Concentration - the Memory Games Blog by Galleus

Associative Play

2009-12-29T11:18:00.000+01:00

Anbother video tutorial, this time about the Associative Play feature of Concentration - the Memory Games. Both 'related image' association and simple 'image to description' association are covered.

When two card sets in a card set pack allow image associations the image association feature is enabled. When playing in this mode card pairs are made of closely related images, not identical ones.

Card sets with subtitle descriptions enable another feature: simple association. Images are then paired with their descriptions.

Associative Play • Pounce and Wag and Braille Script Demo

For a full effect watch the video in 720p HD and full screen.

Galleus HD Videos on YouTube »
Associative Card Sets [5.0] »
Assocciative Duel Play [5.0] »

Happy Holydays Discount

2009-12-05T12:14:00.001+01:00

We'd like to wish you and your loved ones happy holidays. And we'd like to do it with a $5 discount, available until the end of the month.

So, be quick, if you use our Discount Coupon on purchase, a single license of Concentration - the memory Games will cost you only 10 bucks.

This offer is valid only for a limited period! Discounted purchase is available in both the Galleus Web Store and the integrated eSeller.

To buy Concenration - the Memory Games 5.01 for a discounted price, simply follow this link. Our five dollar discount will be automatically applied on your purchase. Should you have any problems with the coupon, please, follow our instructions on the manual purchase, described in a previous post. Simply replace the outdated CMG50 coupon code with the new CPN0852573345.

Purchase with Discount Coupon »
Galleus Order Page »

Concentration - the Memory Games 5.01

2009-12-05T11:35:00.004+01:00

Changes in the Blog Feed service have forced us to update the Automatic Blog Update Notification feature of Concentration - the Memory Games, and release a quick fix. 5.01 is a minor update.

You do need to uninstall previous versions of Concentration - the Memory Games, in fact, it's recommended not to uninstall them. Just download the new installer, run setup and follow the instructions.

Download Installer Executable »

Sound Card Sets

2009-12-02T01:23:00.008+01:00

This is the first one of a series of video tutorials about features of Concentration - the Memory Games. Most of these HD videos will demonstrate some important aspects of the program.

This time: Sound Card Sets, a unique game feature that enables the matching of sound effects instead of images.

Some of the card sets available for download assign individual card sounds to every single cards in the set. When playing with a sound set players have to match identical sounds instead of identical images. In some sets card face images might help identification, in other sets they are all the same.

A preview of these customized sounds is available in the card set preview dialog.

Sound Card Sets • Assorted Sounds and Chromatic Scale Demo

For a full effect watch the video in 720p HD and full screen.

Galleus HD Videos on YouTube »

Limited Offer: Discount Coupon for Release 5.0

2009-09-18T14:22:00.001+02:00

We're so happy for the official 5.0 release, we'd like to share it with you, and for a great price.

For 30 days, until the 18th of October, 2009 and if you use our Discount Coupon, a single license of Concentration - the memory Games will cost you 5 bucks less, only US$10.

But be quick: this offer is valid only for a limited period! Discounted purchase is only available in the Galleus Web Store.

To buy Concenration - the Memory Games 5.0 for a discounted price, simply follow this link. Our five dollar discount will be automatically applied on your purchase. Should you have any problems with the coupon, please, follow our instructions on the manual purchase.

Manual Checkout with Coupon Discount

First click here to start the checkout process. Accept the Terms of Sale, and review your shopping cart data. You'll see an empty Coupon Code field. Please, enter CMG50 into the text field and click Validate Coupon. If you get an error message, the Coupon Code has probably expired. If not, move on to Step 2.

Coupon Discount: Step 1 • Enter Coupon Code and Click "Validate Coupon"

If the Coupon Code is valid, you can see the discount value just below the Subtotal in your shopping cart. Please fill in all necessary data and proceed to checkout.

Coupon Discount: Step 2 • Check Discount Value

On the order confirmation page you can review you order details. Please check that the discount value (Coupon) and the Grand Total reflect the discount.

Coupon Discount: Step 3 • Verify Discount on Checkout

If everything is OK, place your order and wait for the confirmation email.

Purchase with Discount Coupon »
Galleus Order Page »

Pounce and Wag [Card Sets]

2009-09-18T13:40:00.002+02:00

Pounce and Wag are the first associative card sets available. Each set has the same functionality as a simple concentration card set has, but you can adjust settings to play by matching related kitten and puppy images.

This type of association exercises different parts of your brain than identical image matching does.

