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Native iBlackjack for iPhone
- Thread starter McCarron
- Start date
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There is a slight bug with the insurance selection in alpha 5. It'll cause the game to go nuts and crash. So I fixed it and in doing so, changed how the end-hand alert box comes up. I give it more of a delay and make it "pop" much like most iPhone alert boxes do. Hope this isn't too annoying. Not happy with how fast Insurance, etc comes up right now so may make changes there.
I also decided to throw in what I was working on last night/today. Flipping Cards! I built a new Card Object to help with the splitting of the hands, and threw in some animation code I couldn't get to work before. Well now it does, the dealer cards will flip in 3D when they are turned over.
So everyone head over to my repo in Installer, http://patrickmccarron.com/irepo/ and download iBlackjack alpha 5.0.10. I want to publicly release this as alpha 5.1 ASAP if no other major bugs come up.
The flipping of the cards is also part of another game project I'll be starting up this month. iPoker!
I also decided to throw in what I was working on last night/today. Flipping Cards! I built a new Card Object to help with the splitting of the hands, and threw in some animation code I couldn't get to work before. Well now it does, the dealer cards will flip in 3D when they are turned over.
So everyone head over to my repo in Installer, http://patrickmccarron.com/irepo/ and download iBlackjack alpha 5.0.10. I want to publicly release this as alpha 5.1 ASAP if no other major bugs come up.
The flipping of the cards is also part of another game project I'll be starting up this month. iPoker!
Small feature request
Patrick, the app just keeps getting better & better. One small request, can you add an option to turn off the displaying off the bet/cash amounts going up and/or down? Instead of the seeing the numbers go up or down I'd rather just see the amounts.
Joe
Patrick, the app just keeps getting better & better. One small request, can you add an option to turn off the displaying off the bet/cash amounts going up and/or down? Instead of the seeing the numbers go up or down I'd rather just see the amounts.
Joe
Or maybe an overall option to "Disable Animations"? I could personally do without the counter-style Bank, card flips, cards sliding out when dealt, and popups needed to deal a new hand. I want to play lots of hands in a small amount of time when I break out my iPhone on a bus or something and all the animations and popups hinder that possibility. Instead of popups, you could have a scroller similar to the "Deck has been reshuffled" notification that tells you if you won, lost, pushed, dealer busted, or blackjack happened.
Also an option to "Auto-stand on 21" would be another easy way to get more hands/hour. (Issue #34)
I will for sure add the auto-stand on X option. It's a wonderful idea, and I meant to add it in earlier.
I may add a disable animations too, if I can get the timing to work right without it. So go ahead and file an enhancement issue for that too.
I may add a disable animations too, if I can get the timing to work right without it. So go ahead and file an enhancement issue for that too.
Here is a quick tease of the split mode. I want to gauge people's thoughts on the altered screen layout.
I changed the card spacing, finally, so your hand centers and stays grouped together better. I also flipped the card counters and moved them to the side.
I'm "hoping" to have more done before I leave town on Sunday for the holiday so I can get a test version into people's hands. Right now everything is done but the switching of hand logic, so no way to play the other hand.
I changed the card spacing, finally, so your hand centers and stays grouped together better. I also flipped the card counters and moved them to the side.
I'm "hoping" to have more done before I leave town on Sunday for the holiday so I can get a test version into people's hands. Right now everything is done but the switching of hand logic, so no way to play the other hand.
If you want to really emulate the casino experience, you could have the two hands side-by-side, and start dealing cards on top of each other with the left side showing(see 1st picture). Then you could use the counters above with some indication as to which hand you are playing.
The logical motion would still be left to right, i.e. you get T K, and split, the K goes to the left side of the screen, while the 10 goes to the middle. Then you work on the left hand until it is stood, busted, or doubled, before moving to the hand on the right side....that is until you get into multiple splits.
