Let's Talk About Poker

[mairsil]

Alright, after I get Bingo Party out, I plan on doing a "casual" poker game for the Xbox 360. I'm tired of only seeing poker games focus only on Texas Holdem and occasionally Omaha, so I'm going to do something drastic and focus on providing a wide variety of poker games.

What I want to know is, what poker games and variations do you play with your friends? There will be a few games that I won't include for programmatic/laziness reasons, such as Jack to open/Trips to win or passing style games, but I am open to including other variations.

For reference, I already have the following games implemented in "Poker Night" (names in caps because I am just copying from code):

• FIVE_CARD_STUD*
• FIVE_CARD_DRAW*
• FIVE_CARD_STUD_BLIND* - All 5 cards dealt in the hole before betting.
• THREE_CARD_STUD
• SEVEN_CARD_STUD*
• CHICAGO*
• RAZZ
• FOLLOW_THE_QUEEN
• BASEBALL - Optional 4-up = extra card and 7-up = out.
• TEXAS_HOLDEM
• OMAHA
• CINCINNATI
• MISSISSIPPI
• PINEAPPLE
• CRAZY_PINEAPPLE
• WILDCAT - Texas Hold'em, but you can replace your hole cards after betting the river.
• SPIT
• PAI_GOW_POKER - Just like the table game, only high/low hands split pot.
• MINI_PAI_GOW_POKER - Same, except dealt 5 cards and high hand is a 3 card hand.
• BLIND_MAN_THREE
• BLIND_MAN_FIVE*
• BLIND_MAN_SEVEN*
• TEXAS_BLUFF - Texas Hold'em, but your hole cards are blind.
• LOWBALL_THREE
• LOWBALL_FIVE
• LOWBALL_SEVEN
• TRIPLE_DRAW_LOWBALL - "2-7 Triple Draw"
• SINGLE_DRAW_LOWBALL - "2-7 Single Draw"
• FIVE_HI_LO - Five card A-5 Hi-Lo, 10 qualifies
• SEVEN_HI_LO - Seven card A-5 Hi-Lo, 8 qualifies
• OMAHA_HI_LO - Omaha A-5 Hi-Lo, 8 qualifies
• BADUGI

*With or without wild cards

Am I missing anything obvious? Is there something that you just love to play?

[chalmo]

Chinese poker?
Badugi?
Razz?

These may be covered under one (of the many) names I don't recognise.

Do you have Hi and HiLo implemented for stud and omaha and anything else it'd be relevant to?

[graciano1337]

Bonus Poker?

[mairsil]

Chinese poker?
Badugi?
Razz?

These may be covered under one (of the many) names I don't recognise.

Lowball is close enough to Razz to cover it without me having to rewrite the hand evaluation functions for another special case (also the reason I'm shying away from non-traditional poker hand games). I would absolutely love to have Chinese Poker, but there is no way to functionally have that many cards on the screen at once and still be able to accommodate non-HD TV's.

Do you have Hi and HiLo implemented for stud and omaha and anything else it'd be relevant to?

I'm thinking about putting in Omaha/8 or Omaha/9 (or both).

Bonus Poker?

Unless you are talking about the video poker machines, I've never heard of a Bonus Poker variant. What are the rules?

[GaijinPunch]

Chinese poker?
Badugi?
Razz?

Badugi! Such a fucking brutal game! So fun... a great way to lose a month or two's rent in one hand. It would be the easiest game to code as well!

Do you have Hi and HiLo implemented for stud and omaha and anything else it'd be relevant to?

Yeah, that's bullshit if you have Omaha high only. HiLo is the mark of a true poker player.

Omaha/9

People play this? I wouldn't bother.

That's a good list you have there. You didn't mention the stakes, I would highly recommend a lot of the games be Pot Limit, and not just limit...specifically Mississippi, as it is a great way to have a 4-round pot limit game.

[mairsil]

That's a good list you have there. You didn't mention the stakes, I would highly recommend a lot of the games be Pot Limit, and not just limit...specifically Mississippi, as it is a great way to have a 4-round pot limit game.

Yeah, I am going to have a very customizable set of table stakes: no limit, pot limit, limit (also customizable) with or without raise capping.

[Tatsujin]

poker is for joker

[Taucias]

Poker? I didn't even know her!

[mairsil]

Just added five card hi-lo split and seven card/omaha 8 qualifies hi-lo games.

[neoblast]

You mean... as an indie game on xbox live?
Hmmm if that's the case sweeeeeeeet, i'd buy it..

[mairsil]

After further research (and a little bit of rewriting of the hand comparison code), I'll will be able to easily add Badugi after all.

You mean... as an indie game on xbox live?
Hmmm if that's the case sweeeeeeeet, i'd buy it..

Yup, it will be an Xbox Live Indie Game (unless I can somehow get Microsoft to give me an XBLA contract). I plan to have single player (against AI) and multiplayer games. I am also planning to put in an avatar animation system where you can change the "mood" of your avatar to help with bluffing (e.g. you could make your avatar shift their eyes back and forth or otherwise make them act like they got a good/bad hand).

[GaijinPunch]

After further research (and a little bit of rewriting of the hand comparison code), I'll will be able to easily add Badugi after all.

Word. I doubt it will be available here in Japan, but if it is, I'll definitely give it some support.

[mairsil]

Word. I doubt it will be available here in Japan, but if it is, I'll definitely give it some support.

That shouldn't be a problem; the game creators have control over which markets a game is released in. I released Glide in as many markets as I could (see here) and I plan to do that for all of my games. It might not be translated (it is next to impossible to get multilingual games on the system due to a lack of reviewers), but it will be available.

[mairsil]

Decided to add in Razz so I can set up "H-O-R-S-E" type games.

Oh, and let me say that programming poker AI for over 30 games sucks...

[emu_kidid]

I had also considered writing a Poker game.. I gave up when I got to all the different AI! good luck :)

[GaijinPunch]

Decided to add in Razz so I can set up "H-O-R-S-E" type games.

Oh, and let me say that programming poker AI for over 30 games sucks...

Yeah, but in theory I would assume you have only have about 5 types of "dealt" hands, and then 10 or so routines to check the ending hands. But, what do I know! :)

What type of release date are you looking for?

[mairsil]

Yeah, but in theory I would assume you have only have about 5 types of "dealt" hands, and then 10 or so routines to check the ending hands. But, what do I know! :)

What type of release date are you looking for?

Well, I've got 10 different hand types, accounting for A-5 Lo and 2-7 Lo variations, and about 2800 lines of code dedicated to hand evaluation and comparison. I could probably clean it up a lot, but it works fine so I would rather not break it right now.

I don't really have a set timeframe for release, maybe May-ish. I'm working on the betting/discard AI for single player right now (though my focus for the game overall is a multiplayer experience). After that, I need to work on the graphics/sound (here is what it currently looks like), multiplayer support and updating Cardrop as a bonus feature. Multiplayer shouldn't be too bad, as I can copy a lot of code from the last two games I did. Updating Cardrop is just a matter of shoving it into a menu option. The graphics, though, are going to take me a little while to model the table, chips and do the player animations.

[mairsil]

Here's a brief update for anyone who cares. I just about have the multiplayer and betting cores done; only need to test them for a week or two. Had to cut the double pot game due to it causing a hell of a lot of conflict with the network replay system. Added a spread limit option (up to 5x the minimum bet). Now I just need to make it look presentable...

[mairsil]

So, with all the screenshots and updates coming out of E3, here's a new one for Poker Night:



It just makes your mouth water, doesn't it? pub:

[mairsil]

While testing out some avatar animations, the avatars decided to hold a seance...



:evil: