![]() |
Easy MEMOAdvanced manual |
Update on December, 2004 |
A game set is a custom concentration game for Easy MEMO. When you create a game set, players can play with it as a new concentration game. You can customize lot of things:
You can customize all of that and you have to create a Cards.dat and a Games.dat text files (see below the format of these files). You can also customize only just the Pictures of the cards and the Back of the cards and you don't need a Cards.dat or a Games.dat text files, just your pictures (see below What is a card and Back of the cards).
Most important: Creating a game set starts with creating a subfolder with the name of your choice in the EasyMemory/Planches folder. Then you have to put into this new subfolder all you need for your new game set.
A card can be a picture only or a picture with:
In the first case you just have to collect pictures, resize them in similar sizes and put them in your sufolder. In the second case you have to collect pictures and sounds (if you want) put them in your subfolder and create the Cards.dat file (see below).
You can create a game set of completely different cards (a house, a plane, a boat...) or use a theme (country flags, celebrities, famous paintings...). You should have enough cards to allow players to play with a lot of cards on the screen even in high resolution (1024*768 or higher) and to play different games without the same picture coming back too often.
Correct format for pictures is jpg or gif (with uses of transparency)
Correct format for sounds is sun format (.au file with 8khz and Mu-Law 8bit subformat)
You have to create the picture for the back of your cards with the same size as the biggest of your pictures.
If you don't want to create a Games.dat file you must use the gif format and name is : z_dos.gif. Otherwise, you can use gif or jpg format and name it as you want (the name must begin with z_, see Games.dat format below).
Cards must be described in a text file named Cards.dat. You can create it with notepad.
The first line of this file must be "STRUCT_VERSION=500". Then you add a line for each card. Structure of the line is:
[ID]=[Pict];[Sound];[later];[Game text];[later];[End text];[later]
There should not be any space around = and ; signs.
[ID] Unique identifier for this card. [Pict] Filename of the picture of the card (jpg or gif format).
It can not begins with z_[Sound] Filename of the sound of the card. The sound is played when the card is displayed. (.au file with 8khz and Mu-Law 8bit subformat) [Game text] Comment text displayed at the bottom of the window during the game when the player clicks on a card displayed on the screen. [End text] Comment text displayed at the bottom of the window at the end of the game when the player click on a card displayed on the screen. [later] Not used in Easy MEMO v5.00 - Future uses.
You can add a background picture to your game set. Your cards will be displayed on a pretty background of your choice instead of the default wood background.
You have to choose the type of your background : mosaic picture or unique picture. Then find or create the background picture file. You must rename it as z_Background.jpg and move it into your game set subfolder. Then you just have to add the following properties in your Games.dat file. (see properties table below)
You can add specific sounds for your game set. Players will hear your sounds and not the default sounds when they will play with your game set. You can add the 3 sounds or only 1 or 2.
The 3 possible sounds are:To add a sound, find or create it in Sun format (.au 8khz and Mu-Law 8bit subformat) and put the .au file in the folder of the game set. Then add the good properties (game_SoundOK, game_SoundBad or game_SoundEnd) with sound filename in the Games.dat file.
Game set must be describe in a text file named Games.dat. You can create it with notepad.
The first line of this file must be "STRUCT_VERSION=500". Then you add a line for each properties. Structure of the line is:
[property name]=[property value]
There should not be any space before or after =. Game set properties are listed in the following table (be careful, there are case sensitives). All of them begins with game_. In Games.dat file you can have other lines beginnings with figure, there are scenarios lines. (see below for scenario structure)
Property Value Description game_TitleUS
NeededText English title for the game set. game_TitleFR
NeededText French title for the game set. game_Author Text Your name, it will appear in the About this set window. game_Email Your email address, so the users of your game set can email you (About this set window) game_Website URL Your website url, so the users of your game set can visit your homepage (About this set window) game_Version Text Version number of your game set, you can also add the date. game_SoundOK .au filename Filename of the sound you will hear each time you succeed in getting a group of matching cards (eg OK.au) game_SoundBad .au filename Filename of the sound you will hear each time you complete a group with non matching cards (eg Bad.au) game_SoundEnd .au filename Filename of the sound you will hear when you have find all groups of cards (eg End.au) game_BackCard .gif or .jpg filename Filename of the picture displayed on the back of your cards. game_Level 1 to 5 This is to indicate if your game set is a very specialized game set (value 5) or a general game set (value 1).
