HMaki 3.9.2 Information
HMaki is my interpretation of a Japanese solitair style game. You can upload it into your pilot with your instapp.exe Application (WinDOS) or with pilot-xfer (Unix) as any other application. (Under UNIX, you sometimes need unzip -L to uncompress to get lowercase filenames.)

Different languages are available:
English Versionhmaki392en.zip
French Versionhmaki392fr.zip
German Versionhmaki392de.zip
Dutch Versionhmaki392nl.zip
Whats new?
  • Runs now unter Palm OS 5
Frequently asked Questions
How to I remove tiles?
See below.
Will I lose the high scores if I upgrade to the new version of HMaki?
Yes you will if you upgrade from 2.x to 3.x, sorry about that. But you do not have to remove the old program in order to install the new one. The old DB will automatically be detected and removed.
Is there a PC/iPhone/... version of this game?
Yes! Meanwhile there are lots of games like HMaki around. The most common name seems to be "Same Game" (use Google to find them all - add your platform). Here is my favorite version.
Why are you giving this program away for free?
I don't. It's postcardware.
My memory is getting low!
You might have played in many different modes or board sizes. Once you played a mode, a highscoretable for that mode will be installed (ca. 100 bytes each). You might to have to remove the high scores from the Preferences menu. (Clearing a high score for a single game mode will not help).
Please add unlimited 'undo' to the game!
If you accidentlay tap on the wrong group, you already can undo one false tap. Sure, it would be convenient to have unlimited undo, but convenience is not the idea of the game. It's diversion. And for this, you dont need undo. Trust me :-)
About this Game
If you start this game, you see a board full of tiles. Your task is to remove as many tiles as possible from the board. You cannot remove single tiles, instead you have to remove them in groups of adjacent tiles filled with like patterns. Tapping on a group will mark it first. Tapping once again will remove the group.

There are four different styles for scoring:

  1. Playing for "many". This means that you get higher scores for removing larger groups of tiles. (If you remove n tiles at once, you get (n-2)^2 score points.)
  2. Playing for "clean up". In this mode the size of the groups you remove doesn't matter. The only task is to remove as many tiles as possible. This mode should be played with less patterns, even with two colors it's not tivial to win. :-)
  3. Playing for "few". In this mode, you have to remove small groups in order to achieve a small score.
  4. Playing for "leave board". In this mode you should try to remove the least number of tiles possible in order to leave as many tiles as possible on the board.

In the Options menu you can select the width and height of the board, the number of different patterns and the aim you want to play for. If you select other options and press "Ok", a new board will be drawn. Legal values for board sizes range from 3x3 to 22x20 and you can use from 2 up to 9 different patterns.

If you happen to tap on the wrong group, you can undo your last selections. If you switch to another application, the state of the game will be saved, but the undo information won't. If you undo more than one step, you are considered a cheater, you'll see what you get from it :-)

Flipping Patterns
Sometimes ist tricky to recognize tiles of like patterns. Selecting "flip patterns" will permutate the patterns of the tiles for better viewing. The arrangement itself will not change.
Highscores

All game styles can be used for highscoring. For "many" or "leave board" the higher score the better, for "clean up" or "few" the lower score the better. The highscores will be saved for all games. So, if you experiment a lot with different modes you might clutter you memory with a whole bunch of high score tables. (You can watch the memory consumption with the Memory application by examining HMakiDB.)

From the highscores menu you can flush the current high scores in order to give you a new challenge.

Seeded Games

Normally, the tiles are randomly coloured and you never get the same board again. To create reproducable games for training or tournaments you can select "Seeded Game" from the menu and enter a seed number.

After pressing the "Ok" button you will get a board computed out of this number. If you enter the same number again, you will get the same board (at least if you are still playing with the same parameters).

"Cancel" will continue with the current game.

You can check the current seed with the 'current seed' menu at any time.

As normal games are also seeded games (only with randomly chosen seed) you will find a seed even in non seeded games.