Card Set Properties

Name: Pounce, Wag
Languages:
Image source: Andy Nortnik
Distribution: Freeware
Card Count: 24 + 1, 24 + 1
Color Depth: 24 bit (16 million colors)
Additional Sounds: Yes
Additional Background: No
Image association: Yes
Animated card faces: No
Direct download: 1024 x 768 (802 816 B)

Preview

Wag (Large) • Normal Game Play

Pounce And Wag (Large) • Associative Game Play

To get more insight on these brand new card sets go their description page on the Galleus site. Try them, and then consider spending another minute to rate them. Thank you.

Note

Version 5.0 of Concentration - the Memory Games is required to enable image associations. If you use an earlier version of the game, card sets will function as separate, individual sets.

Pounce and Wag Card Sets Details »
More Card Sets »
More on Associative Card Sets »

Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0

2009-09-18T12:21:00.001+02:00

Concentration - the Memory Games is back with a new release, and the release covers various card set releases as well. 5.0 is a major update with numerous interesting features.

Game play has never been so diverse. Version 5.0 introduces new game elements and additional preferences to help you find Your way to play concentration.

A few years back I put a poll on the Galleus site to ask you opinion about the most wanted features of Concentration - the Memory Games. Two of the top-three feature request are present in this new release. As well as many others. The (almost) full feature list is:

Card sets with Image association support. Read more »
Card sets with Animated card faces.
Multi-game matches.
Full screen mode. Read more »
New Game Wizard for quick setting changes. Read more »
Number of flipped pairs and successful flips shown in a tool tip over achieved points.
Stress-free game play. Read more »
View/hide status bar.
Label overlays to play on a projector.
Preview all cards before play.
Give up option during play.
Disable losing sound option. Read more »
Card set icons with alpha transparency.
Old, 16-color card sets are optional at installation and can be removed.
Repeat last individual card sound.
Pause game.
Automatic blog update notification.
Some bug fixes.
New installer.

The new Installer Wizard complies with the Windows installer UI standars.

Installer: Full Install • With Card Set Downloads Included

Travel Stamps [Card Set]

2009-09-18T00:10:00.003+02:00

Another animated card set with a humble design.

Travel around the world and collect travel stamps on your suitcase. The card design is simple, yet it's quite fun to play with.

Card Set Properties

Name: Travel Stamps
Languages:
Image source: Office Clipart
Distribution: Freeware
Card Count: 24 + 1
Color Depth: 24 bit (16 million colors)
Additional Sounds: No
Additional Background: Yes
Image association: No
Animated card faces: Yes
Direct download: 1280 x 1024 (458 752 B)

Preview

Travel Stamps (Extra Large) • Normal Game Play

To get more insight on this brand new card set go its description page on the Galleus site. Try it, and then consider spending another minute to rate it. Thank you.

Note

Version 5.0 of Concentration - the Memory Games is required to show card face animations. If you use an earlier version of the game, card face images will remain still.

Travel Stamps Card Set Details »
More Card Sets »

Monkey Business [Card Set]

2009-09-18T00:01:00.003+02:00

An animated memory game? Yes, it's true. This is the first animated card set for Concentration the Memory Games, but there's more to follow.

Follow the adventures of a funny monkey, who somersaults, trikes, eats bananas, plays jokes on you. And the best part is: he's animated. A great card set for kids.

Monkey Business opens a new era in the history of Concentration - the Memory Games. The large card set is included in the basic installer, so hopefully more and more users will notice that it's now possible to play with animated cards.

Card Set Properties

Name: Monkey Business
Languages:
Image source: Animation Factory
Distribution: Freeware
Card Count: 24 + 1
Color Depth: 24 bit (16 million colors)
Additional Sounds: No
Additional Background: No
Image association: No
Animated card faces: Yes
Direct download: 1024 x 768 (888 832 B) • 1280 x 1024 (1 236 992 B)

Preview

Monkey Business (Large) • Normal Game Play

To get more insight on this brand new card set go its description page on the Galleus site. Try it, and then consider spending another minute to rate it. Thank you.

Note

Version 5.0 of Concentration - the Memory Games is required to show card face animations. If you use an earlier version of the game, card face images will remain still.

Monkey Business Card Set Details »
More Card Sets »

Game Wizard [5.0]

2009-08-13T14:25:00.003+02:00

With every new release of Concentration - the Memory Games a dozen new game options are introduced. Although the Option dialog box has a standardized user interface and a clean look and feel, its complexity might scare off less experienced users.

For players who don't want to temper with advanced game options and sophisticated preferences, version 5.0 introduces Game Wizard: to set basic game options step by step.

To start the Game Wizard select Game / New / Game Wizard. After the welcome screen you can change basic game options such as:

Player one and/or two.
Card set.
Game mode.
Board size.
Bonus elements.

