Denial

Hi all,

well it's - 'Hearts', the card game that you play when you are pretending to work, now for unexpanded Vic-20. Written entirely in BASIC. (I'm wondering if someone has already done this, but I just spent the better part of an hour searching, apparently no..)

The game includes the following rules / variants :

- 2 Clubs always goes first
- You cannot lead a heart unless a point card has been played
- If you 'shoot the moon', everyone else's score increases by 26
- First round is not 'safe' - if you have no clubs, you can trump with a point card

The computer players don't play what I would consider to be an 'optimal' game, nevertheless they still provides what I think is a reasonable level of competition.

This is the first thing I've done in BASIC on the VIC since I was a kid. I was using the Programmer's Aid cartridge for the first time (really this was just an excuse to see what that cartridge does, after all these years), and I have to say - it made the task much much easier than I remember coding on the VIC to be.

EDIT : Fixed a 'randomising' issue, now plays different games each time you start it.
EDIT 25/5/20 : - Better randomising
- fixed scoring bug when player shoots moon on last round
- Various bits of screwy code fixed
- Slightly more efficient play by computer players

Thanks. Very nice and clean... does what it says on the tin!

I knew I'd seen the title screen style before so I had to find it - it's similar to the Blue Meanies opening screen.

beamrider wrote: ↑Mon May 18, 2020 2:15 am I knew I'd seen the title screen style before so I had to find it - it's similar to the Blue Meanies opening screen.

Yes a bit of a nod to Commodore's Vic-21 too..

Well done! You really should post this HERE

It's really very nice. KIM shot the moon in the first hand. I was able to come back and win, but it was quite a performance.

Thanks - I'm still tinkering a little with it before I post on the announcement board. I can make the computer play a wee bit more efficiently.

I’m an incredibly mean Hearts player, so interested to see how this looks heh.

Mayhem wrote: ↑Sat May 23, 2020 2:37 pm I’m an incredibly mean Hearts player, so interested to see how this looks heh.

You'll probably beat the computer players quite regularly, I'd think

The latest version is *just* good enough for a casual player like me though, I just played it twice and didn't win either time. (A computer player shot the moon in each game). My goal was to end up with something I wouldn't win *every* time when I played it.

Not bad, enjoyed playing that, although it's missing the "pass three cards to the next player" feature which really is an essential part of the game imo.

You are right, I had forgotten that competely!

If I can do it well and within 3.5k, I'll include. But I'm not sure at this stage if I can.

If bumping to +8k means you can fit that in and expand the computer AI in the process (maybe variable difficulty levels) then I'm all for it

Hi Victragic,

I suggest to make the sorting routine a bit faster / obsolete:

Replace
with
and remove D%(I,P)=99 from line 66.

Regards,

Wim.

Here is the WimBasic version. Brought it down to 1912 bytes, 37 lines.
It autostarts in VICE.

Regards,

Wim.

That's considerably more efficient!

I'll have a look at this a bit later.

BTW the original code was made on a real Vic with just the Programmer's Aid cartridge, I've no intention of expanding it beyond those specs but happy for anyone to take it further as they see fit!