Five Hundred by Paradice Software is a single player computer game of the classic card game "500". Your partner and opponents are all controlled by the computer. The purpose of this game is to allow the user to play a quick game of cards when they have some spare time, and not worry about needing other human players present, or an actual deck of cards, so in this purpose it is similar to the bundled Windows' game "Solitaire", but because it's 500 instead, hopefully it is more enjoyable! To this end, the whole interface has been kept very simple and intuitive, and it will only take a couple of seconds to launch into the game itself. This game is completely Freeware (although feel free to send me praise or comments!) as, after looking on the internet one rainy day, I found only one or two 500 games at all, and they looked & played very poorly, and they were shareware... So, enjoy!

As mentioned above, it is very very easy to start playing 500. When you launch the application, you are presented with a menu containing six buttons, and they are hopefully self-explanatory. The very first time you play, the first thing you should click on is "Preferences". The preferences screen allows you to select a table (background) and cardset that appeals to you, and you can also edit the names of yourself and your opponents at the bottom. The other options control how you want the computer to sort your hand, whether you want sound, etc etc. All settings are also stored for the next time you play. When you're done, you're ready to begin! Press "Start New Game" on the main menu, and the game will begin. Cards will be shuffled and you will be dealt a hand. Based on the rules of 500, select your bid, the other players will do the same, and you will be into the game itself. At the end of each round your scores will be adjusted, and if you get over 500 points (or your opponents fall to -500) you win. Other than that, there isn't much more to say. There are a couple of variations available on the "Variations" menu, and if you have a particular variation you like to play, you can always use the Feedback facility to let me know about it, and I might well add it in for the next release!

There are a few special features in Paradice Software 500 that hopefully can help you to enjoy the game more. Firstly of course, there is the customisable tables and cardbacks, as when I was creating it a top priority was that it should at least be decent to look at! As well as the provided images, you can very easily add your own by placing your own tables into the "RESOURCE\TABLES" folder (in .jpg format) and cardbacks go into the "RESOURCE\CARDSETS" folder (as .GIF images this time). There is also options for sound etc. in the preferences menu.
The other main feature is the "Unique Cardbacks" option in the Preferences menu. This allows you to have a different card-back for each player. To change the cardbacks from the defaults, you need to go into the "RESOURCE\SETTINGS" folder and open up "cusbacks.txt". The first line of the file is "true" or "false" and indicates whether the Unique Cardbacks feature is in use. The next three lines are the file names for the images to use for player 2,3 and 4 (player 1 is selected through Preferences menu). You do not need to add the path to these, the program knows to look in "RESOURCE\CARDSETS" already. That's pretty much all there is at this stage!

You are more than welcome to get in contact with me to discuss features/variations you would like, as well as bugs, comments, praise, criticism, or even enquiries about lx5suite (the FPC library used to create X500). You can also check for the latest version. To contact me, you want to go here:

Website: http://www.paradicesoftware.com
E-Mail: lawrence@paradicesoftware.com

Some of the future plans already being looked at are: more variations (SLAM bids, 5-card kitty etc), player profiles (which can keep track of games won and lost, and store settings for multiple players on one computer), and maybe (in the far future) network play. Feel free to suggest your own ideas, of course!

Lawrence Curwood, Paradice Software.

The object of the game is to collect 500 points and avoid collecting -500 points. The game is played in two teams, with the player and partner (opposite) playing against the players on the left and right. each other. The highest ranked cards are Ace, King, Queen, etc (as in Whist and Bridge), but the trump suit also has the Joker (highest card of all), then the Right Bower (the Jack of the trump suit) and the Left Bower (the jack of the other suit of the same colour) above the Ace (same as Euchre).

The game starts with each player bidding in turn for how many tricks they think they can win with their chosen trump suit. The minimum bid is six tricks (out of ten), and the suits are ranked from Spades to Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and No Trumps. Bidding continues until three out of four players have passed, then the winning player picks up the "kitty" - the three remaining cards from the deal - and can discard three cards from his hand before beginning to play.

Higher bids give the player higher scores (if successful) or lose more points (if they cannot meet their bid). Players get 40 points for Spades, 60 for Clubs, 80 for Diamonds, 100 for Hearts, and 120 points for a No Trumps bid (each of six tricks), and 100 extra points for each trick over six. If a team takes all ten tricks, and the bid score is worth less than 250, the team wins 250 points instead. In all cases, the non-bidding team wins 10 points per trick they manage to win.

Misere is an alternative bid - the player basically bids that based on their hand, they will LOSE all ten tricks. The bid is worth 250 points. The player's partner sits out the round. Note that you can disable Misere in the Variations menu.

No Trumps is a bid in which no suit is trumps. In this case, the Joker becomes the only trump and is very valuable, but it can only be played when the player cannot follow suit.

This program X500 did not actually take as long to create as you might think... I have spent the last couple of years working on a library called "lx5suite", which is basically designed to make utilising graphics, sound, mouse, Windows, timing, etc.. as simple as possible for other programmers, but [excepting a few simple games] I had never actually created a full, stable application with it. So this was the test. It was made over about a two week period (a VERY short time for a full application!) and then small refinements were made (as it was being played by friends and colleagues etc) over about two months. lx5suite is responsible for how smooth and pretty everything looks, and Freepascal (from www.freepascal.org) was the language used to write it, and the reason why it was so easy & quick to write, is very fast, and is so stable (hopefully).

Lawrence Curwood Paradice Software January 13, 2003. www.paradicesoftware.com