Every time the value of a step is unequivocal, the step is skipped.

Game Wizard: Players • Select Regular or Generic Players in 5.0

Game Wizard: Card Sets • Select or Preview Card Sets in 5.0

When all the steps are completed the Game Wizard shows a confirmation page to summarize the changes you made. In that point you can accept the changes and start a new game, or go back any number of steps to reset some options.

Game Wizard: Confirm Changes • Final Page of the Game Wizard in 5.0

When you click Finish, Game Wizard always starts a new game. To replay the previous game, to start a tournament or a stress-free game use menu items in the Game menu. To change advanced options, click Options in the Options menu.

Note

In this moment Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 is not yet available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Stress-free Games [5.0]

2009-06-23T11:57:00.004+02:00

There are many different kinds of users of Concentration - the Memory Games. Some of you play concentration for the thrills: racing against the clock, trying to break your old high score. And there are others who just want to Play, with a capital P, not interested in timers and scores, but bothered by anything that distracts them.

Some of these players suggested some modifications, I hope these minor changes will make hundreds happier.

In Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 you'll be able to play stress-free games. This means that you don't need to worry about scores and timers, winners and losers: just find matching pairs on the field. When starting a Stress-free Game (Game / New / Stress-free Game) you should know several things:

In single player games there's no timing and no score is calculated.
Since there's no score the results are not added to your personal statistics.
In dual player modes there's no scoring.
In single player mode at the end of the game the winning sound is played, no matter what.
There's no winner announced in dual player modes.
When playing against a computer opponent the winning sound is played at the end of the game, no matter what.
When playing against a human opponent no sound is played at the end of the game.

The status bar displays player information, but show N/A instead of time and score. If you don't want to see this info, in 5.0 you can hide the entire status bar as well. On the screen shot you see the Assorted Sounds sound card set.

Stress-free Game Mode • Relax, No Need To Worry

There's a drawback, however. Since there's no scoring, no results are saved to the statistics, no high scores are made. To make sure this doesn't cause any disappointment, a new waring has been introduced. Whenever a stress-free game starts this waring is displayed. Of course, you can disable any warnings and reminders in the game.

Stress-free Game Mode Warning • Just to Make Sure

Winning Sound

Some of you just asked if there was a way to disable losing sound, which annoys some of you. Well, now there is, you can configure sound options and replace the sound that's played when you don't break a high score.

Of course, in this case scores and statistics are kept this is just a sound preference not affecting other game features.

Disabled Losing Sound • Never Hear it Again If it Annoys You

Note

In this moment Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 is not yet available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Full-screen Mode [5.0]

2009-06-02T10:48:00.005+02:00

In the first release of Concentration - the Memory Games the game window had a fixed size. With version 3.0 the window properties were changed to allow the maximized game window to cover the desktop. 5.0 introduces a full-screen mode and some related enhancements.

Full-screen mode is an option in many windowed applications, probably your word processor or browser applications have it, too. Just press the F11 key and check it out. From the next release you can play Concentration - the Memory Games on full-screen as well.

You have more space to play, you have less visual elements to distract you. You can definitely focus on the game. Take a look at the next demo screen shot (click both images to enlarge). We used our first animated card set, Travel Stamps, to demo this feature.

Full-screen Mode • More Space on the Game Board in 5.0 (Click to Enlarge)

In previous versions you had an option to hide the toolbar. In version 5.0 you can hide the status bar as well (both from the new View menu or the Options / Preferences / View option page).

Note

In this moment neither Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 nor the Travel Stamps animated card set is available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Associative Duel Play [5.0]

2009-05-19T20:20:00.007+02:00

Duel is a unique two-player game mode in Concentration - the Memory Games. You can play it against a friend or against a computer opponent. The deck is split and the game is quite unlike traditional flip over.

Previously associative play was disabled when the user selected duel mode. With the new associative card sets it really makes sense to play a duel with custom associations enabled. So, it will be an option in the 5.0 release. We used the Pounce and Wag card sets to create the following demo screen shot.

Associative Duel Play • 5.0 Enables Associative Play in Duel Mode

Since the deck is split, Player 1 (upper half) plays with the "Pounce and Wag (Wag)" while Player 2 (lower half) with the "Pounce and Wag (Pounce)" card set. In this game mode the sets' respective card backs are used as well.

Note

At the moment neither Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 nor the Pounce and Wag card set pack is available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Associative Card Sets Feature Preview »

Associative Card Sets [5.0]

2009-05-15T16:40:00.005+02:00

There's always been something called Associative Play in Concentration - the Memory Games (well, to be more precise it was introduced in version 3.0), it allowed the player to match card images to their related descriptions.

