MENU ITEMS
New : Start a new game.
· Last Played Game : Starts a new session of the last game you played... (Also works when you relaunch Kyodai)
· Solitaire (Random) : Start a new classic Mahjongg Solitaire game.
· Solitaire (Specific) : Allows you to play a new specific board number (you can change the board number randomly by clicking on "New random game seed"). Please note : selecting the Winnable Layouts feature will cause the board number to generate a different layout.
· Solitaire (2-Player) : Start a new 2-Player Mahjongg Solitaire game (oh, you knew that ?)
· Rivers (Easy) : Start a new Mahjongg Rivers game, based on Four Rivers / Arcade Mahjongg / Winojong
· Rivers (Hard) : Same thing, with two layouts on top of each other.
· Memory (Easy) : Start a new Memory game, based on Concentration / Rivers, with 32 tiles.
· Memory (Hard) : Same thing, with 84 tiles instead of 32. And it is MUCH harder !
· Clicks (Easy) : Start a new Clicks game with 4 tile colors. A cool game rather different from Tile-Matching game. Enjoy.
· Clicks (Normal) : Start a new Clicks game. This is the variation with 5 tile colors.
· Clicks (Hard) : Start a new Clicks game. This is the variation with 6 tile colors.
· Slider (Easy) : Start a new Slider game, with Jokers activated.
· Slider (Hard) : Start a new Slider game, with Jokers disabled (more challenge !).
· Hashira : Start a new Hashira game ;-)
· Exit : Quit Kyodai (really ?)
Play
· Back : Cancels the last move. Very useful if you feel like you ruined the whole game by doing a wrong move. Please note that you can undo as much moves as you want, everything is kept in a history list.
· Hint : Shows you a possible move by highlighting a pair of tiles. If you are not satisfied with the hint, you can call this function again and it will show you another possibility, until there's no other possible move. Using this function will add 40 seconds to your total time, so don't waste your time on it !! Important : this feature doesn't work on the 2-Player game (this one is for evident reasons).
· Pause : Pause current game. Get back to the game by simply clicking again on this menu item (renamed "Continue" when the Pause is activated).
· Shuffle : Shuffle current game tiles. It means that Kyodai will exchange the tiles between them, without touching their positions or their number. It's particularly useful when there are no more possible moves. Indeed, you can find new combinations this way. But please remember that every possible move left will then cost you 10 seconds. For example, if you have 5 moves left to do, press Shuffle, and you'll have, let's say, 8 moves left now. Your current time will be increased by (8x10)=80 seconds. So, use this function only when you really have no more moves left !
· Stop : Stop current game and empty screen.
· Restart : Restart current game from the beginning.
· Player Name : Click to change your name as it will appear in the hall of fame. (From now on, since the Player Name box is in the Hall of Fame dialog box, clicking on this has the same effect as clicking on "Hall of Fame")
· Vertical Variation : Switch to Vertical or Horizontal variation of Mahjongg Solitaire. The rules are the same for both versions, except that in the Vertical variation, you'll need the tiles to be free on their top or bottom sides, instead of left or right.
View
· Invert Selection : This option allows you to invert the tiles when they are selected. It's useful when you load a tileset that doesn't have special backgrounds for selection & hints.
· Cool Mouse : Shows either the default Windows mouse cursor or a "futuristic" cursor.
· Cool Toolbar : Enable or disable the funny MSIE3-like background on the toolbar.
· Cool Buttons : Now, you can choose whether you want the buttons to be "normal" (like in most Win95 applications) or transparent (like in Kyodai 4.x and most Win98 applications)
· Cool Status : Enable or disable the Cool Status line. If activated, the status line's text will scroll when it appears. Please note that even if you disable the Cool Status, the "No more moves" mention will (intentionally) still scroll, in order to catch your attention very quickly.
· Cool Tile Borders : Choose this option to give a beautiful gradient effect to the Tile borders.
· Cool Game Background : When you select "None" in the "Background" menu, you can choose to have a nice Gradient effect between black and the color you selected.
· Cool Window Background : Enable or disable the cool background that appears behind Kyodai's windows. The background consists of a discreet Kyodai logo (in Japanese).
· Full Screen : Puts Kyodai in Full Screen mode. You can still access the menu by pointing your mouse to the top of the screen. When the menu is there, you can get rid of it either by click on a menu item, or clicking on the game board.
· View All Layouts : Shows all the layouts in your Kyodai\Layouts directory.
· View Favorites Only : Hides the layouts that aren't in your Favorite Layouts list. You can modify this list by calling the Layout Selector.
· Show Time Left : Shows or hides the "Elapsed time" counter. Added especially for a Kyodai user who wanted it :-)
· Show Moves Left : Shows or hides the "moves left" counter. This counter tells you how many pairs of tiles you can still remove from the board. The counter can increase if, for example, when you remove a pair of tiles, they both free other tiles that can be removed as well. It can be useful to track that counter if you want to see if your latest move was strategically interesting for the game. You can disable this function because you may feel it's a way to "cheat", or simply you don't like how close you are to the end... Please Note : the "moves left" feature does NOT work with the Mahjongg Rivers game.
· Show Next Tiles : Shows or hides the "Next" indicator in the Slider and Hashira games. This indicator, of course, shows you what will be the next tiles to show up on the board...
