Help System

DESCRIPTION
Rakshasa Solitaire is one of the most popular variants of Solitaire card
games around.  In some regions, it is also referred to as Spider Solitaire.
Fittingly, Alyria manufactures portable Solitaire sets which support this
variant.  These sets can be purchased at your neighborhood REWARD UNIT shop.

For general information about Solitaire and the Solitaire Set, see
HELP SOLITAIRE.

RULES
The rules of Rakshasa Solitaire are simple.  First, a game of solitaire can
either be played with 1, 2, or 4 different suits.  The general rules are the
same in each case, but greater numbers of different suits make the game more
difficult.  

The game begins by dealing ten stacks of cards face down.  Four of these
stacks are dealt six cards, and the other six are dealt five cards.  The top
card of each of these stacks is turned face up.  Additionally, there remain
five sets of ten cards to be dealt in later.  

The goal of the game is to create eight sets of cards of one suit, in
descending order.  Specifically, a set must contain these cards in the this
descending order: King, Queen, Jack, Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five,
Four, Three, Two, Ace (Rakshasa).  Once a set is created on the board, it is
devoured by the Rakshasa, and removed from play.  The game continues until
all eight possible sets are created and the board becomes empty of cards.  

During play, the player can do one of two things.  The first option is to
move a card or run of cards from one stack to another.  When moving a run of
cards, all cards in the run must be of the same suit and in descending order
of value (Aces/Rakshasas are low).  A legal move must result the combination
of the run of cards moved and the top card of the destination stack to be in
descending order of value, however, the suits do not have to match.  When
moving cards to an empty stack, the latter consideration is irrelevant.  

The second option available to players at any point is to deal ten cards
from the remaining undealt cards.  This can be done five times total during
a game, and can only be performed when there are no empty stacks on the
board, or if it is not possible to fill all empty stacks.  

ALYRIAN VERSION FEATURES
The portable Alyrian version of Rakshasa solitaire includes configurable
game board display, the ability to share the status of your current game
board with others, and the recording of high scores.

COMMANDS
For general Solitaire Set commands, see HELP SOLITAIRE

The following commands are available for this variant of Solitaire:

  SETSUITS <# of suits>
  NEWGAME
  MOVE <# of cards to move> <stack # to move from> <stack # to move to>
  MOVE <hint #>
  DEAL
  UNDO
  HINT

Additionally, the following settings are available:

  SETHINTS <option> - options are OFF, LIST


SETSUITS <# of suits>
     Rakshasa Solitaire can be played with 1, 2, or 4 suits. The more suits
     there are, the harder the game becomes as it becomes more difficult to
     match cards for a valid move.

NEWGAME
     Starts a new game of Rakshasa Solitaire. You can

MOVE [<# of cards to move>] <stack # to move from> <stack # to move to>
     As explained in the RULES above, a move consists of a run of cards
     being transferred from one numbered card stack to another. When
     viewing the game board, the row of numbers above the cards are the
     the numbers of each of the 10 card stacks. An example of a move is
     MOVE 1 2 3. This will move 1 card from stack 2 to stack 3. See the
     RULES above for details about movement restrictions. If only the
     from and to stack numbers are specified, then either the largest
     run in the from stack will be moved, or only as many as it is legal
     to move to the destination stack will be moved. There is always at
     most one valid move between two stacks unless the destination stack
     is empty.

MOVE <hint #>
     If you have generated a numbered list of hints (either automatically,
     using the SETHINTS LIST setting, or by using the HINT command), you
     can specify the number of the hint to execute.

DEAL
     Deals a set of 10 cards, one to each stack. See the RULES above for
     details.

UNDO
     Reverts the effect of the last move made. This can only be done for
     one move in a row and is only valid for moves that do not complete a
     set. Deals cannot be undone.

HINT
     Shows a list of possible moves. This is the same as the list displayed
     automatically with the game board when SETHINTS is set to LIST. There
     is no scoring penalty for using hints. Note that moves of partial runs
     onto a destination stack of the same suit are not shown and neither
     are moves to empty stacks.

SETHINTS
     Changes hint display. When set to LIST, a numbered list of possible
     moves will be displayed whenever the game board is displayed. These
     hints can then be executed directly using MOVE <hint #>.
    
SEE ALSO
Solitaire, Fnargh