Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Native iBlackjack for iPhone

I have made an update that needs some final testing before release. I've been testing this a bit with a smaller user-group but looking to expand it this week.

iBlackjack with selectable/downloadable THEMES! (I also added score counters)

Add this repository to your Installer.app Sources list, or just enter it on your iPhone's Safari browser.

http://patrickmccarron.com/iphone/repo

You can find iBlackjack Alpha 4.2.10 under the Games category and you should also see a whole new category "Themes (iBlackjack)" with any released themes for iBlackjack (like the one above).

Take a look at let me know what you all think. Thanks for giving it a whirl and helping me squash bugs!
 
In Preferences, when you go to "Themes" with only the default theme installed, there's no back button, so you have to exit out of iBlackjack and restart it to play. Also on that screen, when I click "Get More" it opens Safari, which tells me it can't download the file.

Personally I don't like the way the totals show up, but it's better than nothing.

Also, there still exists a bug when the dealer shows an A, you decline the insurance and act quickly(hit, stand, double) and even if the dealer's downcard is a T, it lets you act without saying "Dealer has Blackjack". Usually it will just say "Hand Over!, Dealer Wins.", but occasionally I am able to hit to a 21 and get a "push" out of it when I should have lost due to dealer BJ. I've even gotten a 5-card charlie to beat the dealer BJ a few times, at which point the dealer's total changes to 21 without the downcard flipping over, but the message "Hand Over! Five Card Charlie. You Win!" is shown.

A bug with the dealer total display: it appears to show the dealer total minus the down card, until the last card has been dealt. In a casino, the dealer should say their total as soon as they flip over their down card, then add the additional cards to that total. For instance, I just played a hand where the dealer had a Q with a 5 as their downcard, dealer hit once, got an A and total changed from 10 to 21, dealer hit again(since the actual total was 16), got a 2 and the total quickly changed to 23, then 18.

Bug 3: Dealer shows an A, I have blackjack, decline the insurance, then quickly swipe right to "stand", the message "Hand Over! You Win!" pops up instead of the blackjack congratulations.
 
v4.2.10 notes

Patrick it keeps getting better. One comment would be the timing of the showing the totals. When you take a hit your total immediately shows the correct amount before the dealt card even hits the table. Keep up the good work. Joe
 
pacohaas said:
In Preferences, when you go to "Themes" with only the default theme installed, there's no back button, so you have to exit out of iBlackjack and restart it to play. Also on that screen, when I click "Get More" it opens Safari, which tells me it can't download the file.
Click to expand...

There is no back button on that screen, you just select the theme you want. So in this case, just click on Default. It should take you back. I may be changing the menu around a bit with a different framework, so I can add the checkmark box next to the currently selected item.

pacohaas said:
Personally I don't like the way the totals show up, but it's better than nothing.
Click to expand...

I wish I could use a better font, but right now my framework isn't compiling right with fonts. So this I was surprised I got to work as is, I was going to hold off until I rebuilt the framework to fix the issues.

pacohaas said:
Also, there still exists a bug when the dealer shows an A, you decline the insurance and act quickly(hit, stand, double) and even if the dealer's downcard is a T, it lets you act without saying "Dealer has Blackjack". Usually it will just say "Hand Over!, Dealer Wins.", but occasionally I am able to hit to a 21 and get a "push" out of it when I should have lost due to dealer BJ. I've even gotten a 5-card charlie to beat the dealer BJ a few times, at which point the dealer's total changes to 21 without the downcard flipping over, but the message "Hand Over! Five Card Charlie. You Win!" is shown.

Bug 3: Dealer shows an A, I have blackjack, decline the insurance, then quickly swipe right to "stand", the message "Hand Over! You Win!" pops up instead of the blackjack congratulations.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's definitely an issue, I'll look into fixing that.

pacohaas said:
A bug with the dealer total display: it appears to show the dealer total minus the down card, until the last card has been dealt. In a casino, the dealer should say their total as soon as they flip over their down card, then add the additional cards to that total. For instance, I just played a hand where the dealer had a Q with a 5 as their downcard, dealer hit once, got an A and total changed from 10 to 21, dealer hit again(since the actual total was 16), got a 2 and the total quickly changed to 23, then 18.
Click to expand...

There is some issues currently with dealer counting the Aces improperly right now in relation to soft/hard 17 rules. Once I fix that, it should make this work a bit better. It should show you the dealer total once the player's play time is over. Also the game tries to update the scores a bit too quick, so I'm going to slow it down a bit.

j0ebeer said:
Patrick it keeps getting better. One comment would be the timing of the showing the totals. When you take a hit your total immediately shows the correct amount before the dealt card even hits the table. Keep up the good work. Joe
Click to expand...

