Looking for suggestions/advice

[Geoff Canyon]

On Aug 11, 2005, at 12:31 AM, Rodney Somerstein wrote:

> But, short of that, does anyone have any other suggestions?

I had thought of creating something like this as well in the past,  
and had come to the conclusion that if I were doing it, I wouldn't  
try to implement the rules. Instead, I'd simply focus on implementing  
correct card behavior. So the game would understand a deck of cards,  
a face-down card, a face-up card, and a card that is visible to only  
a subset of players, with the ability to move each of these around on  
a virtual table.

So for example, if you and I are playing blackjack and I am dealing,  
I grab the deck and deal out a face up card on your side of the  
table, a face down card on my side, a face up card on your side, and  
a face up card on my side. I then "look" at my face down card. You  
can see that I am looking, but not what I see.

Etc., etc.

The only thing preventing me from dealing both my cards face up is  
that we both know how blackjack works. It doesn't need to be codified.

The end result is a virtual card table that can be used to play  
almost any card game imaginable, without any further configuration.  
We just need to agree to the rules.

I hadn't thought of stopping at cards -- implementing chess pieces  
would be easier than playing cards, since they have a single  
visibility state for all players. Want to play four-handed chess?  
Chess on a 36x36 board with fifty pieces each? No problem, no  
definition required.

Rev would be very well suited to this, by the way.

regards,

Geoff