Stress-free Games [5.0]

There are many different kinds of users of Concentration - the Memory Games. Some of you play concentration for the thrills: racing against the clock, trying to break your old high score. And there are others who just want to Play, with a capital P, not interested in timers and scores, but bothered by anything that distracts them.

Some of these players suggested some modifications, I hope these minor changes will make hundreds happier.

In Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 you'll be able to play stress-free games. This means that you don't need to worry about scores and timers, winners and losers: just find matching pairs on the field. When starting a Stress-free Game (Game / New / Stress-free Game) you should know several things:

• In single player games there's no timing and no score is calculated.
• Since there's no score the results are not added to your personal statistics.
• In dual player modes there's no scoring.
• In single player mode at the end of the game the winning sound is played, no matter what.
• There's no winner announced in dual player modes.
• When playing against a computer opponent the winning sound is played at the end of the game, no matter what.
• When playing against a human opponent no sound is played at the end of the game.

The status bar displays player information, but show N/A instead of time and score. If you don't want to see this info, in 5.0 you can hide the entire status bar as well. On the screen shot you see the Assorted Sounds sound card set.

Stress-free Game Mode • Relax, No Need To Worry

There's a drawback, however. Since there's no scoring, no results are saved to the statistics, no high scores are made. To make sure this doesn't cause any disappointment, a new waring has been introduced. Whenever a stress-free game starts this waring is displayed. Of course, you can disable any warnings and reminders in the game.

Stress-free Game Mode Warning • Just to Make Sure

Winning Sound

Some of you just asked if there was a way to disable losing sound, which can be annoying. Well, now there is, you can configure sound options and replace the sound that's played when you don't break a high score.

Of course, in this case scores and statistics are kept this is just a sound preference not affecting other game features.

Disabled Losing Sound • Never Hear it Again If it Annoys You

Note

In this moment Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 is not yet available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Full-screen Mode [5.0]

In the first release of Concentration - the Memory Games the game window had a fixed size. With version 3.0 the window properties were changed to allow the maximized game window to cover the desktop. 5.0 introduces a full-screen mode and some related enhancements.

Full-screen mode is an option in many windowed applications, probably your word processor or browser applications have it, too. Just press the F11 key and check it out. From the next release you can play Concentration - the Memory Games on full-screen as well.

You have more space to play, you have less visual elements to distract you. You can definitely focus on the game. Take a look at the next demo screen shot (click both images to enlarge). We used our first animated card set, Travel Stamps, to demo this feature.

Full-screen Mode • More Space on the Game Board in Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 (Click to Enlarge)

In previous versions you had an option to hide the toolbar. In version 5.0 you can hide the status bar as well (both from the new View menu or the Options / Preferences / View option page).

Note

In this moment neither Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 nor the Travel Stamps animated card set is available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Associative Duel Play [5.0]

Duel is a unique two-player game mode in Concentration - the Memory Games. You can play it against a friend or against a computer opponent. The deck is split and the game is quite unlike traditional flip over.

Previously associative play was disabled when the user selected duel mode. With the new associative card sets it really makes sense to play a duel with custom associations enabled. So, it will be an option in the 5.0 release. We used the Pounce and Wag card sets to create the following demo screen shot.

Associative Duel Play • 5.0 Enables Associative Play in Duel Mode

Since the deck is split, Player 1 (upper half) plays with the "Pounce and Wag (Wag)" while Player 2 (lower half) with the "Pounce and Wag (Pounce)" card set. In this game mode the sets' respective card backs are used as well.

Note

At the moment neither Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 nor the Pounce and Wag card set pack is available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Associative Card Sets Feature Preview »

Associative Card Sets [5.0]

There's always been something called Associative Play in Concentration - the Memory Games (well, to be more precise it was introduced in version 3.0), it allowed the player to match card images to their related descriptions.

With the upcoming 5.0 release the concept of the associative card sets will be extended. Let me give you a glimpse of this new feature. I'll use a "work in progress" card set, Pounce and Wag to demonstrate what this is all about.

In previous releases, when you used a card set that came with subtitle tool tips (small textual descriptions of the card face images) Associative play became available. If you wanted to match card faces to descriptions, you just checked the proper check-box in the Options / Game Type.

Associative Play • 5.0 Introduces Image Associations

For version 5.0 with the introduction of image associations your options and the configuration interface have been extended. When image association is enabled for card sets in an installed card set pack, a small yellow bubble image is overlaid on the card set icon (you can also check this property in the card set property list). Also, the name of the card set, displayed in the Card type combo always uses the "Pack name (Set name)" format for associative sets.

Associative Play • 5.0 Simple and Custom Associations

In version 5.0 you'll find a new node in the Option tree: Associative Play. Select No associative play to match identical card images. By choosing the Simple association option you can play the exact same text-based association as in previous versions of the game. In this case the values of the Custom association combo boxes are set and they are disabled. (Note that this option is not available when the selected card set has no subtitle tool tips.) Nothing really new so far...

But when you select the Customize association option these combo boxes become enabled and you're free to select any combination. In this example you see that only the "Pounce and Wag (Pounce)" set has subtitle tool tips, so description matching is only available for that set (marked by the " (text)" suffix). You have several options:

1. Pounce + Pounce • Same as the No associative play option.
2. Pounce + Pounce (text) • Same as the Simple association option.
3. Pounce (text) + Pounce • Almost exactly the same as option 2.
4. Pounce (text) + Pounce (text) • A strange combination to match descriptions to descriptions.

The really cool option is the penultimate one:

5. Pounce + Wag • This is the option this post is about. You can match images of Pounce to images of Wag. See next screen shot.
6. Pounce (text) + Wag • Yes, you can play with the descriptions of one set and the images of another one. Sounds strange, but since the card faces are related, card descriptions are, too.

Image Associations • An Example of an Associative Pair in 5.0

This type of association exercises different parts of your brain than identical image matching does.

More "Extreme" Configurations

The choices are endless... If you play a game in which a Pair consists of let's say: Three identical cards, then you might configure the gameplay to match Pounce + Wag + Pounce (text), that is: an image to an associative image to an associative text.

If an associative card set pack contains more card sets, it's even possible to match three or four related images (when playing with the three is a pair or four is a pair options.). Imagine a card set with euro coin tails and various other associative sets with the euro coin head images of the respective member countries.

And to leave the best for last, associative play will also be available for sound sets. Matching images of household utensils to the sounds they make seems to be fun.

Final Note

At the moment neither Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 nor the Pounce and Wag card set pack is available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Update on Associative Card Sets and Duel Mode »