodsol Development Inc.
Pretty Good Solitaire, Pretty Good MahJongg, FreeCell Wizard, Spider Wizard, and more. Visit us at <http://www.goodsol.com>.
To subscribe from the Goodsol Newsletter go to
<http://www.goodsol.com/newsletter.html>.
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