Instructions for playing Montana

The table of cards is laid out and you'll see four gaps (in place of aces) in the table. The idea of the game is to organize all the cards into ascending order by suit, each suit on a row of its own, and you'll do that by moving one card at a time using the gaps on the table.

Now, the rules for moving a card: A 2 card can only be placed in a gap in the left hand column of the table, since the cards will be organized from 2 to K, from left to right. Any other card can be placed into a gap, if the card immediately on the left of the gap is of the same suit and one unit lower in value than the card you want to move. And of course, no cards can be placed after a K card, because K is the highest card.

Because of the K's, sooner or later you'll end up having all the gaps "behind" one or more K's and you notice that you can't move any other cards. That's where the Shuffle button comes in. Once you're stuck, click this button and the cards on the table will be shuffled around a bit to let you continue playing. Note that the cards you have already managed to organize correctly, will not be shuffled around, they will be locked in place and you can't move them anymore. Continue organizing the cards until you get stuck again and then click Shuffle again.

However, this game would be awfully easy, if you could just keep on shuffling the cards forever, so to make this game more interesting, you're only allowed to shuffle the cards twice and if (or WHEN) you get stuck after that, your only option is to end the game and see your score.

The End Game button is (surprisingly :) for ending the game. When you click it, you'll be told how well you did. If you get more than half of the cards organized, that's pretty good already, but to get all the cards right is very very very very difficult. I've played this game dozens and dozens of times and I've managed to get all the cards right only something like 10 times or so. This game may seem easy (and it is, to play at least), but to complete it is not very likely. You can consider yourself quite lucky if you manage that. :) This game is a bit like chess actually, you have to think your moves far ahead to avoid getting stuck with the K's. Montana is a seemingly simple game, but to master it, you'll need the brains of a chess champion! :)

The Undo button is pretty self-explanatory, it undoes the previous move you made. You can only undo one move, but some day I may build an undo history, so that you can undo more moves, but on the other hand that would make the game too easy, so I'll probably never do that... :) Oh yeah, you can't undo shuffles, only card moves.

The Montana by -MiS- button just takes you back to my front home page, so don't click on that, if you don't want to go there in the middle of a game... :)