More Great Game For Your 68K Mac June 25th Backgammon, Word Games, And Games of Skill This column will again cover games. Since the Apple market has been booming, there are games, utilities, and other programs for Macs coming out of the woodwork. We are finally beginning to have some really good choices; and because the Mac is so graphics friendly, most of the new choices feature options that are not available on other kinds of computers. All of the games covered this week are available for 68K or above machines. If you need to find out what your operating system is you can check it out in the column from May 26, 1999. Also remember that if you do not have stuffit expander or some like product on your machine you won't be able to successfully download and install games off the internet. For information on stuffit expander see the columns for December 16, and December 23, 1998. Most of these games are available for download from more than one source and I will include all that I identify. For Adults and Teens - Board Game David's Backgammon 2.8.5. 256 RAM. Created by David Byrum. His home page is http://members.aol.com/wingammon/backgammon/ This is a demo of Shareware and sells for $20. It can be downloaded from the author's home page, from Mac 68K games at www.pixi.com/~schizo, or from www.download.com. Download with my 56K modem took less than 2 minutes. For $25 you can get the game and have an instruction book mailed to you. It requires System 7. I have never played Backgammon in my life and thought it would be interesting to see if I could figure it out from this program. I was able to do so. The graphics are very good and there is sound, including a computer generated voice that offers advice, gives rules, and keeps a novice going. The voice can be disabled for the more experienced players. You have a number of options available to you including speed, sound, and difficulty, as well as other options that can be turned on or off as you choose. These include things like the ability to replay a move, to ask the computer to recommend the best move, or set the cursor so that it gives you letters to identify information you might want to activate such as "help" or "pip count". You can set up any board situation, change the board colors and play against a computer opponent or a live person. This seems like an all inclusive set of options and folks who enjoy Backgammon will probably enjoy this program. It does not have to be installed on your machine. Once you get the download, you can instantly start playing by clicking on the folder. For Everyone - Word Game Hang2000 1.4. 425 KB. Created by Ken Winograd. His home page can be found at www.winograd.com. The game can be downloaded from that site, from Mac 68K games at www.pixi.com/~schizo, or from www.download.com. Download with my 56K modem took less than a minute. This is Shareware and sells for $20 System Requirement: Any Macintosh capable of displaying 256 colors. Basically I am done for here; i.e., hooked. This game is totally cool and appropriate for all ages and skill levels. The premise is based on the hangman game most of us played as kids. You try to guess the proper letters to complete the word or words before you miss too many and get hung. I actually had a simple version of Hangman on my computer until I tried this one. The old one has been discarded and this one will take a major spot on my Mac. The features include a computer voice that spells and pronounces the completed words and, in some cases, give additional information about the subject. The voice also responds when you choose letters and tells you how wonderful you are when you win. You can check to see if your particular Mac supports speech synthesis by looking in the Control Panels under the Apple Menu for an item called Speech. Hang2000 automatically will utilize the built-in speech synthesizer if it is there. There is something basically very funny to me about a monotone digital voice telling me I am a radical dude, but you do have the option of turning off the voice if you wish. Once you pay your shareware fee you can add your own messages for the computer to repeat when you win or loose a game. Before starting the game you choose how many chances you want to have for misses and colored blocks on the screen let you know how many chances you have left. The graphics are non-violent and colorful. You have the option to choose topics for word lists. Some of the options are dinosaurs, state capitals, monsters, Star Trek, TV, etc. I choose Star Trek to start with. One topic was the real name of an actor, another was a type of equipment used on the star ships, and others were character names. Words from all four shows are included. I also checked out comics and cartoons (while cleverly avoiding vice presidents) and found topics ranging from Joe Palooka and Moon Mullins to modern cartoons and comics such as The Smurfs. You can also make your own lists, adding your own definitions. With that ability you can customize lists for kids learning to read or someone trying to learn a foreign language. This latest iteration of the game includes an extended character set allowing the entry and display of words in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. In English you have the choice between