Card Board is a general game system for playing card games over a network.
Try it out on [this demo page] demo which also includes the dev blog and feedback pages.
- LAN play via RTMFP (following Tom Krcha's [post] 2)
- Supports almost all of the functionality necessary for typical card games
- For smooth, generic, realtime play: Chips, Shuffling, Card counters, Card arranging functions
- Includes demo code for semi-automatic functionality that understands the rules of poker: handling bets, understanding betting turns, analyzing hand strength (via hoen's PokerFace)
Card Board is the product of [my dissertation on card game systems] 1 where I study the design concept of flexibility in game systems. (Video snippet [here] 3.) Card Board is used to demonstrate how a game system can be dumb, but useful. Additionally, with its semi-automatic components, I explore how to add intelligence to the system without sacrificing the freedom to play however you want. When I finished my user evaluations, I believed that Card Board's general features were mature enough to be released to the public. Its semi-automatic components were an interesting design exploration, but was more useful as a demonstration of what might be possible in the future. So, I cleaned and refactored the code (along with major performance optimizations) for public release, preparing the general game system to be actively developed and leaving the rest as demo code.
Card Board is offered as open-source as a robust basic card game engine for real-time play. I look forward to maintaining it as a game system that can be used for general tabletop games.
I expect active development to move along at a leisurely pace. Here are my priorities for new features:
- Improved card handling: Dealing cards to multiple players in a natural way (I am considering having the user select card and with a shake, have them divided into even piles of 3, 4, etc...)
- Improved customization: allow players to add their own card artwork, allow players to configure areas in-game
- Long-term: WAN Networking, play Card Board with friends beyond the Local Area Network
- Long-term: After Card Board's basic platform of simulating card-play is more mature, revisit the concept of semi-automatic components such as the BetTracker, Card evaluator, etc...
You can try Card Board immediately. Download the swf file from the bin directory and open it with your favorite Flash-enable web-browser. Click on Start Server if you just want to see how the interface works. Client-as-Server Instructions:
- Type a UserId (no Password or Server necessary for LAN play)
- Choose a color for your cursor
- Click Start Server
Client Instructions:
- Must be on the same Local Network. This release only supports connections over the local area network.
- Type a UserId (no Password or Server necessary for LAN play)
- Choose a color for your cursor
- Type in the same Gameroom as the Server
- Type in the UserId of the Server
- Click Connect to Server
To Play
- Double-click to flip a card. Also, press "F" or use the menu to flip all cards up or down.
- Press "R" to rotate a card. (This is an incomplete feature: edge-detection behaves as if the card was not rotated).
- Right - click for menu.
- It matters where you right - mouse clicked. That is where cards will go if you shuffle or view an area.
- The order of cards by X, then Y position is preserved when spreading/stacking cards via the menu.
- Viewing a private area:
- Right click on a brown area and click Toggle View to see cards in that area.
BSD 3-Clause License