Lucas Solitaire
Lucas Solitaire Help
Object of the Game
The object of Lucas Solitaire is to build by suit, the 8 Foundation piles from ACE up to KING. For example: [ACE of Clubs, 2 of Clubs, 3 of Clubs, ..., JACK of Clubs, QUEEN of Clubs, KING of Clubs] (The Foundation piles are the 8 piles at the top.)
Layout
The Foundation piles are the 8 piles at the top, and directly below that are the 13 Tableau piles.
The pile in the bottom left corner is the Stock pile. Cards from the Stock pile are dealt face up to the next pile to the right called the Waste pile (at the start of the game the Waste pile is just an empty space).
Rules
FOUNDATION : The game starts with all the ACES already in the Foundation piles. The next card in a pile will then be a 2 of the same suit as the ACE. Continue building in the same way (3,4, 5, ... , JACK, QUEEN, KING) with all the cards being of the same suit. The other 7 Foundation piles are built the same way -- (ascending rank, same suit).
TABLEAU : With the Tableau pile, you can place on any card, a card of one lower rank and of the same suit (e.g. on a 9 of Clubs, you can place an 8 of Clubs). When a Tableau pile becomes empty, any card may be placed in that empty pile.
STOCK : Cards in the Stock pile are played to the Waste pile one at a time. According to the rules, there are no redeals of the Stock pile; however, if you click on the Stock placeholder, you will be given the option to break the rules and redeal the Stock pile anyway.
WASTE : The current last card in the Waste pile is playable to the Tableau or the Foundation, and then the card underneath it (which now becomes the last card) then becomes playable. No cards from the Tableau or Foundation can be played onto the Waste pile.
Interface
Left-click the top Stock card to turn it over and move it to the Waste pile. Drag and drop to move a card from one pile to another. In addition to dragging and dropping to move a card to a Foundation pile, you can also double-click or right-click a card to auto-move it to the Foundation. Also, to auto-move all playable cards to the Foundation, double-click or right-click on any card in any Foundation pile. To temporarily move a Tableau card to the foreground in order to see what suit it is (this is not cheating), hold down the ALT key and then MouseDown on the card. When you MouseUp the card will move back to underneath the cards that came after it.
Menu Options
GAME : "Restart Game" will start the current game over from the beginning; that is, the cards will be re-dealt to the table without shuffling the deck.
"New Game" will start a new game of Forty Thieves; that is, the deck will be shuffled and then dealt to the table.
"Solitaire Games..." will take you to the home page where you can choose to play a different solitaire game.
OPTIONS / CHEATS : The "Block Dragging" item allows you to drag and drop a group of cards, instead of just one. If the "If In Order" menu item is set, then the group of cards must all be of the same suit and in descending sequence, and the first card in the group can only be dropped on a card of the same suit and of one higher rank. If "Any Block" is set, then any group of cards can be dragged, regardless of whether they are of the same suit or in descending rank (the group of cards must still follow the rules about what they can be dropped on).
The "Pile Peeking" item tells you how to peek at the cards in the Stock pile.
BACKGROUND : Here you can choose a background image for the table, and a background color for the rest of the window.
DECK : Here you can choose a different card deck.
HELP : Choose this to get the rules for the game, and also how to interact with the game.
UNDO MOVE : You can undo moves all the way back to the beginning of the game.
Cheats
To help you win the game, the program gives you the opportunity to "bend" the standard rules :
UNDO : Don't like which card you picked to drag to another pile? Just undo that move (or moves) and pick another card. You can undo moves all the way back to the beginning of the game.
BLOCK DRAGGING : If you have a group of cards you can move, but don't have enough empty piles to be able to move the cards one-at-a-time, you can enable block-dragging. Now you will be able to move that group of cards as though it was one card. If the "If In Order" menu item is set, then the group of cards must all be of the same suit and in descending sequence, and the first card in the group can only be dropped on a card of the same suit and of one higher rank. If "Any Block" is set, then any group of cards can be dragged, regardless of whether they are of the same suit or in descending rank (the group of cards must still follow the rules about what they can be dropped on).
PEEKING : You can peek at what cards are in any pile by holding down the CTRL key or the SHIFT key and pressing MouseDown. A list of cards that are in that pile will display at the bottom of the "table" area. (NOTE : In Opera holding down CTRL and left-clicking will bring up the "SAVE AS" dialog. Instead, hold down the SHIFT key and left-click.)
STOCK REDEALS : When all the cards in the Stock pile are played to the Waste pile, you can click on the Stock placeholder and be given the option to deal the Stock pile again.
NOTE : Holding down the ALT key and doing a MouseDown to temporarily bring a card to the foreground is not cheating. With some cards(in certain card decks) that are overlapped by other cards, you can not determine what suit they are. Alt-clicking on the card brings the card to the foreground which then enables you to tell that the card is an ACE of diamonds, not an ACE of hearts, for example.