Gem Slider

Introduction

Playing

Interface

Registration

About

Gem Slider is a new puzzle game combining simple rules with great wealth of combinations and various strategies. Beware, it is very addictive; do not start playing if you have some important appointments today ;) We hope you will have lots of fun!

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

"Gem Slider" is compatible with COLOR devices working under Palm OS 3.5 or above: Palm IIIc, Palm m505, Visor Prism, Sony PEG N700C, Sony PEG N710C.

INTRODUCTION

It's easy to learn how to play "Gem Slider", but if you want to get high score you will have to develop your own strategy of winning the game. The goal is simple - remove all the gems from the board. In order to do this you have to slide gems from sides of the board. Tap on any gem located somewhere along the border of the board and a new gem will appear close to it, this new gem will begin to slide towards the opposite side of the board. It will slide until it hits the board's border or another gem that has a neighbour gem along the line of movement of the sliding gem. If that gem doesn't have such neighbor the sliding gem will push it until it will hit the border of the board or some gem. If sliding gem joins group of three or more gems of the same type - all these gems disappear. Looks simple, but... If you fail to remove any gems with your move the number of attempts for that round is counted down and when it goes down to zero some new gems will appear on the board. There can be no draw in this game, either you remove all the gems from the board or they fill all the board. If you are confused with rules of the game just watch the Demo, and everything should become clear.
It's rather difficult to classify this game. This is surely a board game, it's a puzzle (you have to think where to slide a gem), it's a strategy (each player can choose his own strategy to score a great number of points). So, the genre of this game you can choose for yourself...

DOWNLOADING

To download "Gem Slider", use the ordinary Palm DeskTop HotSync process or equivalent to install GemSlider.prc on your device.

PLAYING THE GAME

At the beginning of the game half of the board is filled with gems of six colors. The board is surrounded by the gems that look a little bit different from the gems that are on the board. These gems indicate the type of the gem that you will slide and possible places there you can tap to slide a gem. At the top of the screen you can see the score you get so far, the number of attempts allowed to remove some gems from the board (first number indicates how many attempts left till the new round and the second number - number of attempts for the current round) and the color of the border that will be on next move (in Quad color game all four colors are shown). Also you can see a letter. This letter indicates the difficulty level of the game (N - novice, E - expert, M - master).
The move is made by tapping on a gem that is located somewhere along the board's border.

Score calculation
The points for removed gems are calculated in the following way. You receive 10 points for the first gem, 20 for the second, 30 for the third and so on.

Gems advance
You are allowed a certain number of moves without removing any gems. The number of misfires changes from maximum to zero cyclically (the maximum is different for different skill levels). That is, at first the maximum number of misfires is provided, then maximum-1, maximum-2 and so on.

Color removing
If you remove all the gems of some color, say red and that color will not be a color of the border on the next move, no more red gems will appear on the board. This would ease things considerably. However, every time you remove a color some new gems appear and it's number is doubled with every color removed and this number of gems will appear at the end of every round. The fact that you have removed a color completely is indicated with special sound, and information at the top of the screen changes it's color to the color of the removed gems.

Bonus
Your score is doubled every time you completely remove a color.

That's all... Good luck!

INTERFACE

Icon
You can find the game under this icon on your device.

Splash screen

From the splash screen you can choose either to play a game or to see a demo.

Menu

You can call Menu right from the game, clicking the button Menu on your device.

NEW GAME - launches new game. Attention ! If the game is not finished it will be interrupted without any warning. Be careful not to loose your game.
OPTIONS - game options
TOP 10 - here your best results, which you can publish on the net, are stored
BUY ME - information how to register the game (*)
REGISTER - the form for entering the registration info (*)
EXIT - to quit the game (you can quit the game clicking the button applications from any window of the program
HELP - here you can receive short help on how to play a game.
SUPPORT - information about us.
ABOUT - short information about a program. Also you can review you registration status here.

(*) - these items will be removed from the Menu after registration

Window "Options"

You can set up your preferences in the window "OPTIONS". To change the option's value, just tap on the the appropriate option's name

UNICOLOR GAME, QUADCOLOR GAME - here you can change type of the game. In unicolor game all sides of the board's border have the same color. In quadcolor game every side of the board's border can have different color.
NOVICE, EXPERT, MASTER - here you can change the game level (novice, expert, master) (*)
SOUND - here you can choose either to hear sound or not. The volume of the sound depends on volume of the GAME SOUND in system preferences. If sound is disabled in system preferences you still can enable sound in the game, but it's volume will be the same as if the GAME SOUND in system preferences was set to MEDIUM.
AUTORUN - the option that allows you to start the game without the splash screen (after the program launching you go directly to the playing field) (*)

(*) - these options are active only in the registered version of the game .

Window "TOP 10"

You can look at best game results in this window.

NOVICE/MASTER/EXPERT - this button displays the results for different levels
CLEAR - this button allows to clear the high scores table
PUBLISH - this button opens the window with the code for publishing the best result on the Web

Window "PUBLISH"

Shows the information needed to publish the best result in the chosen level on the Web. Attention! Please be careful when filling the code in the publish form at our site.

REGISTRATION

This game is shareware. If you want to play it after a two-week trial period, please register it. This can be done securely at http://absolutist.com/palm

After the registration:

The reminder window "BUY ME" will not nag you any more.

Registered users have the following advantages:

to choose the game level (expert or master)
to launch the game in autorun mode (without splash screen)
to preserve the running game when you quit the program
to keep the points in the table of top scores

You can register the program at http://absolutist.com/palm

Window "BUY ME"

It contains the information about where and how you can register the game. This window appears also as the reminder in the course of the game, with growing frequency.

Window "REGISTER"

Enter your license information into the form: fill First and Last names into the first and second lines, respectively, and the license code into the last one. Two NAME fields has room for 12 characters each, including spaces; if your first or last name, is longer just stop when game stops accepting the letters, the registration code will still work. In order to enter the information, you have to use either a standard virtual keyboard or you can use the Graffiti area.

HELP & SUPPORT

Window "HELP"

Here you will find information about how to play a game.

Window "ABOUT..."

In this window you will find information about the program. Also you can review the registration status here.

Window "SUPPORT"

Here you will find short information about us.

Our support team can be reached by e-mail at support@absolutist.com

You will find more games for Windows PC and Palm handhelds here:
http://absolutist.com/games.html
http://absolutist.com/palm

And that's not all! Every time you need a little diversion, welcome to our online section at
http://absolutist.com/online/

UPGRADES

The information about new versions, upgrades, discounts, etc could always be found on the Web at http://absolutist.com/palm/gslider/

COPYRIGHT

Gem Slider is a shareware ("try before you buy") game.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software. Redistributing the program is only allowed if it is not yet registered, except for the following restrictions:

The authors and origin of this software must be clearly stated, you must not claim that you wrote the original software.
This copyright notice may not be removed from or altered in a redistribution package.

Registered copies of Gem Slider cannot be further redistributed.

This software is provided 'as is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the Icestone Trustee Limited or Absolutist.com be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.