Now that I think about that, it might be better to have a preview of your "yet to be played" hands off to the right (see 2nd picture), while the primary hand stays with the current gameplay. It gets complicated with multiple splits, but I think this way you could still show the hand totals for each hand and it's clear which hand you are playing. If another 8 got dealt when you were on hand 4, and you split again, that new one would become hand 5, etc.
You'll have to figure out when the 2nd card gets dealt on each hand, I've seen some people deal it immediately after splitting and then giving you a chance to hit on the 1st hand, while others split and let you finish one hand before giving a card to the next hand.
...then there's splitting aces: many casinos only allow one card on split aces(which sucks!), this might need to be a setting in the prefs.
...some casinos only allow one split, which would help keep the interface clean, but also sucks.
The logical motion would still be left to right, i.e. you get T K, and split, the K goes to the left side of the screen, while the 10 goes to the middle. Then you work on the left hand until it is stood, busted, or doubled, before moving to the hand on the right side....that is until you get into multiple splits.
Now that I think about that, it might be better to have a preview of your "yet to be played" hands off to the right (see 2nd picture), while the primary hand stays with the current gameplay. It gets complicated with multiple splits, but I think this way you could still show the hand totals for each hand and it's clear which hand you are playing. If another 8 got dealt when you were on hand 4, and you split again, that new one would become hand 5, etc.
You'll have to figure out when the 2nd card gets dealt on each hand, I've seen some people deal it immediately after splitting and then giving you a chance to hit on the 1st hand, while others split and let you finish one hand before giving a card to the next hand.
...then there's splitting aces: many casinos only allow one card on split aces(which sucks!), this might need to be a setting in the prefs.
...some casinos only allow one split, which would help keep the interface clean, but also sucks.
Attachments
So far I'm only going to allow one split, so moving them up is the best way for screen space to manage it. So yes it'll suck I guess. But it may not be hard later to add other hands, now that I'm redoing much of the game to handle splitting.
Since I made other game changes I can also shrink the cards easier, but not sure how well I can shrink/grow cards without testing it first. But I'd like to shrink the cards that are not in play.
A later version after I get the basic splitting work I can do something along those lines. I also am looking to do something like you mocked up there with the hand status in text below the hand.
Right now the split settings I imagine will be this:
Split Pairs NO | YES | EXCEPT ACES
But there are no rules now for my testing, you can split any hand. But it also works as you describe, it only allows you to add cards to the first hand, doesn't deal a 2nd to the split hand until you are done with the other hand. Not sure if I'll add an option to change that.
Since I made other game changes I can also shrink the cards easier, but not sure how well I can shrink/grow cards without testing it first. But I'd like to shrink the cards that are not in play.
A later version after I get the basic splitting work I can do something along those lines. I also am looking to do something like you mocked up there with the hand status in text below the hand.
Right now the split settings I imagine will be this:
Split Pairs NO | YES | EXCEPT ACES
But there are no rules now for my testing, you can split any hand. But it also works as you describe, it only allows you to add cards to the first hand, doesn't deal a 2nd to the split hand until you are done with the other hand. Not sure if I'll add an option to change that.
I think all you need is the Yes/No. Every casino lets you split aces. They just don't always let you hit further after splitting aces. That is, a split ace works very much like a Double Down. That's the part that I think should be optional: allow hitting on split aces NO | YES
That's right, I forgot about that. I'll add a separate item for that.
Also the more I've thought about your mockup the more I may do something like that and really allow more than one split. Lets see what I can do. I may put out a test version with just the single split to squash bugs. Then make the changes to allow more than one split. Depends on how much time I can find here this week.
It's coming, a bigger update than I had planned. I've made a lot of internal game changes to mechanics and code flow, mostly because I'm going to be making iPoker after this game. I've started on some early concepts and coding of it. So lots of those elements I wanted to merge into iBlackjack earlier than I had planned.
Here is the intro screen for placing your first bet. (Yes the game now auto-starts, no more menu screen at the launch.)
Here you can see the game has started and bets have been placed (table minimum bet takes place automatically). You can see the bet chips are smaller than the chips you click on to actually bet. They shrink as they move into place.
