9.5. Dice and Playing Cards

| Chapter 9: Props: Food, Clothing, Money, Toys, Books, Electronics |

| 9.5. Dice and Playing Cards

Most toys are single things, and no harder to create than any other small items, but games often require a multitude of tokens to be combined, and this can be logistically tricky.

The classic example is a pack of playing cards, where the player must individually control 52 items but without fussy commands or verbose text being printed back. Jokers Wild provides a simple "one card at a time" approach; Tilt 1 is more sophisticated, with 52 independently accessible cards; Tilt 2 can further judge the value of a selection of cards - the ranking of a poker hand.

Drawing cards from a shuffled pack is only one source of randomness. Games of chance also involve items drawn from a bag: Wonka's Revenge provides just such a lottery. More often, dice are thrown. A single die is easy enough:

> The die is carried by the player. After dropping the die: say "It lands with [a random number from 1 to 6] uppermost." Understand "roll [something]" as dropping.

Quick, but not very good. Most dice games involve rolling more than one die at a time, to get a more interesting distribution of outcomes: they may also involve special rules applying to doubles, for instance. See Do Pass Go.

See Typography for on-screen notations for chess and card games

264
| Example Jokers Wild A deck of cards which can be shuffled and dealt from. |
WI

> Suppose we want a deck of cards which the player can shuffle and draw from. Our first (rather tedious) task is merely to set up the deck as a table: "Jokers Wild" Suit is a kind of value. The suits are hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades. Table of Cards
> suit | value
> diamonds | 1
> diamonds | 2
> diamonds | 3
> diamonds | 4
> diamonds | 5
> diamonds | 6
> diamonds | 7
> diamonds | 8
> diamonds | 9
> diamonds | 10
> diamonds | 11
> diamonds | 12
> diamonds | 13
> spades | 1
> spades | 2
> spades | 3
> spades | 4
> spades | 5
> spades | 6
> spades | 7
> spades | 8
> spades | 9
> spades | 10
> spades | 11
> spades | 12
> spades | 13
> hearts | 1
> hearts | 2
> hearts | 3
> hearts | 4
> hearts | 5
> hearts | 6
> hearts | 7
> hearts | 8
> hearts | 9
> hearts | 10
> hearts | 11
> hearts | 12
> hearts | 13
> clubs | 1
> clubs | 2
> clubs | 3
> clubs | 4
> clubs | 5
> clubs | 6
> clubs | 7
> clubs | 8
> clubs | 9
> clubs | 10
> clubs | 11
> clubs | 12
> clubs | 13
> We're going to describe the higher numbers as face cards, so it helps to write a new "to say" phrase. To say (count - a number) as a card value: choose row with a value of count in the Table of Value Names; say "[term entry]". Table of Value Names
> value | term
> 1 | "ace"
> 2 | "deuce"
> 3 | "three"
> 4 | "four"
> 5 | "five"
> 6 | "six"
> 7 | "seven"
> 8 | "eight"
> 9 | "nine"
> 10 | "ten"
> 11 | "jack"
> 12 | "queen"
> 13 | "king"
Now we get the shuffling of the deck from "sort in random order", so: Understand "shuffle" as shuffling. Shuffling is an action applying to nothing. Carry out shuffling: sort the Table of Cards in random order; say "You expertly rearrange the cards.". When play begins: sort the Table of Cards in random order. This will continue to work properly even as the deck is partially depleted. Speaking of which, suppose we want the player to be able to toss the cards one-by-one into a hat. They are going to need to be removed from the deck, so: Understand "toss" or "toss a card" or "toss card" as tossing. Tossing is an action applying to nothing. Check tossing: if the number of filled rows in the Table of Cards is 0, say "The deck is empty." instead. Carry out tossing: repeat through the Table of Cards: let new value be value entry; let new suit be suit entry; say "You throw the [value entry as a card value] of [suit entry] at the top hat, and [if a random chance of 1 in 3 succeeds]hit[otherwise]miss[end if]."; blank out the whole row; rule succeeds. If we wanted to simulate a slightly more stimulating game, we could instead have a second table to represent the player's hand of cards and record each card drawn. That would get long for the purposes of example, however, so instead we will just admit that the player's life is an empty husk of existence: The Empty Room is a room. "It has come to this: sitting on the bare floor of Lulu's apartment with nothing to amuse you but a deck of cards and the top hat from last year's act. You reckon [the number of filled rows in the Table of Cards in words] cardtosses are all that stand between you and the utter pointlessness of existence. Once again you curse Lulu for running off with that joker." The player is carrying the deck of cards. The top hat is an open container in the Empty Room. It is scenery. Test me with "toss / again / again / again / again / again / again / again".

306
| Example Tilt 1 A deck of cards with fully implemented individual cards, which can be separately drawn and discarded, and referred to by name. |
WI

389
| Example Tilt 2 A deck of cards with fully implemented individual cards; when the player has a full poker hand, the inventory listing describes the resulting hand accordingly. |
WI

175
| Example Wonka's Revenge A lottery drum which redistributes the tickets inside whenever the player spins it. |
WI

129
| Example Do Pass Go A pair of dice which can be rolled, and are described with their current total when not carried, and have individual scores when examined. |
WI

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