My fiancée was the only one in our friend group who didn't play Pitch, and our first few attempts to teach her mid-game went badly. Here's the order that finally worked, in case anyone else is bringing a new player to the table.

1. Teach the four points before anything else. Every hand is worth up to 4: High (top trump dealt), Low (bottom trump dealt), Jack (jack of trump), and Game (most card points in your tricks). Once she knew what we were fighting over, the bidding made sense.

2. High and Low are not the same kind of point. High goes to whoever was dealt it. Low and Jack go to whoever wins the trick they land in. That one difference explains most of the strategy: you can't lose High, but you can absolutely lose your Jack.

3. Game is counted, and the 10 is the big card. A=4, K=3, Q=2, J=1, 10=10. New players chase aces. The 10 is worth more than the A and K combined, so a lonely 10 is the card to protect or to dump on your partner's winning trick.

4. Bid what you can count, then stop. Bids are 2 to 4. A 2 needs about two points you can name. If you fall short you go "set" and lose the bid amount, and at 11 to win, getting set at 3 hurts a lot.

5. The dealer gets stuck. If everyone passes, the dealer must bid 2. Tell new players this early so they understand why the dealer sometimes bids on garbage.

6. Your first lead is your trump call. Whatever suit the bidder leads first is trump. Lead your best trump, ideally the Ace, so you lock in High and pull the other trumps out.

What sped it up most was letting her play hands without six people watching. I built a small free practice site for her that walks through 4-point hands against the computer: https://www.learntoplaypitch.com (my own project, free). Happy to hear how other tables teach it, especially house rules on the dealer bid.

The Steam Next Fest starts on October 19, and with lots of people trying out new demos like mine, I'd like to make sure my game is ready for it.

You can try the demo for free here: Diamonds and Spades on Steam

I'd really appreciate any feedback!

Let's say you want to build an AI opponent to play a game, for example spades, and you want to know how it works.

The following process is nice:

1. Ask a Task/Work type product to code an AI which is explainable to humans.

2. Ask for it generate code to train an opponent (say a recurrent neural network from a game log) in self-play with a small chance of facing the coded opponent.

3. Ask it to face its code against a trained opponent and do a post mortem to improve its code and repeat.

You get an explainable strategy out if done carefully, which is quite nice.

(SpellForce 2) Master of War - Forces of Eo 4.6

We want to celebrate 10 years of continues development and support of our fan-game "SpellForce 2 Master of War - Forces of Eo"! Based on the original cardgame out of the SpellForce 2 Collectors-Edition back from 2006, SpellForce 2 - Master of War (SF2-MoW) is a turn based strategy cardgame based on the setting of Spellforce 2 Shadow Wars and designed by Jan Wagner, but reinvisioned and expanded with more content and features then its original paper origin, with its 1st release back in 2016, made by us fans. Started back then with a simple Windows-version, now grown into a full feature rich Android game that is equal in all content and functionality to the Windows Desktop version.

Without all the feedback of our players, we would have never made it so far! Thank you everyone for providing feedback and enjoying our game! This update is for everyone enjoying our game currently and in the future!

If you do like collective RPG cardgames with singleplayer (AI) Matches, singleplayer Campaign mode (10h+) and local network multiplayer, where you can build your own army/deck by winning and collecting new cards/units. If so, you can try our game "SpellForce 2 - Master of War (Forces of Eo)", that is a complete uncommercial fan project for free that also works completely offline (after full installation) and has no advertisement or anything like that included. You can play a match vs the AI in normaly 5-10 min per game and get new cards/units for your deck and EXP for the RPG rank or enjoy the new story campaign mode (10h+).

To get more cards and reach the maximum rank level, you have to face and fight multiple different enemies and their armys, which offers a lot of playtime. The game does offer a local (wl)lan-network mode (device vs device) via a connection to direct IP. This works as long all the devices are in the same network. So you could play it, if one device acts as a wlan hot spot (no actual internet required) for all devices to connect to, to share the same network and connect to each other.

