Thomas Warfield (Support)
Moderator
Username: Support
Post Number: 660
Registered: 12-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 07, 2004 - 7:58 pm: | |
Goodsol Newsletter #75
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http://www.goodsol.com
Two New Online Games
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http://www.goodsol.com/online
We have two new games in our online games area - Golf and Pyramid. Play simple versions of these popular games for free online in your browser. It is great for when you are at work and without Pretty Good Solitaire. The Golf game features a hard mode and a easy mode. The easy mode is equivalent to the game Putt Putt in Pretty Good Solitaire, where you can play Kings on Aces and Aces on Kings (only Twos can be played on Aces in regular Golf, and nothing can be played on a King).
Try out the new games at <http://www.goodsol.com/online>, and don't forget that you can also play the older games Klondike, FreeCell, and Spider online as well.
New Kids Tile Set
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http://www.goodmj.com/pgmj/tilesets.html
A new Kids tile set for Pretty Good MahJongg is now available for download at <http://www.goodmj.com/pgmj/tilesets.html>. This tile set, for tile matching games only, features simple pictures of animals and objects on the tiles. This tile set is for Pretty Good MahJongg, which can be downloaded from <http://www.goodmj.com>.
Goodsol Forum
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http://www.goodsol.net/forum
There has been a lot of activity in the Goodsol Forum lately, particularly in the Is It Winnable? section. There are lots of posts of games numbers of winnable positions in difficult games. If you are stuck on a game, take a look!
Pretty Good Solitaire Statistics
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http://www.goodsol.com/stats
The Pretty Good Solitaire Top Scores area will soon be getting a long awaited makeover. In the upcoming version 10.0 of Pretty Good Solitaire, you will be able to submit your statistics directly from Pretty Good Solitaire (no more cutting and pasting) and the statistics pages will update immediately.
The old scores lists will be phased out in favor of the new scores system. You can still submit scores as usual until version 10.0 is released.
This is the last newsletter before the release of Pretty Good Solitaire 10.0. Look for the new 600 game Pretty Good Solitaire coming soon!
Featured Games - German and Bavarian Patience
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German Patience is a two deck game that is very hard to win. At the start of the game, 8 cards are dealt out in a row, forming a tableau of 8 piles. All building will be on these piles. The objective is to play all the cards to these 8 piles by forming 8 sequences of 13 cards.
In each pile, you can build up regardless of suit, wrapping from King back to Ace. For example, if a pile starts with a Jack, you can play a Queen, King, Ace, Two, and so on until you get up to a 10. Then the pile is full with a complete sequence of 13 cards. Spaces created in the tableau can be filled with any card.
After the first 8 cards are dealt out, the remaining cards form a stock that is turned over one card at a time to a waste pile. The top card of the waste is available for play on the 8 piles. There is no redeal.
The secret to success in German Patience is to create empty spaces and use them wisely as cells for as long as possible. By keeping some spaces empty, you have options to move cards around. Eventually, however, you will be forced to fill all the spaces in order to build the 8 sequences. To win, you need to avoid getting too many cards buried in the waste or the game will be hopeless.
The average player will win only about 1 in 200 tries. Because the game is so difficult, I invented a variation called Bavarian Patience. Bavarian Patience is exactly like German Patience except it has two extra tableau piles. You still create 8 sequences of 13 cards, but in Bavarian two piles will be empty in the end. The extra two piles means that you will always have two extra piles to use as cells. This makes the game much easier. An average player can win Bavarian Patience 10 to 15 percent of the time.
German Patience and Bavarian Patience are among the 570 games in Pretty Good Solitaire, which can be downloaded from <http://www.goodsol.com/download.html>.
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Thomas Warfield - Software Designer - support@goodsol.com
Anne Warfield - Order Fulfilment - orders@goodsol.com
©2004 Goodsol Development Inc.
PO Box 9155, Springfield IL 62791
Pretty Good Solitaire, Action Solitaire, Pretty Good MahJongg, FreeCell
Wizard, Spider Wizard, and more. Visit us at <http://www.goodsol.com>.
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