With the upcoming 5.0 release the concept of the associative card sets will be extended. Let me give you a glimpse of this new feature. I'll use a "work in progress" card set, Pounce and Wag to demonstrate what this is all about.

In previous releases, when you used a card set that came with subtitle tool tips (small textual descriptions of the card face images) Associative play became available. If you wanted to match card faces to descriptions, you just checked the proper check-box in the Options / Game Type.

Associative Play • 5.0 Introduces Image Associations

For version 5.0 with the introduction of image associations your options and the configuration interface have been extended. When image association is enabled for card sets in an installed card set pack, a small yellow bubble image is overlaid on the card set icon (you can also check this property in the card set property list). Also, the name of the card set, displayed in the Card type combo always uses the "Pack name (Set name)" format for associative sets.

Associative Play • 5.0 Simple and Custom Associations

In version 5.0 you'll find a new node in the Option tree: Associative Play. Select No associative play to match identical card images. By choosing the Simple association option you can play the exact same text-based association as in previous versions of the game. In this case the values of the Custom association combo boxes are set and they are disabled. (Note that this option is not available when the selected card set has no subtitle tool tips.) Nothing really new so far...

But when you select the Customize association option these combo boxes become enabled and you're free to select any combination. In this example you see that only the "Pounce and Wag (Pounce)" set has subtitle tool tips, so description matching is only available for that set (marked by the " (text)" suffix). You have several options:

Pounce + Pounce • Same as the No associative play option.
Pounce + Pounce (text) • Same as the Simple association option.
Pounce (text) + Pounce • Almost exactly the same as option 2.
Pounce (text) + Pounce (text) • A strange combination to match descriptions to descriptions.

The really cool option is the penultimate one:

Pounce + Wag • This is the option this post is about. You can match images of Pounce to images of Wag. See next screen shot.
Pounce (text) + Wag • Yes, you can play with the descriptions of one set and the images of another one. Sounds strange, but since the card faces are related, card descriptions are, too.

Image Associations • An Example of an Associative Pair in 5.0

This type of association exercises different parts of your brain than identical image matching does.

More "Extreme" Configurations

The choices are endless... If you play a game in which a Pair consists of let's say: Three identical cards, then you might configure the gameplay to match Pounce + Wag + Pounce (text), that is: an image to an associative image to an associative text.

If an associative card set pack contains more card sets, it's even possible to match three or four related images (when playing with the three is a pair or four is a pair options.). Imagine a card set with euro coin tails and various other associative sets with the euro coin head images of the respective member countries.

And to leave the best for last, associative play will also be available for sound sets. Matching images of household utensils to the sounds they make seems to be fun.

Final Note

At the moment neither Concentration - the Memory Games 5.0 nor the Pounce and Wag card set pack is available. That's why this post is categorized under Feature Preview.

Update on Associative Card Sets and Duel Mode »

Galleus Goes Web2.0

2009-05-08T16:03:00.014+02:00

Does this really make sense? I'm not sure, but anyways, this is the first post of the Galleus Blog (which is officially called Concentration - the Memory Games Blog). I'd like to tell you, in a few words, what this is all about.

As you can read in the small intro in the sidebar, this blog will have several functions.

Card Sets and News

There will be more card sets coming up, there's some already compiled but not yet published, so stay tuned.

Anytime we publish a card set on the Galleus Home Site we'll create a post here about the ins and outs of the fresh card set.
You can subscribe to all our blog posts, all the comments your fellow users leave here, or if you're not interested but in the card set releases, you can subscribe to the separate card set feed.
If you don't have a feed reader you can subscribe to the blog posts by email as well. We'll send you an email whenever an update is made.

New Releases, New Features

One of the reasons we start this blog is that a new release of Concentration - the Memory Games is currently under development.

Even though you can find every major feature described on the feature pages, we would like to look into more details about new features on the blog. We might explain some minor features here, too.
When a release is coming up, we plan to release some sneak previews about the work-in-progress features here.

Feedback, Why Your Voice is Important

This blog creates an open space for you to share your opinion. Many of you have sent us feature requests, card set theme requests, questions about future plans. Though, as before, every email will be answered (the response sometimes ends up in your spam folder, though), you might want to leave comments to be discussed here as well.

If you comment on card set that is being released, your feedback might improve the quality or usefulness of future card sets.
Your thoughts about upcoming features might lead to a richer user experience.
Creating polls is a great way for us to decide what features are popular and what features are pointless or not-welcome by our user base.

So, in brief: this blog will be here to serve as a peephole and a public memory about Concentration - the Memory Games. Take care and have fun!

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