Here is the new hand-over notification, this is RIGHT after the previous hand cards moved off the screen. No clicking required, it goes away if you bet or if you just wait for the next hand to start. I want to tweak these timings still, so it's fast but not too fast.
Still a bit more to do with the chip betting changes, it's not completely working just yet. It's very close though. Once the bet issues are resolved, then back to finalizing splitting, which is also very close. It's mostly there, but a few internal changes brought this bet change and delayed finishing splitting.
One thing I needed with the upcoming iPoker were cards with both the suit and number on the edges, so they can overlap easier. So I mocked up a new card theme for myself.
Here's a preview, what do you all think? I still have 50 cards to make, but shouldn't take too long. The hardest part is finding/creating art for the face cards.
Here's a preview, what do you all think? I still have 50 cards to make, but shouldn't take too long. The hardest part is finding/creating art for the face cards.
No ETA other than this month. I've got a few more bugs to work out with new code and logic improvements in the game.
Chip betting is about all fixed and working now. I'm going to do some limited testing to work bugs out. Splitting is still not working 100%, but that's next on the slate now that the new game flow is mostly fixed.
Here is an updated image, I made a new felt image change after playing poker at a friend's house last night that had this felt pattern.
Here is the final icon too with the new card images:
Any theme designers out there have good ideas of what to use for the face cards? That's the only thing I can't figure out what to do.
Here is the final changelog of what will be in v1.0 Beta 1:
Wow, throughly impressed.
I just came across this application as i was looking for blackjack software for the Mac. After going through all of them i can say yours is shaping up to be one of the best out there. This is by no small margin either. It's simple and elegant, which i personally think is part of what's great about macs. Anyway back on topic, I was also writing in to see if for future releases some other options might be added. I don't think I'm the only one who would like these things but i think I'm the first at least from what i read in this thread to ask for it (apologies out to anyone who may have asked and i glazed over >_< ) I know I would def. be sold on it if we could get some things like...
1. Card counting systems. Simply hi-lo would be good for a start and then later customization of it. This would in clude a way for hte player to always have the count visible or have it only be seen by request.
2. Shoe tracking system, a way to know how many decks are left roughly, or how many cards.
3. Also a basic strategy guide, there are varying thoughts on these that change with how the decks are set up, so maybe just 1 customizable one for people to enter in once, from another source they find, and then enter it in so they always have their basic strategy guide with them.
Keep up the great work, I would try and help if i could with programming but i'm no programmer. I can help though with numbers and what not for 1 and 3 and i have an idea of how 2 could be done, just don't know if it would be practical or not. Thanks for taking time to read my longish post, and very very cool app. I'm super impressed!
I just came across this application as i was looking for blackjack software for the Mac. After going through all of them i can say yours is shaping up to be one of the best out there. This is by no small margin either. It's simple and elegant, which i personally think is part of what's great about macs. Anyway back on topic, I was also writing in to see if for future releases some other options might be added. I don't think I'm the only one who would like these things but i think I'm the first at least from what i read in this thread to ask for it (apologies out to anyone who may have asked and i glazed over >_< ) I know I would def. be sold on it if we could get some things like...
1. Card counting systems. Simply hi-lo would be good for a start and then later customization of it. This would in clude a way for hte player to always have the count visible or have it only be seen by request.
2. Shoe tracking system, a way to know how many decks are left roughly, or how many cards.
3. Also a basic strategy guide, there are varying thoughts on these that change with how the decks are set up, so maybe just 1 customizable one for people to enter in once, from another source they find, and then enter it in so they always have their basic strategy guide with them.
Keep up the great work, I would try and help if i could with programming but i'm no programmer. I can help though with numbers and what not for 1 and 3 and i have an idea of how 2 could be done, just don't know if it would be practical or not. Thanks for taking time to read my longish post, and very very cool app. I'm super impressed!
see the Changelog for a look into the future:
Can't do #1 until the SDK is actually released!