fm - A small tool for the Firetop Mountain

This is a small (MS Windows) tool, intended to help you to survive on the Firetop Mountain Servers.
It might be useful for other versions of the "Waving Hands"/"Spellbinder" game (created by Richard A. Bartle) too.

I tested the tool with Windows 98/2000/Me. A user reported it also runs without problems under wine for Linux. Another user tested it successfully with Virtual PC on his Mac and with NT4. Please let me know, if you use the tool in other environments.

For those of you who don't have access to a MS Windows system (or just love the web and web applications) I've done an online version of the tool. Feel free to check out https://www.itloesungen.de/fm/fm-online.html (offline since May 2011 - I'm sorry for that).

This tool comes with no warranty. Use it at your own risk.

This program is mailware. You may use it for free, but if you find this little tool useful, you're asked to send me an email with your comments.

Download:

Download the newest version from https://www.itloesungen.de/fm/fm.zip (~30k).

Maybe you additionally need to copy the DLLs mfc42.DLL and MSVCRT.DLL to your /windows/system directory. CAUTION: don't do this if it's not really necessarry! And don't forget to backup your existing dll's!

To download prior versions of the tool, use the links in the version history.

Usage:

• start an instance of the tool for every mage in the battle
  
• in your mail program copy the two lines with the hand gestures to the clipboard (select lines and press <CTRL>-<C>)
  
• select the appropiate tool instance and paste the gestures from the clipboard (<CTRL>-<V> or Paste in menu/toolbar)
  
• do this for every mage in the battle
  

Custom Spell Books:

Thanks to Craig Ferguson we've custom spell books on the Firetop Mountain Servers. Here's how to import them:

• in your mail program copy the custom spell book to the clipboard (select lines and press <CTRL>-<C>)
  
• select the appropiate tool instance and paste the spell book from the clipboard (<CTRL>-<V> or Paste in menu/toolbar)
  
• take a look at the imported spell book
  

Please report any bugs, send comments or suggest new features to fjws@itloesungen.de.

Known bugs:

• Printing is a desaster if the output doesn't fit on a single page! But maybe it's really useless ... . Any suggestions on what to print?

Suggested or planned features:

• Support of additional spell books (if any others are of interest I need your input!)
• A way to save games with comments like a chess game? for study...
• Scratch pad so you can keep track of which strategies you are preparing in which battle. Something that is loaded and saved with the program.
• Indicate if the gestures contain a double P (i.e. surrender).
• Tab between spell fields.
• A user wrote: "I have this idea of how to simulate true battles where the outcome would be the best possible hand combination. Now it will become like 'battle of the chess engines' rather than battle of the chess masters. This is a big project and I don't have the skill. Your tool at least covers the best possible reply (1 turn ahead). Can you suggest how to make something that can see 10 turn, 20 turn, 30 turn ahead (with HP points of course)?" - That would be a really challenging task, but it's not in the scope of the tool.

Version history: