User Guide
Introduction
Welcome to GreedyGammon, a free backgammon game to play against the strong gnubg based computer opponent (GreedyG) or with the latest version 3.x you can connect directly to your friends and play without any dependence on a 3rd party server. GreedyGammon has many of the advanced features that experienced players appreciate like..
- Auto roll auto race on broken contact.
- Easy single click checker movement.
- Auto move forced play off the bar.
- Matches saved in jf.mat format for analysis
- Easy to create and configure your own themes
- And much more..
Game Play
Starting a new game
To start a new game, click the button red and black triangle icon (3). This will open a new dialog window to select the match length and the name of your opponent.
Rolling
To roll when it is your turn, click on your side of the board. If the cube is dead, or it is a crawford game, GreedyGammon will roll auto. You can also set the option to auto roll, and auto race for when the contact is broken.(1)
Moving
To move your checkers, click on the piece to move. To move the small number first, use a right click on the mouse
Pick Up
To finish your turn and pick up the dice, click on the dice.
Undo
To undo a move, click on the back arrow button (6) between the red X and green checkmark.
Double/Take/Drop
To double, click the cube, to accept a double, click the green checkmart (7), to drop/decline a cube, click the red X (5) (drop).
Resign
To resign a game or match, click the white flag icon(4). GreedyGammon will determine your resignation type based on the current position.
Connecting
Basics
Starting with version 3.0.157 the server setup has been updated
The image above is what you will see when you open the preferences window.
Clicking on the ip/port labels will open an edit window as shown below. Edit your IP and Port and click save.
Clicking on "Start Server" will launch the server.exe as shown below
Server Settings
For the GreedyGammon connection to work, you much setup "port forwarding" on your router. You can google this step as it is not peculiar to GreedyGammon.
Once you have setup the port forwarding, you must create 2 files. "client.txt" and "server.txt"
server.txt will contain a single line with your username, IP, Port number, and a single digit (1 for on or 0 for off) like this
tetraHydro 183.74.68.10 33333 0
You will upload this file to a page you own like your homepage ex http://myhomepage.com/ggserver/server.txt
You can use GreedyGammon ftp component to upload server.txt file every time you start the server. You only have to put the ftp fields once and it will remember edit and upload your server.txt file.
the url of your homepage location where you put server.txt you will save in the file client.txt. client.txt is put in your douments/greedyg folder and sent to your friends to put in their documents/greedyg folder.
Connect Client
To connect as a client, copy the client.txt file you received from your friend and put it into your documents/greedyg folder. After a few seconds, the server name should show up and the "Connect" button change from greyed out to enabled, click to connect.
The file "client.txt" contains a single line with the url of the server.txt file like this "http://somewhere.com/ggserver/server.txt". client.txt must be placed in documents/greedyg location of any machine that will connect.
Port Forwarding
Port forwarding is a router setting that allows gamers to connect to each other. A detailed instruction is posted in the forum Here It is not difficult. And only needs to be done by one player (the server) the clients only need the connection url emailed to them.
Find Players to play Online
Please post in the forum for help with setting up the server. You can also request to connect and play on the admin server to try it out before you setup your machine as a server.
Themes
Basics
GreedyGammon board is created using Blender, an open source (free) 3D design software. The project file is included (look in the "blender" folder of your installation directory). It is configured for easy user copy and paste selection of patterns and textures.
Make a board
To make your own board, with the colors and textures that you like, simply paste the textures and colors into the project image file and click "render". Blender will render out a new board with the colors pattern and textures you selected.
Credits
GreedyGammon is written in MS VB6. It is an old and by now obsolete language but still has many users who enjoy writing VB6 code.
- Mike Rudman: C to VB gnubg.dll (thanks Mike wherever u are)
- "LaVolpe": AlphaImg.ocx Image png support for VB6
- Juan Pancho: Blender board 3D design
- So many great online VB6 resources with examples to do anything and everything
- Thanks to everyone who encouraged and gave feedback to the project