How to play cards in Montana
How plays are marked:
All cards that play are shaded gray.
Colored arrows from a card to an empty space will show all allowed plays
that do not involve a 2. (Showing the plays with 2s creates too many arrows.)
Playing with a tap:
If you tap a card at the end of an arrow, it is moved
to the blank space pointed to by the arrow.
If you tap a blank space, the card that plays to that blank space is moved.
After the card is moved the play arrows are updated.
Play to end of the touch:
When you touch a card or blank place, you get a message indicating what plays
or that there is "No play".
You can drag your finger around to other cards and this message will change.
The actual play (if any) occurs when you lift your finger.
Playing 2s:
2s play to any blank space in the left-most column.
Any 2 can play to any left-most blank.
Tapping a 2 will move it to a random left-most blank.
If this is not the one you wanted, tap it again or tap another left-most blank
until it moves to the position you want.
Undo:
The Undo button will undo plays.
You can undo any number of plays but you cannot undo past a redeal.
Redeal:
When you are stuck press the Redeal button
to redeal the cards and continue playing.
The redeal button also displays how many redeals you have used so far.
New game:
The New game button starts a new game.
Usually you do this after you have won a game, but you can start a new game at any time.
Settings:
The
Settings button moves to the settings screen.
Number of cards in suit:
You can play with anywhere from 4 to 13 cards in each suit.
The smaller decks allow faster games and are easier to win.
It is useful to use a smaller deck to try out strategies.
Card drawing style:
You can choose any of five card styles:
full cards, three sizes of partial cards, and an abstracted pip plus color representation.
The full cards are too small to see (I think) so I recommend one of the partial card sizes.
The abstract representation displays the pip (2 through K) of the card
on a background which indicates the suit.
Spades are black, clubs are grey, hearts are red, diamonds are pink.
This is not what you are used to, but these are the most legible cards.
Card move animation time:
This allows you to set the time, in seconds, it takes to animate the card
motion when cards are moved.
A value of zero means that no animation will be done.
Set colors:
This allows you to set the color of the play marker arrows and the background.
The background is a linear gradient from the upper left (NW) to the lower right (SE).
You can select the starting colors for each of these corners and the color will
gradually change to the other color.
Mark cards that play:
You can turn off the card graying.
Show plays w/arrows:
You can turn off the play arrows.
Gradient style:
You can change the background gradient to radial (that is, circular).
Short decks:
By default short decks start with 2 and go up to the number of cards in a suit.
Alternatively you can have short decks always end with kings and go down.
So, for example, a deck with six-card suits would have 8, 9, 10, J, Q, and K.
If you do this then you should rep "2" as "8" everywhere in the documentation.
Reset all setting todefault values:
This resets all the settings to their original values.