A game set with very different pictures (tree, animal, house...) will be very general and take the value 1.
A game set with very similar pictures (like different Persian cats) will be very specialized and take the value 5.game_BackgroundAlignH
Needed for backgroundMOSAIC / LEFT / CENTER / RIGHT Choose MOSAIC if you want your picture displayed on all the background in a mosaic mode. Otherwise choose the horizontal alignment for your picture.
Of course, if you don't add a background picture, you don't have to add this property.game_BackgroundAlignV MOSAIC / TOP / CENTER / BOTTOM With this property you can choose the vertical alignment of your picture.
CENTER by default. Used only if the game_BackgroundAlignH is not MOSAIC.game_BackgroundColor
Needed for backgroundred,green,blue
with each of the 3 values between 0 and 255Useful if you add a picture with an alignment different from MOSAIC. You can have the rest of the screen of the same color as the sky of your picture for example.
Use the RGB value for your color. (ex: game_BackgroundColor=255,0,0 for red color).game_BackgroundLight 0 to 255 In dialog box with text (like About Set...), the text can be difficult to read on your background. Also you can solarize your background in this kind of dialog box. Try different values until the text becomes readable.
game_BackgroundColor Tip: If your screen, or the screen of someone playing with your game set, is not in real color (24 bits or higher), you can have a little difference between the color of the sky of your picture and the color of the background around your picture. To solve it, setup your screen in 256 or 16 bits colors, start Easy MEMO with your game set, make a hard copy of the screen, paste it in a picture software (like paintshop pro) and look at the rgb value used for your sky and your background. Then use the same value for your sky and the game_BackgroundColor property.
With scenarios you can create sub games of your game set or even other kind of game. For example with Cries of the Animals there are sound cards and silent cards. So we have scenarios with only silent cards and others with both.
You can create as many scenarios as you want. All you have to do is use the following properties and preface each one with the scenario number. Scenario number must starts to 1 and you don't let gap number between scenarios.
A scenario must be defined for a language, a range of difficulty and a kind of game. Structure for a scenario line is:
[Nb]_[Property]=[Value];[Value2];...
There should not be any space around _ = and ; signs.
[Nb] Scenario number from 1. No gap between number. [Property] See property table below. [Value] Property value (see below) [Value2] Some properties needed several values (see below)
Property Value
Value2Description Title Text Scenario title Lang US / FR Scenario language. You can play with it only if you choose correct language in File/Language menu. Level 1 to 5 This is to indicate if your scenario is very specialized (value 5) or general (value 1).
A scenario with very different pictures (tree, animal, house...) will be very general and take the value 1.
A scenario with very similar pictures (like differents persian cats) will be very specialized and take the value 5.Begin 0 Future uses Text Description of your scenario game. Displayed at the beginning of the game. Diff 2 to 5 Difficulty minimum of your scenario. If you enter 3, players can't play your scenario with a difficulty of 2. Be careful, it depends also on your group's size (cf below). 2 to 5 Difficulty maximum of your scenario. If you enter 3, players can't play your scenario with a difficulty of 4 or 5. Be careful, it depends also of your groups size (cf below). Type Identical / Different Kinds of games. With "Identical" players have to match identical cards and with "Different" players have to match different cards (like a picture and a sound).
After defining scenario properties you have to define groups of your scenario. A group is a set of cards matching each other. Groups is mandatory for "Different" mode. If you don't define Groups for an "Identical" scenario, all cards will be available. You need as many group lines as groups. Structure of a group line:
[Nb]_GR_[Group line]=[Card ID];[Card ID];...
There should not be any space around _ = and ; signs.
