I keep getting 3's and 4's and the computer keeps getting 17's and 18's! The computer is cheating!

Unfortunately, the computer can't cheat. It's not programmed to. However, you can possibly get bad luck, but the computer can get bad luck as well. Your psychology makes it more likely for you to notice when you're getting screwed than when the computer is getting screwed, however.

Here's exactly how the tiles are determined and drawn, so you can use this information to help formulate a better strategy:
* Two identical decks are made of random numbers from 1-20. Both decks are equal in size to the number of turns you would have for that board.
* Each turn, a tile from your deck is chosen at random and removed from that deck.

So each player gets the exact same tiles over the course of the game (even if there's more 20's on the board for one of the players at the end of the game, since you can change the tile values anyway), they just get those tiles in a random order.

Now, that means you could potentially have really bad luck and get low tiles at the worst possible moments and high tiles when you don't really need them throughout the game, but the computer can never get a greater amount of high tiles than you will get.

The best strategy to fight this is when you get those low tiles, you place them in a way to help protect the high tiles you already have. The computer never takes defense into account, so in the long run you'll have a much better chance than the computer simply by doing this.

Any chance of online multiplayer support?

Not too likely anytime soon. I actually have already developed an application that supports Proximity multiplayer (I've played a few people across the world using it) for one of my classes that I never completely finished, but it would take a large investment of manhours (and possibly, cash) to make it viable for large scale use (>20 people at a time), and a lot more to keep it secure and administrate its use. It's still planned eventually, but there are other games I'd like to get out there first, and it probably won't ever surface until I can figure out a way to make it financially viable. Plus it'd be kinda pointless since the new Proximity is almost ready for release, and it'd make more sense to make it compatible with that, which would require significant reworking.

Can I make my own version of Proximity for platform X?

If it's just for your own personal use (like I made a version for my cell phone), then yeah I have no beef with it. Also, I used to be hard against anyone developing any other versions of it also, but now, as long as it's completely noncommercial, I can't think of any reason why I'd be against it, as long as credit for the original game is clearly given to me somewhere in the credits. If there's any commercial properties to it, then contact me and we'll see if we can work something out. Also, if it's good enough, or for a platform other than what I've made the game for, I'll even post links to your project here.

However, you definitely DO NOT have permission to decompile the existing code so you can add your own graphics or banner for your site to it and pass it off as your own.

Can I put Proximity on my games site?

You can link to this page, or my homepage. The link will stay pretty permanent, OR you can download a copy of the SWF and upload it onto your own site and host it there, PROVIDED you do not charge for access to the game AND a link to this site is given on the same page that the game is on. You may NOT directly link to the SWF on my site, or embed the file hosted on my server on your page, so you can make advertising dollars off MY bandwidth. I DO take active measures to counter-act these activities periodically.