F4_32 (Connect four)

F4_32 (Connect four) - release 5.0 - version 1.3:

There are people who still do not know or have never played the well-known board game "connect four" by Milton Bradley (February 1974), although I assume they are few: the well-known board game in which a player can win by placing his pieces from top to bottom on a board arranged vertically on a horizontal plane and forming groups of 4 consecutive elements horizontally, vertically or diagonally.

Gameplay

Object: Connect four of your checkers in a row while preventing your opponent from doing the same. But, look out – your opponent can sneak up on you and win the game!

A gameplay example (right), shows the first player starting Connect Four by dropping one of their yellow discs into the center column of an empty game board. The two players then alternate turns dropping one of their discs at a time into an unfilled column, until the second player, with red discs, achieves a diagonal four in a row, and wins the game. If the board fills up before either player achieves four in a row, then the game is a draw.

Since there are several versions of this game, I decided to develop my program, introducing some variations:

• Possibility to lengthen and / or widen the board from a minimum of 4x4 elements up to a maximum of 10x20 elements.
• Possibility to fight against the computer, choosing the level of difficulty: when you play against the computer, his ability may surprise you!
• Possibility to play in two (as if it were a board game).
• Possibility to make the computer play against itself to get a game preview.
• Ability to enlarge / reduce the game board automatically when the size of the game screen increases /decreases.
• Possibility to choose between eight graphic resolutions (320x200 Pixel, 640x400, 640x480, 800x600, 960x600, 1024x768, 1280x800 Pixel or DESKTOP).
• Ability to control the game with the mouse and / or keyboard (in the two - player mode one user can use the mouse and the other the keyboard).
• Ability of Italian/English languages support.
• Ability to enable or disable the display of the statistics calculated by the PC before making a move (PC reasoning).
• Instruction manual in Italian and English in .PDF format included in the paid package.
• All of this is in addition to eye-catching graphics and to "MIDI" style instrumental music.

System requirements

This app run on all machines with operating systems from Windows XP to Windows 11 . As far as hardware is concerned, all AMD and Intel microprocessors that support 32-bit protected mode, which have a clock frequency of no less than 667 MHZ and which have at least 1 GB of RAM installed are supported.

F4_32 free demo file avalaible here

Although in the complete video game there are other game modes, typically user against computer, but also computer against itself (demonstration of the software's ability to emulate a real opponent), the demo that is proposed here, relative to the "Connect4" video game, it only has the mode with 2 real players and does not have the advanced features of the paid version (e.g. more variety in graphics and XGA resolution). However it is useful to appreciate the fluidity, the music and the main features of this personalized and unedited reinterpretation of the well-known board game; with it you could challenge a friend of yours, before considering the possibility of fighting against your computer by purchasing the full version for a few euros. You will also be able to verify that this software runs, regardless of the sound card and graphics card, which can be any, from available memory or other advanced features, on machines supported by the Microsoft Windows system, from version XP to version 11.

Description of operation and warranty:

My programs are distributed in 2 versions: zip archive generated with WinRAR (*) and installer created with Inno Setup Compiler (**); they do not contain advertising, there are no pop-ups of any kind, you do not have to pay to win, they do not connect in any way to the internet, they do not install or modify any DLL (dynamic linked libraries), all the files used by my applications are were created solely by me (***) and are transferred to a single destination folder. My program never accesses files outside the folder to which it was transferred, with the exception, only for some programs, of a configuration subfolder of the root directory of your hard disk/SD, created specifically to contain temporary files and preferences.

The installation program will only take care of selecting the destination, transferring files, creating an icon in the programs section of the start menu, optionally creating an icon on the desktop and configuring the new file extensions, defined by me, in such way that, doing a double click on one of them, he is load it into memory, to be able to modify it.

In Windows 10 or Windows 11 it is not recommended to install this software in the "Program files" and "Program files (x86)" folders, because, if you do not run this software, after the installation process, with administrator privilege, is impossible to save the configuration file, the top players score table file and the game recording file. The suggestion is to select a subfolder of the main folder of your hard disk/SD as the destination folder during the installation process.

My programs were conceived, designed and developed solely by me, in Assembly (80386+ protected mode) and Pascal through the Borland Delphi 7.0 development system. They run on all machines with operating systems from Windows XP to Windows 11 and numerous tests have been carried out by me on various PCs, periodically releasing updates to correct any bugs and expand their features.

As far as hardware is concerned, all AMD and Intel microprocessors that support 32-bit protected mode, which have a clock frequency of no less than 667 MHZ and which have at least 1 GB of RAM installed are supported. As regards the memory occupation on the hard disk or SD card, it is almost always around 50 MB to 100 MB with the exception of "my 5 video games" (500MB).

I have also created, designed and developed some software that is not compatible with operating systems superior to Windows XP, always explaining the hardware/software requirements, in Assembly (80x86+ real mode) and Pascal through the Borland Pascal 1.0 development system. They run on all machines with operating systems from Windows 2000 to Windows XP or on machines with the latest Windows systems equipped with an emulator.

As far as hardware is concerned, all AMD and Intel microprocessors are supported that support 16/20 bit real mode, that have a clock frequency of no less than 667 MHZ, that have at least 600 KB of free conventional RAM. The PC must has a VGA graphics card or MCGA compatible or emulated. As regards the memory occupation on the hard disk or SD card, it is almost always between 5 MB and 15 MB.

All my programs have dedicated software of my own invention for managing peripherals, such as the video card, sound card, keyboard and mouse; furthermore they are made up of a single thread with polling technology which sorts the various phases of the process progress based on various indices and according to certain events. it is modular software, so even if there is only one thread there are methods called by it that behave like other threads and contribute to the progress of portions of the process.

Windows 10 and Windows 11 messages such as "This file may be dangerous", "author unknown" or "The file is suspicious. Virus scanning. The file has been sent to the analysis department, please wait... The file appears safe", they are warnings that can be displayed the first time my software is run and which depend on a priori protection mechanisms by the operating system and antivirus manufacturers, but above all on the unusual structure of my programs published here.

(*) the latest version of WinRAR was mainly used, but in older programs it is possible that previous versions are still used.

(**) the Inno Setup Compiler 6.2.0 (a) version was mainly used, but in older programs the Inno Setup Compiler 5.5.1 (a) version may still be used.

(***) except for most .WAV file(s) which not contain more than the first 30 seconds of music from other sources (old Commodore 64 soundtracks, copyright-free files converted from MIDI, but also author's music: only the first 30 seconds of the instrumental part of the song). Some cover images and other images in the devlog sections were not entirely created by me but from images downloaded from the Internet and modified.

Messages from Windows 10, Windows 11 and some antiviruses (Avast):

Such notifications or warnings may be displayed, not for all versions of Windows and installed antivirus programs, during installation via the setup file or when first running the game or utility of a newly purchased or free downloaded .ZIP archive.

"This file may be dangerous": generic message that considers any executable file or archive containing some and coming from the Internet as a dangerous file that should not be installed.

"Author unknown": message that simply warns that the (c) CopyRight international registration has not been carried out and that the software does not come from a recognized software house.

Although this is authentic software, developed entirely by me, not having enough money to invest for copyright registration, this should be normal; with all the software developers in the world I don't think they all have had this opportunity.

"Allow the running app to make changes to your computer?" is a generic message that simply indicates that a "setup" executable file has been opened.

"The file is suspicious. Antivirus analysis. The file has been sent to the analysis department, please wait... The file seems safe": Some antiviruses, given the somewhat unusual structure of my games (screensaver style), notice that they not appear to have any interaction with the user, since they do not use default methods of accessing devices, and note that the behavior is similar to that of some computer viruses running in the background. In any case, I am not a hacker nor have I ever thought of causing damage, nor of stealing information or stealing money, nor of decoding or deprotecting other people's programs, nor of developing harmful software, much less viruses; any check for malware or viruses in my programs will result as clean.

Paolo Fassin (PCDear.ent.games)