· Show Hall of Fame : Shows or hides the Hall of Fame panel on the right side of the screen. Not available in 640x480 mode. A beta-tester reported me that this menu item didn't appear in his version - but I really don't see any reason why it shouldn't.
· Show Status Bar : Shows or hides the Status Bar. (Really ?)
· Show Manga Girls : Shows or hides the cute girls who visually comment your progression in Kyodai. Please note : you have to enable "Show Hall of Fame" in order to see them.
· Show Toolbar : Shows or hides the toolbar. If you are using a 640x480 resolution, you won't see that toolbar at startup, because there isn't enough space on the screen, but you can show it by clicking on this menu item.
· Set Main Font : Allows you to change the main font used in Kyodai... The changes will be applied in most of the text areas (not all the windows, though), including the toolbar, the status bar and the menu. It's recommended to restart Kyodai for best results after you changed the font.
Highlight : Defines how the current tile will be highlighted. The current tile is not a selected tile, it's simply the tile on which the mouse cursor is on.
· None means you don't want Kyodai to show you which tile you are on.
· Red Rectangle quickly draws a small red rectangle around the tile.
· Green Rectangle quickly draws a small green rectangle around the tile.
· Blue Rectangle quickly draws a small blue rectangle around the tile.
· Colored Tile shows the tile exactly as if it had been highlighted by a Hint call. The main difference between the [Rectangle] and the [Color] features is that [Rectangle] is faster on most PCs, but the rectangle isn't cut by the tiles surrounding it.
· Highlight Slider : Highlight the Slider game using the current rectangle color.
· Highlight in 3D mode : Highlight the game in 3D mode like in 2D mode. Please do this ONLY if you have hardware OpenGL acceleration, because it would be too slow otherwise.
· Show Current Tile shows the currently highlighted tile in the lower right corner of the board. It is useful for you if you want to make sure you can see all of the tiles of the board, even if they are hidden by other tiles. Please note that it makes the game a bit easier on certain boards, and that the use of this function is not recommended -- it's no fun anymore ! You must first select a highlight type (rectangle, colored tiled) before you can see the tile in the border.
· Only possible moves allows you to highlight only the tiles you can select. Please note that if you can select a tile, it doesn't mean that you can remove it, of course.
3D
· Go 3D !! : Switch from 2D mode to 3D mode and vice-versa. You can switch to 3D mode only if the OpenGL DLLs are enabled.
· Enable OpenGL DLLs : Allow Kyodai to load the "OPENGL32.DLL" and "GLU32.DLL" files at startup. If you disable this option, you won't be able to play in 3D, but Kyodai will launch faster.
· Enable all effects (Nice) : Enable, with one click, all of the options that actually improve the visual aspect of Kyodai in 3D. It doesn't enable the 3D options that are not directly related to the visual effects.
· Disable all effects (Fast) : Disable all of these options with one click. It is targetted to users who don't have a 3D card and would like to play the 3D version anyway. Please be aware of the fact that, even with all of the options disabled, it will STILL be very slow and nearly unplayable. I'm really sorry for all of you who can't play Kyodai 3D at full speed. That's why I'll keep updating the 2D game as well.
· Fully Textured 3D Tiles : Enable or disable the textures on the tile borders and tile backs.
· Anti-aliased Textures : Switch between Linear (Anti-aliased) and Nearest (Normal) textures. Anti-aliased textures are very smooth, but may be slower on your machine.
· Background : You can choose the kind of background you want to see behind Kyodai.
· - No Background : For best performance if you don't have hardware acceleration.
· - Normal Background : See the background as it is in 2D mode. Please note that it might not look as good as in 2D mode, because it's stored in a 256x256 texture, to provide compatibility with 3Dfx cards.
· - Background Cube : There's a nice 3D background around the board. You can disable it if it's too slow for you or if you suffer from claustrophobia ;-)...
· Enable Animations : Enable or disable animations in the 3D version. So far, it only concerns the tile-removal animation.
· Enable Lighting : Enable or disable scene lighting. When this option is enabled, the scene looks paradoxally darker. It actually adds a nice contrast effect. It can be noticed when you move the board around. I love that.
· Marble Borders : Enable or disable a specific marble effect for the tile borders. It gives a really good result with the Real Tiles tileset. If the option is disabled, Kyodai uses the tile's back to draw the borders.
· Textured Tile Faces : Show the actual tile faces. If disabled, the game is unplayable, but you can move the board faster if you're using the software emulation. There's a keyboard shortcut to this option : press "0" on the numeric pad.
· Emphasize 3D effect : Use this option to bend the tiles, which should improve playability. Press the "5" key, enable this option and you should get a visual effect very close to the 2D representation.
· Colored Layers : Add color effects to the different layers. It might help you differentiate them, especially when you're watching the board from the top.
· Show benchmark : Enable this option to show the actual rendering speed in the Status bar. A speed over 20 fps is very good. If you get a framerate below 20 fps, it won't be very playable, and below 3 fps, don't even think of playing the game.
· Contemplation mode : You've bought a new 3D card that shows very good results in Kyodai's 3D mode ? Then you can show it to your friends by setting Kyodai in Contemplation mode. The camera will slowly rotate around the board to let you "contemplate" it. You can even keep playing in this mode ! ;-)
Configuration
· Winnable Layouts...
kar_pio