Minimax In Action!

About the Game

Euchre is a card game played with two teams of two players.  In this post, I will start creating a version of the game in Unity.  In order for the game to function as a single player game, I am also going to be creating multiple AI players to play with.  AI players are sometimes referred to as Agents, so I am going to use that term.  The agents will vary in strength and I hope to add some personality to them as well to make it more realistic and fun.  I may also add some quirkiness to some of the players to make them more real, for instance, Maybe creating a beginner player who overly favors keeping his high cards all the time.  Or maybe one who will choose to play even when most would pass.

The agents will have to make multiple decisions while playing but not all will require minimax.  The three decisions that I plan to use minimax for will be

• when the Agent chooses to pass, play or go alone
• when theAgent has to choose a suit to play if the trump is pushed over
• when the Agent plays a card.

Other decisions such as what to drink while playing, will have to be done another way.

Planning the Game

Normally a game would be best served with a GDD.  But I thought, why not do that right here.

Vision

League Euchre builds on an existing fun fast paced team card game to create a single or multiplayer experience that is fun, and turn based.  This game can be played while waiting for a subway or at a party, either way, it will turn up the fun!  The game includes multiple quirky opponents that will add to the enjoyment and allow players at all skill levels to participate and have fun!

Audience

This game is mostly for mobile users and card game players who either want to learn or practice Euchre.  It will also be enjoyed by a small number of people in real time, who do not own decks of cards!

Platform & Requirements

• Basic Requirements:
  • game will play on the web, tablets, and phones
  • game will play on Chrome, iOS and Android OS
  • game will allow for up to four players, but allow for 1 to play alone.  Since the game is a team game, the two player option will include playing with your human friend or playing against them.
  • game will have computer opponents that can play at least 3 levels of play and may have names instead of just ‘Easy’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Hard’ so that they can have different styles of play.
  • opponents will follow all the rules of the game
  • optional rule of ‘going under’ may be supported (see Variations)

Genre

This is a turn-based strategy card game.

Core Gameplay

The game consists of multiple rounds of play called tricks.  Each trick is composed of two distinct stages, (1) betting and (2) playing. Betting is the process of determining which team will bet that they can win 3 or more of the 5 tricks that are available. Playing is where the teams actually play the individual tricks until they are out of cards attempting to win as many of the tricks as they can.

The rules of this game are identical to the card version of Euchre, players choose a card to play by tapping and confirming it.  They can pass or play by clicking buttons to indicate their choices.

Visual Style

Space of course, because, well, because it’s easy to make assets for it and I do not have a designer. 🙂  Hoping to get some cheezy neon light type effects.

Characters / Storyline

The opponents that you play against will have some form of personality, not sure what yet.  They will at least have names and might say things during the gameplay.

In the next post, I will start building the unity app itself.  Here is the repo: https://github.com/nycynik/LeagueEuchre