Fake Free Cell Scores
quacki
REGISTERED
Not one Free Cell player denied cheating! I guess I was right. Their scores were fakes!
quacki
REGISTERED
Comments
Just because someone doesn't deny something doesn't make it true.
The scores are not fake—you can do it to if you replay the level over and over, memorizing each move and taking advantage of our super moves. Doesn't that sound fun? No? Me either, but that's how those fast score are done. Do we call that cheating? No. Maybe "gaming the system", and it's something we'd like to address in the future, if we can come up with a good method.
-David
What exactly is a Super Move? My best time is 3 minutes. I am 91yrs old and am trying to keep my brain from going dead..
EACH GAME HAS A NUMBER - RIGHT? I WOULD LIKE TO TRY THE GAMES THAT SO9ME OF THE PEOPLE COMPLETED IN A MINUTE OR LESS.
Supermoves are moves that do a lot of the drudge work for you. Take this game, for example: http://greenfelt.net/freecell?game=1058847054
We let you click on the Ace of Spades, even though there's a card on top of it. It'll move the card the the best place it can find and then move the ace. It will only do obvious moves, so you still have to think about what's going on.
In fact, you can even click on the 2 of Hearts and it'll move the aces in that column to the foundations and the 2s as well, leaving just the King of Diamonds and the 2 of Diamonds in the free cells. That a lot of stuff happening from just one click.
We have a similar style of super move for destinations. Try dragging the 5 of Clubs to the 6 of Hearts. It'll let you, even though the 6 of Hearts is buried under a bunch of other cards. What it will do is move those cards out of the way first (again using only obvious moves) and then put the 5 of Clubs on top of it.
(That isn't a particularly good move because it leaves 3 cards in the free cells, but it's just an example.)
Another thing you can do: Drag a stack of cards to the free cells and it'll distribute the stack into the free cell (obviously you need to have enough free cells open to accomodate all the cards in the stack.
Keyboard commands help speed things up, too. If you press Z it will undo a move. X will redo an undone move. The Space Bar will move cards up to the foundations, like the "Auto-finish" button.
If you can't find a card, you can press keys to find them (only if they are face up): H will show you all the hearts, likewise D, C, S, will show you Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades, respectively. The numbers 1-0 will show you that number (1 is ace, 0 is 10). A is also Ace. If you want to find a very specific card, hold down 2 keys at once. Pressing 4 and H will show you the 4 or Hearts.
These things aren't super obvious. I'm not sure how to effectively communicate these kind of features. Maybe we should make a couple tutorials or something.
-David
David, they are Supermoves indeed if 3bc used them to complete todays Game of the Day in 15secs!! Unreal!! I use most of them, but I also have to think, so maybe thats why I only finish in the lets-not-admit-it-hundreds. But what the heck, I love Freecell, play for far too many hours each day, just blow a raspberry at the cheats and keep going on.
David----Those super moves now take the fun out of Free Cell Why not play the regular moves only and then post legitimate scores???????
David--Thaks for being honest enough to explain Super Moves. Not too many Free Cell players know about it I'm sure! I guess all those Super low scores are from Super Moves users. I would like to know your scores without you using Super Moves. That would be more fun! quacki
@MariFran, yeah you definitely have to think differently to get one of those quick scores. I got a reasonably low score the other day and it was a lot of trial and error and clicking as fast as a could and not really paying too much attention to the game. I personally didn't find it fun. I normally play the way you do, though occasionally I'll do random clicks on whole piles of cards if it looks like it might go away easily (if it's bad it just takes one undo to fix it).
@quacki, Jim and I think the super moves are fun, though I definitely see that it changes Freecell quite a lot. It's a difficult line to walk. Micromanaging cards and playing mini "Towers of Hanoi" games with freecells isn't very fun to us. But Freecell might be one case where are supermoves go just a little too far. Freecell shares much of the same code as "Sea Haven Towers" and the supermoves do just the right amount for that game, which is no surprise because SHT is the first game written for the site and our favorite.
If you ask Jim about this he'll say it's just a sign that Freecell is a simpler game than SHT and while I think that's a reasonable argument, I'd counter that supermoves were made to do dumb, obvious stuff, but clicking on a pile and having the whole game rearrange itself feels like it's doing more than just the obvious. I personally think it's possible to tone down the supermoves just a little in Freecell and still have a fun game without drudgery, though I'm not sure where the line should be and what exactly we should tone down.