Kitsune Software

Mahjong Solitaire is a modern classic, based on a centuries-old Chinese game called "Demolish the Tile Turtle". Ace Mahjong Solitaire for Mac OS X tastefully combines high-quality graphics, sound and music together into the perfect way to relax for young and old alike. Ace Mahjong Solitaire is easy to learn, but with thirty achievements to collect and more than twenty different layouts (not to mention a layout editor for those that like to be creative), it remains a challenge to master.

The rules of the game are simple: you have a collection of tiles to remove, but you can only remove matching pairs of tiles, and both those tiles must be free to move sideways without disturbing any other tiles. These simple rules have entranced people the world over. To avoid frustration when no more moves are possible, Ace Mahjong Solitaire also gives you some super powers to use when you are stuck: Shuffle will shuffle the positions of all the tiles without changing their layout (handy if all your moves are blocked!); while Hint will find a pair of tiles that you can remove (if any remain).

If that wasn't enough, Ace Mahjong Solitaire has thirty achievements to challenge you, and also comes with a built-in layout editor to let you explore your creativity and share the results with your friends.

Naturally, Ace Mahjong Solitaire automatically saves your game when you stop playing, letting you continue where you left off without the frustration of losing your progress.

• Addictive, non-violent fun makes it suitable for all ages
• More than twenty layouts increase the fun and the challenge! *
• Built-in layout editor lets you make your own levels and share the fun *
• Thirty achievements to show your skill
• Free to try, $15.99 to buy

* Trial version nags between every few games, will not let you continue saved games, and can only access one layout

Yay! I can publish stuff of my own again!

My no-compete clause with my previous employer has now expired, so I am free to publish games. And publish them I have:

• Absolute Shisen-Sho has been re-written from scratch; new graphics, new gameplay, and plenty of achievements to keep you entertained.
• Awesome Hangman is an awesome hangman game. It comes with two completely free wordlists, so you can play it for free, forever, if you want to, but there are more than twenty other specialist wordlists available to those that buy the full version.
• Fox Minesweeper 3 is my third incarnation of minesweeper. The basic game is free, but there are extra modes of gameplay for those that fancy a change: "Against The Clock", "Three Lives", and "Open Edges" (where all edge squares start revealed so that you can concentrate on puzzle-solving instead of the luck we all need in the first few clicks).

In other news, it seems that Mac OS X 10.5 screen-savers do not work on 10.6 and vice-versa. I will investigate this before making any more.

To save time later, I am trying to automate as much of my workload as possible. To that end, I've found several useful command line tools for making disk images (the files ending in ".dmg" that you may have seen).

hdiutil is very handy for the actual creation of the disk images, but the directory it produces has a default appearance. Unfortunately, there are no command-line tools to change this directly... but wait! There are other scripting utilities besides the command line — in the case of Mac OS, there is AppleScript, which can be executed from the command line with some caveats (cannot interact with a GUI unless you're logged in via the GUI, or possibly locally — the documentation I saw was not clear). Keeping those caveats in mind, this script can be run from the command line. It takes one argument (a folder), and changes that folder's appearance in the Finder to be icon view, with large icons, no toolbar, and with the label on the bottom. You can change other things (such as a background image), but I'm not planning on scripting that any time soon.

on run argv
	tell the application "Finder"
		set f to item 1 of argv
		set w to make Finder window to folder f
		set p to icon view options of w
		set the current view of w to icon view
		set toolbar visible of w to false
		set the icon size of p to 128
		set the label position of p to bottom
	end tell
end run

I am currently experimenting with Stochastic music (music that is created by a computer program and a random process), hopefully I will be able to use this in some of the games I intend to make over the next few years.

I've been experimenting with Markov-chain generated music. As I am not a musical composer, my standards for "success" are rather limited.

http://kitsunesoftware.com/Misc/test.mid

OK, after a bit of work, I think I have something cool, geeky, and handy for board gaming. I have created a set of dice whose behaviour is consistent with the Gambler's fallacy: The dice remember what has been rolled, so that previously-rolled numbers are less likely. (It also supports normal dice if you prefer them).

And here it is.

Needless to say, a downloadable Widget version will be coming soon.

Hello all,

To help get back into the swing of MacOS X development, I have just written a screensaver. If you want to experience the joy of fractals with the Lorenz Attractor, you can download LorenzScreenSaver now — it's free!

Tested on Intel and PowerPC based macs, though I suspect most people no longer care about PPC...

Shisen-Sho is a traditional Chinese game whose origins have been lost in the mists of time, but is said to have been inspired by Mahjong. Absolute Shisen-Sho for Mac OS X tastefully combines high-quality graphics, sound and music together into the perfect way to relax after a long day. Absolute Shisen-Sho is easy to learn, but with three difficulty settings it remains a challenge to master.

The principle of the game is simple enough: you have a grid of tiles arranged on a wooden board; your goal is to match pairs of tiles and remove them all... the catch, is that you can only remove a pair of tiles if they can be connected by a vertical or horizontal line with no more than two 90-degree bends.

These simple rules have entranced people the world over. To avoid frustration when no more moves are possible, Absolute Shisen-Sho also gives you some super powers to use when you are stuck: Zap will remove a random pair of tiles; Magic wand will remove any pair you select, even if you couldn't normally remove it; and Hint will find a pair (if any remain).

Absolute Shisen-Sho also has two modes of gameplay: Against-the-clock lets you pit your wits in arcade-style race against time, while the Traditional mode gives you all the time in the world to mull over your next move.

Until now, Mac OS X users have had a hard time finding this addictive puzzle game — but Absolute Shisen-Sho brings the search to an end! This challenging and fun game is available now as a universal binary, making it a perfect companion for your new Intel-based Mac. Download the free trial now; the full version is only $14.99!

• Traditional graphics for an authentic experience
• Addictive, non-violent fun makes it suitable for all ages
• Free trial version*

* Trial version nags between every few games, and only allows against-the-clock games.

Here's a new thing I've been working on, called Fast Morse.

For only $4.99, Fast Morse will convert any text you enter into the original Morse code equivalent, and play it on your speakers. The speed can be adjusted to anything from 1 to 35 words per minute if your computer can keep up, allowing you to send Morse signals at a rate your friends and fellow Morse enthusiasts can follow!

For the next day or so, it's available exclusively from macupdate.com

As promised, here is a screenshot of the game I'm working on: