A Farewell to Kings v1.0 (12/8/99)
by David Johnston and Rob Steward


How to Play

A Farewell to Kings appears to be a totally unique concept of solitaire.  The setup and play are unlike anything else I've seen.  You might want to forget everything you knew about solitaire and get ready for a very interesting challenge.

The game begins by placing the four kings horizontally in the centre of a playing grid.  The rest of the cards are then shuffled and four cards are draw.  The four card are you "hand".  The remaining cards will be drawn into the hand as needed : whenever your hand is empty or whenever all the cards in your hand are unplayable. (Four unplayable cards is rare, but it's one way to lose the game.) When more cards are needed, just press x to deal a new hand.

One at a time, in any order, cards are moved from your hand to the grid according to two basic rules:
1. The card played must be placed in the grid adjacent horizontally or vertically to at least one other card.
2. The card played must match all adjacent card in either suit or rank. (Clubs match clubs, jacks match jacks, etc.)

For example if a position in the grid has adjacent to it an ace of hearts a seven of hearts and a nine of diamonds then the only card that could be legally played would be a nine of hearts.

The goal of placing cards in the grid is to arrange them in "books".  A book is composed of four cards of a single rank arranged in a square (a rectangle, actually).  Completing books is the object of the game.

Books are removed from the grid in sequence. (I.e. once the four aces are formed into a book, they are removed from the grid and taken out of play.  Then a book of twos may be removed, etc.)

Books may be completed out of sequence, but those books cannot be removed from the board until all the lower ranking books have been removed first.

On occasion, the removing of a book from the grid will leave one card (or possibly more) in the grid non-adjacent to any other cards.  The single, unattached cards are called "orphans".  Any orphaned card must be moved immediately to another place in the grid according to the same two rules described above.  In very rare circumstances an orphan (or orphans) will be unplayable, which results in a loss.

Removing all twelve books from the grid (ace through queen) wins the game and the kings are automatically removed from the grid.  (Hence the name of the game.)


The Controls

D-pad - move cursor around the grid.
Cross - Place selected card at cursor position in grid.
Square - Undo.
Circle - New game.
Triangle - Change difficulty setting/Toggle background (* see below).
L1 & R1 - Change currently selected card.
L2 - Show all possible positions for currently selected card.
R2 - Show all similarly valued cards for currently selected card.

* - The difficulty setting can only be changed at the beginning of a game when no cards have been dealt, otherwise the background is toggled on and off.  The difficulty can only be either easy or normal.  The only difference being that on easy you can remove books of cards in any order.


Strategy

It seems to me that this game can be won a good majority of the time.  Almost always, when you realize you've lost, you also realize what you could have done differently.

Here's some of the pitfalls to avoid:

1. Don't keep your cards together early in the game.  Try to spread out as far as possible.  This gives you more "breathing room".  Specifically, make straight lines of cards away from the kings as soon as possible.  This will keep your options open for as long as possible.

2. Learn how to plan ahead which cards will be orphaned, and when.  In most games, you will have at least two books that are completed by cards that have been orphaned (sometimes several times).  Remember that cards of lower rank must always be removed first, so attaching a five to a book of jacks will never result in the five being orphaned, since the fives must be removed before the jacks.

3. If you draw several cards of the same suit on the first or second hand, in general it's good to play the higher card first, and then the lower card.  This is because the lower cards will need to be completed into books first (which will, in turn, open up room to complete the books for the cards of higher rank).

4. The suits are no equal, especially early in the game.  The clubs and diamonds have much less freedom than the spades and hearts.  If you get multiple diamonds or clubs on the first few hands,  it is sometimes wise to leave either the top side or the bottom side of the four kings "open" in case you get a difficult run of clubs or diamonds in the next hand or two.


The Original

This game was originally devised and written for the macintosh by Rob Steward.  If you have any questions about the origin and idea of the game then email Rob, I (David Johnston) merely converted the game to the Yaroze.

The web page for the original mac version is:
	http://www.cyberhighway.net/~marcust/share.htm

Also, although this version of the game is basically free the macintosh version is shareware.  If you like the concept of the game then I would encourage you to register anyway, it's only 5 US dollars.  You can do so online at:
	https://order.kagi.com/?U8N	(SSL Server)
	http://order.kagi.com/?U8N	(Standard Server)



David Johnston - deejay169@hotmail.com
Rob Steward - dogleg@uswest.net