[Nb] Scenario number from 1. No gap between number. [Group line] Group line number from 1 (restart from 1 for each scenario. No gap between number. [Card ID] [ID] of the card as define in Cards.dat above.
For a scenario Identical you can have only one [card ID] by group line.
For a scenario Different, each group line must have at least as many [card ID] as Difficulty maximum of your scenario.
There must not be any spaces between these 3 parts. The name of this file is EasyMEMOry.ini. It is in the Easy MEMO main folder
Tip for the PC user: If you installed Easy MEMO with the
auto install file, the EasyMEMOry.ini file is available in the
Start / Program / Easy MEMO menu.
2. Tag list Update
Tag name | Values | Description |
---|---|---|
Difficulty | Range 2 to 5 | Selects the difficulty in the Options / Difficulty menu. |
DefaultSize | integer | Sets your favourite size for playing. It's the number of cards on the screen. |
Preview | Selects the preview mode for the Options / Preview menu. | |
None | No preview mode. | |
Fast | Quick mode. | |
Slow | Slow mode. | |
Background | Selects the background mode in the Options / Background menu. | |
None | No pretty background, only lightgray. | |
Standard | Always a pretty wood background. | |
Set | Uses the background provided with each game set. | |
Blink | Selects the blink mode in the Options / Blink menu. | |
None | Cards will not blink when played. | |
Fast | Cards will blink 2 times when played. | |
Slow | Cards will blink 4 times when played. | |
GameMode | Selects the kind of game at startup. You can change it with Options/Game. | |
Identical | You play classic concentration game by matching identical cards. | |
Different | You play advanced concentration game by matching different cards (like an animal and its cry). | |
VanishMode | True / False | Enable vanish mode, the pairs disappear when you find its, or when you complete a group of cards. (shareware release only) |
SoundOK | True / False | Enable sound for good try. |
SoundBad | True / False | Enable sound for bad try. |
SoundEnd | True / False | Enable sound for end of game. |
SetName | _ALL_ or Text | Choose the list of game sets for your default playlist. You have to use the folder name
of each game set separated by comma (e.g. SetName=Felins_portraits,Disney,Mousez). You can also use "_ALL_" for a random selection in all game sets available. |
SetFilter | True / False | Restrict (if True) list of available game set to the list above (cf SetName). |
ScenarioIdUS ScenarioIdFR |
Number | Select scenario ID for each language. |
PlayerType1 PlayerType2 PlayerType3 PlayerType4 |
Selects the type of each player. | |
None | If this player dosn't play. | |
Human | If this player is a human player. | |
Perfect | If this player is a very clever computer player. | |
Advanced | If this player is a clever computer player. | |
Beginner | If this player is a beginner computer player. | |
FirstGame | If this player is a random computer player. | |
Teacher | If this player is a teacher player. (Shareware only) | |
PlayerName1 PlayerName2 PlayerName3 PlayerName4 |
nothing or Text | Chooses the name for each human player. If this tag is not set, the default name is used (language dependent, eg Player for English, Joueur for French). |
BoutonPlayStop | True / False | Show (true) or Hide the Play/Stop buttons. |
MenuPlayer, MenuVanish, MenuSound, MenuBackground, MenuBlink, MenuPreview, MenuGameOptions, MenuGameSet, MenuOptionG |
True / False | Show (true) or Hide these menus/options. |
Difficulty=2 DefaultSize=8 Preview=None Background=Set Blink=Fast GameMode=Identical VanishMode=True SoundOK=True SoundBad=True SoundEnd=True SetName=_ALL_ SetFilter=False PlayerType1=Human PlayerType2=None PlayerType3=None PlayerType4=None BoutonPlayStop=True MenuPlayer=True MenuVanish=true MenuOptionG=True MenuSound=True MenuBackground=True MenuBlink=True MenuPreview=True MenuGameOptions=True MenuGameSet=True
Tip: With tags SetFilter and SetName (see above) in different ini files, you can create desktop shortcuts for your kids as they can play with only some game sets and not all game sets installed on your computer.