iBlackjack Beta 1 Preview

[McCarron]

Sorry the next update is taking so long, I keep getting more features I want to add. So, here is another pre-beta screenshot to tease you.

Trying to get these final features working 100% and polished up, right now it's really not pretty to play. I finally got the chips looking and acting like I want, so I figured I'd share them with all of you. They don't represent your bet right now, but they will tomorrow.



This shows the in-between hand time where the screen will now scroll down to allow you to bet with tapping on a chip. The table will clear also before you can set your bet, I just haven't got that timing down right yet.

Along with this change will obviously be a change in the game's betting structure. Now there will be a table minimum bet, settable via Preferences. Between rounds you can add to the bet. Once you have less than the minimum bet you'll automatically start over back at $200.

[McCarron]

The chips on the playing surface will now be smaller, they'll shrink as they move to the center.

Also they will make chip "click" sounds as well.

Also here's a preview of the new icon I'm working on:



I want to make new universal deck cards that can be used between the two games. I like the glossy look of the iBlackjack cards, but the layout doesn't work well with iPoker because you have to overlap cards in some cases to fit all the players on the screen.

[Kyle Matthews]

Looking good, man.

[Eurisko]

Can't wait for iPoker... and maybe iRoulette?

[Sidetalker]

iRoulette!!!

[McCarron]

Here is the intro screen for placing your first bet. (Yes the game now auto-starts, no more menu screen at the launch.)



Here you can see the game has started and bets have been placed (table minimum bet takes place automatically). You can see the bet chips are smaller than the chips you click on to actually bet. They shrink as they move into place.



Here is the new hand-over notification, this is RIGHT after the previous hand cards moved off the screen. No clicking required, it goes away if you bet or if you just wait for the next hand to start. I want to tweak these timings still, so it's fast but not too fast.



Still a bit more to do with the chip betting changes, it's not completely working just yet. It's very close though. Once the bet issues are resolved, then back to finalizing splitting. It's mostly there, but a few internal changes brought this bet change and delayed finishing splitting.

[patrickj]

Looking *very* good ...

[method77]

excellent!

[DaveiPhone]

Fantastic, really looking forward to this update! Thank you.

[unplug]

not sure if you added it yet
but perhaps maybe the split option??

[McCarron]

not sure if you added it yet
but perhaps maybe the split option??

That is part of it. You can see an example of splitting of pairs at the top of the thread.

Now for an opinion, what do people think of the new cards I mocked up? I have to make the other 50 of them first, but you can see they look a bit different.

[DaveiPhone]

Now for an opinion, what do people think of the new cards I mocked up? I have to make the other 50 of them first, but you can see they look a bit different.

I like the new look, especially if you deal me all those Aces and I can keep splitting! =)

[McCarron]

I like the new look, especially if you deal me all those Aces and I can keep splitting! =)

Sadly for now it's going to allow only one split. I'll go back later and add more splitting to it.

This new card deck is also created at 2x the resolution, so future changes can be done that may require larger images on the cards without massive re-work.

I also noticed the Ace of Spades there showed as a Club in the corners. I fixed that.

[DaveiPhone]

Sadly for now it's going to allow only one split. I'll go back later and add more splitting to it.

Yeah, I figured, that was meant more as a kind of lame joke (I'd love to be dealt 4 aces and be able to split to 4 hands!).

No worries, I'm very excited to be finally able to split at all. And the new betting technique and look are just an added bonus, to me.

[McCarron]

Chip betting is about all fixed and working now. I'm going to do some limited testing to work bugs out. Splitting is still not working 100%, but that's next on the slate now that the new game flow is mostly fixed.

Here is an updated image, I made a new felt image change after playing poker at a friend's house last night that had this felt pattern.


Here is the final icon too with the new card images:


Any theme designers out there have good ideas of what to use for the face cards? That's the only thing I can't figure out what to do.

Here is the final changelog of what will be in v1.0 Beta 1:

v1.0 Beta 1 (January ?, 2008)
1. Splitting of Pairs
2. Table Minimum Bet Preference
3. Chip Betting with Chip Sounds
4. Game flow improvements
5. New Card and Table Images
6. Improved Animations
7. Bug Fixes

[Kyle Matthews]

Like that felt much better.

[McCarron]

I'm going to start giving builds out to a few select people to give the game a whirl. I made enough changes that I want to see what people think first. It's not bug free, but close to completion.

So if you are really interested, shoot me an email.

Also, would people like to track their stats in the game? I may put in a way to do keep track of user stats from the start of the game, and also make them resetable. This would be a pre-cursor to an online high-score system.

[armadillo]

You asked for comments:

While the cards now look much friendlier and brighter, I think the gloss is a bit too much. While it may look good on the back, the top left symbols are just too faint. It looks kinda okay for the spades, but I don't think it fits the clubs and I have no idea what the reds will look like.

I find the new felt too busy and I would revert to the old version.

The chips are not well defined. They look too flat for my taste and the colors are not that appealing.

Of course, this is all subjective and not that important. Keep up the great work.

[HotStuff2]

Yeah, I think keeping track of stats would be a good idea. What are you thinking, maybe total hands played, # won/#lost? Total winnings, total bet amounts, total lost?

[McCarron]

You asked for comments:

While the cards now look much friendlier and brighter, I think the gloss is a bit too much. While it may look good on the back, the top left symbols are just too faint. It looks kinda okay for the spades, but I don't think it fits the clubs and I have no idea what the reds will look like.

I find the new felt too busy and I would revert to the old version.

The chips are not well defined. They look too flat for my taste and the colors are not that appealing.

Of course, this is all subjective and not that important. Keep up the great work.

The gloss is going to be toned down a bit, that's for sure. The chips I am also not 100% with. I agree, too flat. I took some pictures of some chips I liked, and may make some new ones as a merge of style between the two.

Yeah, I think keeping track of stats would be a good idea. What are you thinking, maybe total hands played, # won/#lost? Total winnings, total bet amounts, total lost?

Yeah exactly something along those lines. It'll be an option in the menu to display those stats live during a game.