Spider Solitaire
by RandyPandy

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Table of Contents
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     I. Controls
    II. Gameplay
   III. Statistics & Options
    IV. Strategies and Tips
     V. Copyright


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Controls
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Spider Solitaire is a free card game first made available when purchasing
Windows XP for your computer. The concept of the game is very simple yet despite
this, it remains fun, addicting, and at times, difficult.

F1 - Help (obvious; brings up the help menu)
F2 - New Game (starts a new round)
F3 - Difficulty (changes the difficulty; more on that later)
F4 - Statistics (shows how many games you have won and lost; can be reset)
F5 - Options (allows you to check/uncheck options in the game)

Ctrl+O - Open last saved game
Ctrl+S - Save game
Ctrl+Z - Undo

D - Deal Next Row
M - Show An Available Move


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Gameplay
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There are three difficulties in the game - Easy, Medium, and Difficult. Sad as
it may seem, Easy is the only one I can win for sure. Easy deals with only one
suit of cards, and it is always Spades. Medium deals with two suits, Spades and
Hearts. Difficult deals with all four suits.

Select the difficulty you want. If you are playing for the first time, use Easy
so you can learn how to play first.

When the cards are dealt, you will see this:

X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X
X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X
X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X
X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X  X
X  X  X  X  O  O  O  O  O  O  O
O  O  O  O

The X's are face-down cards, which have to be uncovered from the card on top of
it. The O's are the face-up cards at the moment. At the bottom, there are five
stacks of ten cards. To deal them, click on one of them, push 'D' on the key-
board, or click the 'Deal!' button at the top. Note that when the ten cards are
dealt, any-face up cards they cover will still remain face-up.

The object of the game is to remove all the cards and make eight decks going
from Aces to Kings. So, how do we do that?

Each card can be moved to any empty spaces and any card. Just one condition has
to be met to move it to a card. The value of the card being moved must be only
one value smaller. For example, you can move a Four to a Five, but you cannot
move a Four to a Six. The suit of the cards doesn't matter either. However, the
eight decks have to have the thirteen cards in the same suit.

To move the cards, click and drag them to the new location. If they can sit
there, they will drop down when you let go. Otherwise, it will head back to its
original location. A stack of cards, such as Four-Five-Six-Seven, can all be
moved to an Eight in one move.

Move the cards around until it seems you are unable to move anymore. You can
confirm this by pushing the 'M' key. If there are any moves that can be made,
then it will highlight the card to move first and then the card to move it onto.
Note that it will also highlight empty spaces if there are any.

Once you are unable to move cards, click on the face-down decks at the bottom
right corner of the screen to deal ten cards. You can deal a total of five times
before you run out of decks to deal. Also, there cannot be any empty spaces when
you deal cards. Fill them up before dealing, or the game won't let you.

All of this, you want to do as fast as you can. Why? When you start a New Game,
you start off with a base score of 500 points. However, every time you make a
move, you lose 1 point. Every time you complete a set of Ace to King, though,
you will gain another 100 points. For example, in my latest game, I made 131
moves, so I lost 131 points. However, I won the game by making eight complete
sets, so I gained another 100 points for each of those eight sets, bringing my
total score to 1169 points. Note: Undoing a move also removes one point, so undo
as little as possible.


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Statistics & Options
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The Statistics section keeps track of pretty much everything in the game. Each
difficulty has its own tab, and each tab has the following information for the
corresponding difficulty.

1) Highest score achieved on that computer.
2) Number of wins
3) Number of losses
4) Win Rate. Ex. You play 4 games overall, win 3, and lose 1. 3/4 wins = 75%.
5) Most Wins Streak (how many wins you made in one session)
6) Most Losses streak (how many losses you made in one session)
7) Your Current Streak

All of this information can be reset if you so choose by clicking the 'Reset'
button.

---

The Options section gives miscellaneous bits and pieces that the player may or
may not care about. It is not very important, but to some players some of these
options may matter very much.

1) Animate when dealing cards.
2) Automatically save game on exit.
3) Automatically open previous game at startup.
4) Prompt before saving a game.
5) Prompt before opening a saved game.
6) Use sound effects.

By default, 1, 4, 5, and 6 are checked, though you can uncheck/check whatever
you want. If you have a slow PC, you might want to leave 1 and 6 unchecked.


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Strategies & Tips
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1) Move as many cards possible so that you can turn over more cards. Don't worry
   if in this situation the suits do not match. You can fix that later.

2) Before dealing, try to match cards in the same suits up. Match Spades with
   Spades, Hearts with Hearts, Diamonds with Diamonds, and Clubs with Clubs.

3) Use the 'M' key as often as you can. Some people may consider it cheating to
   use it, but why would they build it in and let you know about it if it was
   cheating? =)

4) Don't give up! Unless all of the decks are dealt and there are no more legal
   moves allowed, each game is possible. Only start a New Game if you absolutely
   must, as starting over will count as a loss.


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Copyright
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This guide is Copyright (c) 2006 by RandyPandy, aka Shree Panda. This guide is
only available for private, personal use and may not be replicated, duplicated,
editted, altered, or modified in any way. The only sites allowed to host this
FAQ are:

GameFAQs.com and its affliates
NeoSeeker.com and its affliates
DLH.com and its affiliates
Supercheats.com and its affiliates
HonestGamers.com and its affiliates

If this guide is found anywhere else, please remove it as it would violate the
copyright laws to keep it on.

To contact me, use the following email address:

randypandy13 (at) yahoo (dot) com