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Briscola	A simple game of cards: play against the computer
		or a remote player over a TCP/IP network.

Version:	4.1	02/23/98

Author:		Niccolo Rigacci <rigacci@iname.com>
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ARCHIVE CONTENTS
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COPYING			GNU General Public License
README			This file
about.gif		Image for about box
briscola-4.1.lsm	Linux software map file
briscola.tk		Main Tcl/Tk script
cards.gif		Image of the cards
common.tk		Auxiliary file needed by briscola.tk
window.tk		Auxiliary file needed by briscola.tk


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HOW TO START
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To run the program:
- copy the .tk and .gif files in a directory
- adjust the first line of briscola.tk to point to your Tk shell
- adjust the second line of briscola.tk to poin to the directory
  where you copied the files to
- run briscola.tk

Once started the game, you can play with the computer or start a network
game by the Game menu. In a network game one must be the server, the other
will be the client.


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NOTE
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Some days before uploading this program to sunsite.unc.edu, I discoverd that
a Briscola game already exists. Its name is xnetbrisk-1.00.tgz, by Brendan
Bartlett (bartlett@io.org). You can find it on sunsite.unc.edu in the
directory /pub/Linux/games/multiplayers/cards.

The two programs are rather different: Brendan's one is written in C, it can
plays a 2 or 4 player match, but the computer player is stupid (it plays its
cards randomly), so you have to have a network partner to play. The program
uses the Neapolitan cards.

My program instead is a Tcl/Tk script, it can plays only a 2 player match,
but the computer player is a little smarter and can beat you sometimes :-).
My program also uses the Tuscan cards, which I love more.

Besides that, I wrote this program as an experiment to test the capabilities
of the language in building graphic interfaces and managing socket
connections. So I think it can be of interest to the newbies of the Tcl/Tk.
Some procedures I wrote (msgbox and inputbox, in common.tk) are very useful
(IMHO), and they mimic the behaviour of the respective functions in
MS-Visual Basic for Windows. This program infact is a porting of an early
program I wrote in Visual Basic (which - however - lacks the TCP/IP
support). If someone wants to write a TCP/IP enabled version of the game in
Visual Basic, please let me know: I'll send the VB source code.


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HOW TO PLAY
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This section is from BRISK.RULES by Brendan Bartlett and Fabio Esposito
(xnetbrisk-1.00.tgz), with little changes.

Briscola has long been cherished by the Italian people and is probably the
most played card game in Italy. It uses a different set of cards then what
is traditionally used in North America.  The deck ranges from 1 (Ace) to 10. 
The eight, nine, and ten are represented by a jack, queen, and king
respectively, while the others are represented by a numerical version of the
four suits: Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades. The cards you see in the
game are those used in Tuscany.

The goal in Briscola is to win as many points as possible to a maximum of
120.  The cards and their values are:

Ace          = 11 Points
Three        = 10 Points
King (Ten)   =  4 Points
Queen (Nine) =  3 Points
Jack (Eight) =  2 Points
2 and 4-7    =  0 Points

The most sought cards are obviously the Ace and the Three, to gain six of
these eight cards means victory.

After the cards have been dealt (three cards to each player), one extra card
is turned face up and placed beside the deck.  This card is the "Briscola",
and is identical to the function of the trump suit in euchre.  Thus, the
Briscola has the ability to beat any card that is lower than or not of
Briscola.  Each player plays a single card each round and wins or loses due
to the relative strength of the card he/she plays.  After the hand is played
each player takes one card (the winner first) and the winner of the
previous hand goes first when the next hand begins.

The game is played traditionally in a head-to-head game of two, or in a team
(2 players each) game of four players with your partner sitting diagonally
from each other. However in this program you can only play a 2-players
match.


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HISTORY
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2/23/98 - verision 4.1
	Bug fixed: in the last hand the briscola seed was handled
	incorrectly, thanks to Borut Mrak <BorutM@bigfoot.com>.
	Added prefix variable in briscola.tk to simplify installation.

2/2/98 - version 4.0
	First Tcl/Tk version released.