Registration
This program is postcard-ware, which means that you may copy and distribute it as far as you like. I won't charge you any fee for this. But you may not charge anyone for this program either. If you like HMAKI, you have to send send a postcard with your email address to
    Holger Klawitter
    Reichsgrafenstr. 12
    79102 Freiburg
    Germany
	    
(Postcards with local motifs from your place are perfectly ok.)

If you like this program so much that you think I should get some money for it, well, go ahaed - but no foreign cheques, please :-). But remember: you won't get any additional service.

If you are a shareware programmer...

... keep in mind that you got my software for free. :-)
Further Questions
Questions, suggestions, bugreports and general praise can be sent to me by email.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank especially all developers of the Unix-tools for Pilot software development. Thanks to Wes Cherry, Jeff Dionne, Kenneth Albanowski, Ian Goldberg, Scott Grosch, Brian Swetland, and many more and thanks to USR for supplying the public with the developers handbooks.

Special thanks to Olivier Seydoux for the French translation.

This is not the first implementation of Maki on Pilot. When I saw the first implementation at http://www.inferior.com/ I was fascinated by the game, but the constantly-in-your-face character of this shareware game motivated to come up with an own, extended interpretation of the game.

This Game is available on almost every available platform as there is a Java version called Cafe Game.

Revision history
3.9.2 (2008-03-16)
Address Update
3.9.1 (Aug 3 2004)
Runs now unter Palm OS 5
3.8 / 3.9 (Oct 2 2000)
Some minor bugs and typos fixed.
3.7 (Sep 11 2000)
Undo and B&W improvements.
3.6 (Aug 4 2000)
Multiple level undo. High score improvements.
3.5 (Feb 29 2000)
Now with Palm OS 3.5 color support
3.2.1 (Nov 28 1999)
Minor GUI enhancements
3.2.0 (Nov 24 1999)
Mutilingual support (French and German version)
clearing and flushing high scores
3.1.1 (Jul 18 1999)
New contact address
3.1 (June 8 1999)
Flip feature
3.0 (March 7 1999)
Allow seeded games to enter high score table.
2.2 (September 1 1998)
Fixing minor GUI glitch.
2.1 (August 16 1998)
Minor bugfix in options screen.
2.0 (August 13 1998)
There are now highscore tables for all games simulataneously.
Two new play modes.
1.11 (November 30 97)
Seeded games. Some minor cosmetic adjustments.
1.10 (October 27 97)
I should reenable undo after fixing bugs. :-)
1.9 (October 12 97)
Minor bugfix in handling of Undo.
1.8 (September 7 97)
Minor change: Handling of command strokes has been improved.
1.7 (July 16 97)
Command Strokes are now optional but no longer neccessary. Some minor cosmetic adjustments.
1.6 (June 25 97)
Board will be remembered after switching to another application. Changed default settings again.
1.5 (June 19 97)
Fixing display of scores greater than 32767. Yes, this might happen! :-)
1.4 (May 21 97)
Minor bugfix in highscore table.
1.3 (May 20 97)
Fixed cursor focusing problem in Hall of Fame.
1.2 (May 18 97)
Added Hall of Fame. Fixing some potential marking bugs.
1.1 (May 9 97)
Fixing some minor flaws in the user interface. Improvement of the documentation. "New game" confirmation box. Different default settings.
1.0 (May 4 97)
Initial public release. Yes, there was no beta release :-)
Legalese
HMAKI is Copyright (c) 1997-2004 by Holger Klawitter

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any non commerical purpose, without fee, and without a written agreement is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph and the following two paragraphs appear in all copies. For commercial usage, please contact the author.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE AND ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

THE AUTHOR SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE SOFTWARE PROVIDED HEREUNDER IS ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, AND THE AUTHOR HAS NO OBLIGATIONS TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.


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Last modified: Tue Aug 3 15:28:47 CEST 2004