Patience Revisited

Patience is back with a new look! But don't worry, it's still got the same great games, same great gameplay. The background is I bought a new palmos device, a Sony Clie, and fell in love with the high-res color screen. Patience is one of my all-time favorite programs for the pilot, and I was disappointed to see it didn't look very good anymore. So I got the source code (freely available from Keith Packard) and started teaching myself palm programming. This is the result, which I hope you will enjoy as much as I do! And a big thanks to Keith Packard, who started the whole thing! All I did was improve some visual elements, the whole application besides that is largely unchanged.

New visual features include:

Supports color, greyscale, including Sony Clie high resolution and HandEra 330 QVGA mode.
The top card is drawn with a larger, centered suit bitmap (preference).
Greyscale and color allow for prettier suits. B&W mode can be forced with a preference.
If necessary, the "10" rank is drawn narrower, to avoid exceeding the card boundary or overlapping the suit graphic.
Builds are highlighted, by compacting them vertically, and (on OS 3.5 and up) shading them grey (preference).
The background is drawn in a solid, non-white color (the pattern can be restored with a preference).
The cards are drawn with a border in all games (Montana and Spider, for example), and with rounder corners.
New color () and monochrome icons (), including a small/list icon ().

New in 2.6.2:

Added six new games: Forty Thieves, Miss Milligan, Picture Gallery, Royal Cotillion, Stalactites, and Tarantula.
Added face card graphics for Sony high resolution (I'm working on adding them for all modes, but it's hard to get detail in that small a space). Some of the new games feature face cards prominently (Picture Gallery, Royal Cotillion) so it seemed appropriate to add them. See the Sony high resolution screen shots for an example.

Note: If you are artistically inclined, the source images are included if you feel like experimenting. Contact me for card width information.

Fixed a problem selecting the background pattern in black and white mode.
Minor tweaks to layout and some game rules:

Golf: initially deal 5 rows dealt instead of 4
Klondike: in rare situations a hint wasn't suggested

New in 2.6.1:

By popular demand -- statistics! Patience now keeps track of wins and losses (a loss is defined as starting a new game without winning -- not always a real loss, but it's the best I can do).
HandEra 330 support (check out the screenshots, oooh, ahhh), including adjusting the screen when the grafitti area is minimized, and rotation (can be nice for spider or montana).
Added preferences to allow configuring the up/down buttons to choose from undo, hint, examine, and deal.
Added support for jog dial (up/down are the same as the up/down buttons, click is configurable).
Fixed greyscale Sony high resolution graphics.
Fixed the code that plays a tune when you win, and added a volume preference.
Thanks to Greg Koker for helping me test these improvements!

Known problems:

Card dragging doesn't work on OS 3.0 and earlier.

If you want to report problems or have suggestions for improvements, you can contact me at pdclose@yahoo.com. I can't promise to respond very quickly, since this is all done in my spare time, and sometimes I have less spare time than others :-) If you have a favorite solitaire game that's not here, let me know, it's relatively easy to add new games....

Here are some screenshots to give you an idea of the new look. There are also Sony high res and HandEra 330 screenshots on separate pages, due to their size.

Patience 2.52 Patience 2.6

Mono Greyscale Color

Tabby Cat

Spider

Montana

The Games

Aces High: This is a very quick and simple solitaire, infrequently winnable and pretty much determined by the deal rather than the play.
Calculation: Keeps your mind working with modulo 13 arithmetic
Canfield: Another classic, much like Klondike except foundations start at an arbitrary rank and empty tableaus are filled from a stock.
Eight Off: Similar to Freecell, but with eight tableaus and eight stocks. Almost always winnable.
Forty Thieves (2.6.2): Also known as Napolean at St Helena. A two-deck game, somewhat similar to Eight Off without the stocks. Generally, only 1 in 10 are winnable. Interesting at the end, as you hope there are enough spots to "unwind" the deck far enough to get the one card you need to continue.
FreeCell: Another classic. Make builds in alternating colors, with eight tableaus and four stocks to temporarily hold individual cards.
Golf: Count up and down, try to end with fewer than four cards showing.
Klondike: The classic; in draw-three style.
Miss Milligan (2.6.2): Two-deck game somewhat like freecell without the stocks.
Montana: Line up all four suits from 2 to King. Tap empty spaces to highlight the card which goes there. Tap cards to highlight where they go.
Picture Gallery (2.6.2): A two-deck game with three rows that build by threes (2,5,8,J; 3,6,9,Q; and 4,7,10,K). The payoff is a collection of all the face (picture) cards, thus the name.
Royal Cotillion (2.6.2): If you play your cards right, the royal couples will line up in a dance formation for you.
Spider: My favorite two-deck solitaire; Very challenging, though in theory 1 in 3 are winnable.
Stalactites (2.6.2): Build four piles in order regardless of suit, but each pile only holds 13 cards.
Tarantula (2.6.2): Another variant of spider. The same rules as spider apply, but only two suits are used, so it is easier to create builds in suit order. This is a good game to learn and practice spider.
Spiderette: A single-deck version of Spider. It seems to be less affected by skill than spider.
Tabby Cat: Something like a combination of a one-deck spider and freecell. Four tableaus and one stock (tail :-). [my favorite single-deck game, around 60% are winnable once you get the hang of it]
Towers: Similar to FreeCell, but a bit easier to play due to ten tableaus.
Vegas: Klondike solitaire using Vegas rules (draw one card).
Wish: A very easy game, pairs of cards matching in rank are discarded until no cards are left. Approximately 25% of deals are winnable.
Yukon: Looks like Klondike, but is more complicated.

The Play

All of the games have the same controls; most of the time tapping on a column will move some cards in a useful manner. When that doesn't work, drag a card where you want it to go. Hints and 1024-level undo are always available.

Based on Patience 2.5.2 by Keith Packard, in accordance with his software license. Note: Keith is not responsible for this version -- please don't contact him with problems.

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that the name of Keith Packard not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission. Keith Packard makes no representations about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

KEITH PACKARD DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL KEITH PACKARD BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

Face cards derived from the PySol standard cardset, modified under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Originals included with this distribution. The originals are copyrighted under the GPL as follows:
Copyright (C) 1997 John Fitzgibbon
Copyright (C) 1997 Jochen Tuchbreiter <whynot@mabi.de>
Copyright (C) 1998 Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer <markus.oberhumer@jk.uni-linz.ac.at>

	Patience 2.52	Patience 2.6
	Patience 2.52	Mono	Greyscale	Color
Tabby Cat
Spider
Montana