Unless my mind turns to mush again, I'm fairly confident that I should be able to finish the Spike Boardgame thing, today.

Still on a bit of a go-slow, here. It doesn't help that the weather's been absolutely gorgeous over the past few days, so much so that the need to sit and relax in the sunshine has taken precedence over standard coding duties.

Right, I was halfway through the "Extra" card, wasn't I.. Maybe some kind of quick board game that makes use of those? I had considered doing a Snakes and Ladders style game but with cards for movement, so .. Yeah, I think I might attempt something like that, today.

OK, I think I'm done playing with the cards, for today!!! You can try the new cards in any of the Card Game games in the Shoebox.

Apparently the two card sizes are referred to as Bridge (the narrow kind) or Poker (the wider ones). This page has a nice writeup about the two sizes. I'm learning a lot, writing these games! I'll probably do a bit more tweaking to get the Poker size a bit more exact. At the minute my two ratios are 1.33 and 1.55, whilst they're "supposed" to be 1.4 for Poker, and 1.55 for Bridge. All of my earlier coding was done with the Bridge numbers, so that's pretty much spot on, but I'm now...

^ My cards ^ Cards redrawn at "Proper" card sizes. I'm going to leave the cards at "My" size. Nothing against "proper" size, but .. Everything just looks a little bit cramped at that ratio! The extra width of my cards appears to give my eyes a little more focal space, and they seem to be able to cope a little better with a screen full of cards. Having said that, I did originally write the script with the ability to select from different card graphics. I haven't, so far, made use of t...

Spent all night thinking about the card width. .. Ugh.. I think I know what today's plan is..

Testing cards, today, and .. I'm not happy with the landscape card. It feels too tall, and yet that's the same size I'm using for all my other cards. I don't want to have to redo all my card code, but.. At the same time.. Hmm.. Anyhoo, basic functionality of "Other Cards" is now in. I need to figure out a good way to implement all the different types of functionality that the cards will have, in a way that can be reused over various games. I'm thinking something like a coup...

Shoebox Stats Cards : 3 Words : 3 Board : 2 Misc : 4 Extra : 3 (although it says 4, one of them's the credits, and they don't really count) So, maybe another Board Game, to try to even things up a little more, but which board game to make?

After sitting and watching AI players play the game over and over and over again, I'm fairly confident that Ludo is now working enough to get a release. You can Play Ludo in the Shoebox, under the Board Games section

Having a few "quirk" issues, right now.

As much as I've been struggling on with a flu, for the past few days, yesterday completely floored me.

After yesterday's break, I'm back to getting Ludo up and running, and .. Boy is it complicated!!

I'll probably be spending most of today working on the actual gameplay of Ludo.

On the trail for the "Next Boardgame" candidate, I've opted for the one board game I have an absolute hatred of. (Just to get the thing out of the way!)

Although only Cardagain currently has any "House Rules", I have at least decided on the best place to put them. The House Rules are fittingly inside the "Rules" section. Tap the little "?" in the top right, and alongside the actual rules, you'll see a little set of standard HTML Radio-Buttons which allow you to choose from the three available speeds of the game. This will be the place where all future House Rules will be going, so try to remember that, going forward!! As always, if you can think o...

Anonymous Jean-Michel Jarre Fan

says.. Suggestion: when the cards are shuffled, add a longer pause to give players a chance to learn the new config. As it stands the cards flip over way too quick to remember what was where.

Lots of comments, lately, as the Shoebox has essentially thrown any kind of regular AGameAWeek schedule well out of the window. I should probably look into fixing that, and getting back to a more regular schedule. Hmm.. Anyway.. RSKGames has submitted a few thoughts on Cardagain, so let's have a post about that! You can find Cardagain in the Shoebox, under the Misc section.

Cardagain seems to have worked out ok, but what comes next?

Aaah, that brings back memories. You can find Cardagain in the Shoebox under Misc games.

OK, I'll worry about Jack Change It another day.

To take my mind off the horrors of "Jack Change It", I've instead decided to test another compiled edition of the game.

If player plays an 8, the next player has to miss their turn.. Unless they also have an 8, in which case they can play that, then the next player has to miss their turn. ... Currently trying to code that, and it is NOT easy!!

The "Jack Change It" game now more or less functions in a vague way..

Today's hopefully going to be the last little bits of the reusable "Hand of Cards" code.