upper and lower case letters and there are a variety of color combination choices for the letters that allow each person to use those that are visually most pleasing. This is really a well designed and fun game with lots of options that will keep it interesting for the whole family for a long time. It does not have to be installed on your machine. Once you get the download, you can instantly start playing by clicking on the folder. For Everyone - Skill Game Brickles Deluxe 322KB. Created by Ken Winograd. His home page can be found at www.winograd.com. The game can be downloaded from that site, from Mac 68K games at www.pixi.com/~schizo, or from www.download.com. Download time with my 56K modem was about a minute. This is Shareware and sells for $20. System Requirement: Any Macintosh capable of displaying 256 colors. It downloaded in less than a minute on my 56K modem. I was so impressed with the previous game that I checked to see if Ken Winograd had created any other games. Ken has also created Brickles Deluxe. This is called a "ball and paddle" game - think ping pong without sweating. The first version of Brickles was offered in 1985 and has remained a popular game concept since then. You play the game by knocking out bricks of color without dropping the ball or missing it with your paddle. You can play very slowly, slow, fast, or very fast. You can modify the size of your ball as well. You can even play with two or four paddles at once if you are a really experienced player; say in the 10 to 16 year old range. If you remove all the bricks in one set before you loose all the game balls, then you automatically get a new set of bricks and you keep going and keep earning points. Certain bricks will increase the value of your points once you knock them out. It does not take long to learn how to maneuver your paddle so that you can bounce the ball off the walls and make it go in different directions. The sounds are varied and not annoying and the digital voice applauds or commiserate as necessary at the end of each game. The various options for speed and skill make this an ideal game for the whole family and the Shareware price is very reasonable in relationship to the quality of the program. It does not have to be installed on your machine. Once you get the download, you can instantly start playing by clicking on the folder. For Adults, Teenagers, and some Preteens - Skill Game Sokoban 2.4.2. 203 KB RAM. Created by Scott Lindhurst, http://members.aol. com/sokobanMac/scott/. This game is free. You can find get it from Mac 68K games at www.pixi.com/~schizo, or from www.download.com. Download on my 56K modem took less than a minute. System requirements: 6.0.7 or later. This is a puzzle game, first created in Japan, requiring logical thinking and puzzle-solving skills. Fortunately for me, there is a simple version option of the game included in the package as well as regular versions. Once I tried the simple version I was able to move back to the regular game choices, not because the game was not explained well, but because I was not skilled at playing it. The simple version is a good choice for kids as well as inexperienced grandmothers. In Sokoban, you have to move treasures through a twisty and narrow maze. What makes it hard is that you can only push the treasures, not pull them, and you can push only one treasure at a time, so you may have to move other treasures out of the way first to get behind the one you want to push. And moving those treasures out of the way of the first treasure might move them behind another one or into a corner, and then - well you get the idea. There are 200 levels of difficulty available. The emphasis is on logic, not quick reflexes. The levels are not timed, nor are you forced to solve them in order so you can concentrate on exercising your brain and solving the puzzle instead of wasting time repeating the same moves over and over again. In version 2.4 you can turn sound on or off and to use the space bar to redo your last move. Preteens, teens, and adults - Puzzle SmallMines 2.5.1. 55K. Created by Charles Miller (no e-mail address or web address found). Requires System 7.1 or Greater. The game is free. Download time was less than a minute and you can get it from www.download.com or Mac 68K Games at www.pixi.com/~schizo. This game is a version of Minesweeper, one of the games that comes with those other kinds of computers. You know, the ones that always have problems. I have included it for your use just in case a family member has been complaining about not having it available on a Mac. The game involves clicking on the tiles of a game board. If you manage to click on all of the tiles except for the ones containing land mines, you win. There are good directions that accompany the program and this is a good, simple game for anyone just learning the computer. Experienced users will probably get bored fairly quickly. However, you can adjust the difficulty levels which I don't think you can do on the other versions. Lots of choices in these games, but all are good for inexperienced computer users. I hope some of you will let me know how you like them. If you have any tips, hints, or thoughts on these topics, make sure you write me so that I can share your thoughts with other readers.