Thanks, as I noted earlier I may tweak that a bit. It happens every game "click" when it should be a bit slower.
 
McCarron said:
There is no back button on that screen, you just select the theme you want. So in this case, just click on Default. It should take you back. I may be changing the menu around a bit with a different framework, so I can add the checkmark box next to the currently selected item.
Click to expand...
I installed 4.2.10 with no themes and it just shows a blank page when go to the Theme selector, the default one isn't listed, so I guess the bug is that when no other themes are installed, the default one doesn't show up, and I still get the "Safari can't download this file." error when clicking the "Get More" button.
 

Attachments

  • iBJ 1.png
    iBJ 1.png
    37.3 KB · Views: 65
  • iBJ 2.png
    iBJ 2.png
    11.2 KB · Views: 81
pacohaas said:
I installed 4.2.10 with no themes and it just shows a blank page when go to the Theme selector, the default one isn't listed, so I guess the bug is that when no other themes are installed, the default one doesn't show up, and I still get the "Safari can't download this file." error when clicking the "Get More" button.
Click to expand...

I'll have to talk to the Nullriver people about the Safari thing. It works for my phone and others fine, but maybe not phones that never had AppTapp v2.X.

I'll look into the Theme thing, that screenshot gives me a better feeling for the problem.

I also fixed the two bugs today, the Soft/Hard 17 problem should be resolved. Also fixed the ability to hit/stand/etc after the insurance check when the dealer has Blackjack. I tweaked the score counting timing, it's not perfect but it'll do for now.

http://www.patrickmccarron.com/iphone/repo
 
pacohaas said:
I installed 4.2.10 with no themes and it just shows a blank page when go to the Theme selector, the default one isn't listed, so I guess the bug is that when no other themes are installed, the default one doesn't show up, and I still get the "Safari can't download this file." error when clicking the "Get More" button.
Click to expand...

Thanks for finding those bugs. I fixed those issues. Also I guess Installer.app v3 doesn't have the Safari plugin anymore.

New version is done. Here is the changelog.

- No theme, stuck in game bug fixed.
- Added better fonts for the score keeper. (toolchain fix)
- Made score keeper default to on.
- Changed how the "Get More" button worked on the Themes page.
- Added status of how much money you lost on the hand over screen.
- Removed the words "Hand Over" from the hand over screen.
- Other misc fixes.

http://www.patrickmccarron.com/irepo
(NOTE: new address for repo, easier to type into Installer. Old repo address still works too)

I have one or two cosmetic changes I want to make still before a wide public release on Monday.

I also hit a game bug where I was unable to tap/swipe/etc but I could hit the Menu button. Not sure what I did, and I can't reproduce it again. If anyone can help me reproduce it, that'd be great!
 
I made a few updates again. Just to the preferences menu, including a better looking theme selection.

Let me know if anyone finds any new issues, this is the final internal release before a public alpha 5 release.

http://www.patrickmccarron.com/irepo
 
With nothing but the default theme:

1. Start up iBJ, after the hand is dealt
2. hit the menu button
3. go to prefs
4. go to Theme
5. reselect the Default theme.
Instead of backing you back to the prefs menu, it crashes iBJ.

It doesn't happen if:

a. you go to prefs immediately after starting iBJ(subsequent trips to the preferences in the same session, shows the "Theme Default >" as highlighted blue, which is a visual inconsistency with the way other preferences show up on the iPhone, but it doesn't seem to crash when this is the case)
b. you hit after the hand is dealt, then go to step 2(blue highlight "bug" is still present)
c. you've done a. or b. first then on a new hand start at step 2(it seems the blue highlight "bug" is some sort of indication of whether the crash will happen or not)

I hope I explained it well enough, it's a very small thing, but easily reproducible, so I thought I'd give you a head's up. Would you rather I check in bugs on the code page?
 
pacohaas said:
With nothing but the default theme:

1. Start up iBJ, after the hand is dealt
2. hit the menu button
3. go to prefs
4. go to Theme
5. reselect the Default theme.
Instead of backing you back to the prefs menu, it crashes iBJ.

It doesn't happen if:

a. you go to prefs immediately after starting iBJ(subsequent trips to the preferences in the same session, shows the "Theme Default >" as highlighted blue, which is a visual inconsistency with the way other preferences show up on the iPhone, but it doesn't seem to crash when this is the case)
b. you hit after the hand is dealt, then go to step 2(blue highlight "bug" is still present)
c. you've done a. or b. first then on a new hand start at step 2(it seems the blue highlight "bug" is some sort of indication of whether the crash will happen or not)

I hope I explained it well enough, it's a very small thing, but easily reproducible, so I thought I'd give you a head's up. Would you rather I check in bugs on the code page?
Click to expand...

