Game Guides Archive

Well I played a few rounds, the game is similar to what I have read, but the ibility to freeze a card so that it cannot be shifted was missing

I have been saying that we need Sabacc eversence the launch of the game. I have always wanted to win a starship like Solo!

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MrRiverhood wrote:

Im not sure about Sabacc, but Pazzak (or however its spelled) from kotor was pretty fun...

Would becool loots gettin the good cards.

Im not sure how Sabacc works, but I don't think the players bring there own cards?

Ahh what do I know...

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It's a combo of poker and black jack in a sense. The card chips are generally provided by the dealer bot, anything you bring with you would likely be a cheater card. Would be interesting if smugglers got a way to slice a deck and be able to cheat at the game with a certain risk of being caught.

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Casmaran wrote:
Well I played a few rounds, the game is similar to what I have read, but the ibility to freeze a card so that it cannot be shifted was missing

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this was a while ago and with all the different versions and slight variations i wonder: did the books say anything specific about that? like how many cards you can freeze in one turn or have frozen at any time? if you can take cards out of the field again, etc.?

ultimately in a computer version betting and freezing would be the only options to bluff. anyway, i recently realized how retarded i was to try and make a computer version of rules that were meant to compensate for the lack of a computer in a real world card game, so im trying to get a simple client/server version together.

old dos and windows versions can be found here: (shameless plug) http://festini.device-zero.de/downloads/index.shtml

anyway, what i had in mind for the new version:

the server replaces the "table" and in certain intervals checks if shifting should occur. if it does, two random cards are swapped. these cards do NOT have to be held by players, but could still be in the deck, so basically the first check is kind of redundant and instead of a 50% chance every seconds a shift every 2 seconds would have about the same result (but as rand() sucks for random numbers making things needlessly complicated never hurts *g*)

im dropping the phase stuff, especially the calling phase to get closer to poker again. if everybody holds the bet in his turn it means they want to see, if they raise others either hold or fold in their turn. bomb out and sabacc pot would remain (if you bomb out you have to pay into the sabacc pot, sabacc pot is won with pure sabacc or idiots array).

you start with 2 cards, can either take one more card (up to 5) or swap one card. in addition, i guess you should be able to freeze one card, but this is final (card cant be unfrozen again). or maybe all three options should be possible once a turn. details *g*

i will try to hack together a simple dos-based server and client to put up on my site. everybody who wants to test how well it works or to make suggestions for rule changes (or even better: supply art for the cards) is welcome. the one things im worried about is that players will deliberately wait forever in their turn until they get a shift they like. but i hope that the simple randomness of it will disencourage this and if not there will have to be a time limit for every players turn.

also, everyone with a good memory of all the sabacc scenes in the books is welcome to mention which book and pages.

one and a half days later: First Playable Version

dont expect too much at this point, its mostly a quick and dirty protoype using the console (which i would want to say is even harder than doing "right" with fancy graphics and a gui).

anyway, the server isnt great, but lets you configure a few things for now, so the config.cfg has:
MinPlayers (the minimum number of players before the game can start)
MaxCards (the limit of cards you can take)
MinSwap (the minimum number of cards you need before you can trade/swap/whatever)
Freezing (allows to place one card in the field per turn, pointless right now)
ShiftProb (probability of shifting every x seconds)
ShiftTime (mentioned x seconds)

-run the server
-run the client (or more than one to play at one machine)
-enter the servers ip (to play locally thats 127.0.0.1 )
-by now you should see the "lobby" which is just a fancy name for list of connected players
-change your name if you feel like it
-press r
-once the minimum number of players are connected and ready the game starts

-you get a list of players, their bets, how many cards they hold, etc.
-you see your cards and whose turn it is
-take a card if you want (per default swapping a card is only possible with 3 or more cards)
-raise or bail out ("bet" actions end your turn)
-raising bets whatever you need to pay to call plus the amount you enter
-calling (not available for the first player to start) pays enough to hold the current bet

-when you swap (or freeze) your asked to select a card (their numbers are on the left)
-once all players after the last one to raise call the hand is shown

things not working yet:
-winners are chosen by sum of their cards only (abs value or positive over negative in a draw)
-sabacc pot isnt handled
-no ante yet and your money isnt shown (its there and updated, just not shown or considered)
-only one game (server states are a mess and next to be done "right")
-bunch of smaller bugs, especially with input buffers not being empty when they should be
-shifting isnt implemented yet
-handling dropped connections is yet to be done
-limit of 8 players cant be reached (player data grew more and more, until 128byte wasnt enough for a complete status message)

on the positive side:
-cheating should be impossible, everything is managed on the server and actions are doublechecked
-traffic should be low and will be further minized by avoiding some needless updates
-a simple game with simple architecture, replacing the console output with graphics shouldnt be a problem

what this needs is a couple of people playtesting the first prototype, suggesting good default "rules" or changes to the rules.

im deliberately not making another 1:1 conversion of the rules meant to simulate sabacc with a die. whats the point in making a computer version of a game according to rules that were specifically meant to get around the lack of a computer? yet, trying to make it come as close as possible to the rules described in the novels probably wouldnt hurt.