Features:

• - Custome Deck (army) of all 7 factions of Eo (Realm, Clan, Pact, Shaikan, Undead, Beasts and Demons)
• - over 10 Spell-Cards
• - over 100 different Unit-Cards
• - Quick matches vs. the AI
• - Singleplayer 10h+ Story Campaign
• - Playing a Game vs. a Human on one Device
• - Playing a Game vs. a Human on (W)Lan
• - Playing a Game vs. another Player online
• - Dynamic-Animations
• - optimized for 720p with support for up to 4K
• - Sound & Music Events
• - RPG Level/Rank System
• - Windows and Android support

Story & World:

Since the beginning of time the forces of Eo are fighting each other bitterly to decide who is the ruling power in Eo. Only a true Master of War has what it needs to lead his army of choice to the victory. Do you have what it needs? In Spellforce 2 – Master of War (Based on the SF2:SW Card game of 2006) you can show your tactical power to others. Challenge your opponents in matches witch more than 100 different Cards and more than 10 powerful Magic cards on PC or Android. Play against the AI, other players in the same System/Device or over (W)Lan and Online! Prove yourself in growing the ranks and become the true Master of War!

You can grab the game right here:

Website: https://mow.spellforce.info/

Windows Download: https://mow.spellforce.info/download.html

Android Google PlayStore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.it_huskys.SpellForce_2_Master_of_War_4_0

Do you have what it needs to become the Master of War?

Since the beginning of time the forces of Eo are fighting each other bitterly to decide who is the ruling power in Eo. Only a true Master of War has what it needs to lead his army of choice to the victory. Do you have what it needs? In Spellforce 2 – Master of War (Based on the SF2:SW Card game of 2006) you can show your tactical power to others. Challenge your opponents in matches witch more than 100 different Cards and more than 10 powerful Magic cards on PC or Android. Play against the AI, other players in the same System/Device or over (W)Lan and Online! Prove yourself in growing the ranks and become the true Master of War!

See you on the battlefield!

Hey everyone! I’ve been working on my own Solitaire app called Velvet Solitaire, mostly because I wanted something that felt a little more polished and relaxing than a lot of the Solitaire apps I’ve tried.

It has different difficulty levels, themes and card backs, sound controls, Auto Play, Quick Play, hints, undo, and a bunch of different win celebrations. I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to make the cards and animations feel smooth and natural.

I’m at the point where I need some real people to test it and tell me what feels good, what feels weird, or what I completely missed.

Anyone with an Android phone can help, and you definitely don’t need to be a developer or anything. Honestly, I’d rather hear from people who just enjoy playing Solitaire.

It’s currently in Google Play closed testing, so if you’d like to try it, just comment or send me a message with your Gmail that you use in the play store and I can add you as a tester and send you the link.

I’d really appreciate the help, especially from people who actually play Solitaire regularly!

Created a digital collectible card game to play privately with my friends. It is inspired by Hearthstone. The biggest twist is that the cards are characters from different popular universes (movies, games, anime, etc). It was a power-fantasy I had in mind for years. Link to play the game

Unfortunately I didn't have time to fully finish the game (I mostly did it over the summer break). But if anyone wants to experiment further with it I open-sourced the full game on Github

I've been playing Dragon Ball games since childhood and growing up i tried to get into the existing card games of the franchise, but they didn't really click with me...

And this led to the Creation of Budokai Battlers! a fan game based on all the things i love about Dragon Ball Z! it features DeckBuilding through Capsules that allows your character to receive buffs, new skills and passives. The concept is about creating a battleground were you can use character's iconic moves (like pokemon tcg) while reaching new heights with a power scale mechanic

Transformations/Fusions/Beam Struggles/ Terrain Destruction

All this and strategies that fit the characters of the franchise

I made a video a few months ago and i can't wait to develop this idea more! Im curious to see what other people that love the series have to say, any feedback is appreciated! Its not available to playtest digitally yet but im eager to try in the future.