Bugs on the code page would be very helpful for me to track them. I also get more timely notification of them, and you'll get feedback directly when fixed.

What version are you running this on? The newly released alpha 4.3.4? I currently can't reproduce the crash when selecting Default in the way you mentioned it. Did you have Themes installed at one point, or not? That bit of knowledge will help me diagnose the problem.

The blue selection is something that is more of a "feature" of how the selection works on the iPhone. I think I know how to fix it but since it doesn't cause harm, I haven't changed it yet in fear of creating new real bugs. Once you select something in a session, it'll remain "blue" as selected for the rest of the session. It only allows one segment at a time to be selected per page.
 
cool, I submitted the bug(issue: 28) on google code and added comments there, it was for version alpha 4.3.4.

Also noticed that with the new popup that contains the amount lost, it seems your losses are doubled, once when you initially deal the hand, and again when that popup shows. (issue: 29)
 
pacohaas said:
cool, I submitted the bug(issue: 28) on google code and added comments there, it was for version alpha 4.3.4.

Also noticed that with the new popup that contains the amount lost, it seems your losses are doubled, once when you initially deal the hand, and again when that popup shows. (issue: 29)
Click to expand...

Yeah they are, another bug as a result of a bug report I mis-read. I'll fix that tonight.
 
Alpha 4.4 Released

- Fixes double money loss
- Bet amounts now count down/up like the Bank does
- Current bet amount on Deal button
- Slight changes to Preferences to prevent the blue selection highlights from staying around.

If no more major bugs occur tomorrow, I'll be releasing this as Alpha 5.
 
j0ebeer said:
Hmmm, just downloaded the Alpha 5 RC1 release and seem to still have the double winning issue. I'm playing $100 bets and winning back $200. Haven't double-downed once. Wished it worked that way at the real tables.

Joe
Click to expand...

Actually that's how the game works. You make a $100 bet and it gets doubled if you win thus you take back $200. I guess the wording could be better, because that total announced at the end of the hand includes the bet amount.
 
McCarron said:
Actually that's how the game works. You make a $100 bet and it gets doubled if you win thus you take back $200. I guess the wording could be better, because that total announced at the end of the hand includes the bet amount.
Click to expand...

Ah, now I see. Yes, the wording was tripping me up. If you can change to reflect the amount actually won I think that would be better.
 
Love this app. Been using your app since day 1 of my iPhone (6 weeks). Keep up the great work and updates!

So when can we see the split function working? ;)
 
imacdaddy said:
Love this app. Been using your app since day 1 of my iPhone (6 weeks). Keep up the great work and updates!

So when can we see the split function working? ;)
Click to expand...

Ditto. Love it. LOVE. IT. Just waiting to be able to split those damn double Aces.

Pretty please?
 
Splitting is coming soon, hopefully by Christmas. I have that entire week off before Christmas and plan to work on it before then. I have two major features I want done that week.

Also... iBlackjack Alpha 5 RC2 is released. Fixes defect 28, 31 and 32. In fixing #28 I redid the game's theme switching code, so now the game will not reset the current table. So really try to cause the themes switching to crash.

Repo address for those who don't have it yet:
http://patrickmccarron.com/irepo
 
Another new version tonight. Alpha 5 RC3.

- Fixed shoe preferences not applying until after a game restart
- Fixed "New Shoe" image display on other themes crashing the game (Hotstuff2 I think this was your crash)
 
great app!

McCarron,

You have a really great app with blackjack. I really really enjoy it and keep up the great work :) I'm looking forward to splitting! iBlackjack is probably one of the top quality apps on the iPhone 3rd party scene :)

Great job!
 
ratspg said:
McCarron,

You have a really great app with blackjack. I really really enjoy it and keep up the great work :) I'm looking forward to splitting! iBlackjack is probably one of the top quality apps on the iPhone 3rd party scene :)

Great job!
Click to expand...

Thanks I'm glad you, and everyone else, like it so much. It keeps me going on improving it.

I'm trying to get some rare bugs pushed out, if I can't rid of them easily I'll make a release to Ste's community sources for tomorrow.

I will then start work on the cleanup and changes needed for splitting. I have the rest of the month off of work after Friday, so I'll have plenty of time to work on the game. I hope to have splitting done and the first "beta" release to come by Christmas. I'll be glad to be rid of the Alpha tag.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back