Need a Program

[twztdwndpipe]

Alright,
I have been working on a card game. I'm at the point that I would like to begin small playtesting. The only problem is, I have no way of making the cards. I'm hoping someone knows of a program that can deal cards. Another small problem is... the game I'm making has 4 different decks. I have no special artwork as of right now. I just need a program that can randomly deal players their cards, that way I don't have to make 50 cards per deck with different things on them.

Anyone?

[Eero Tuovinen]

Program to deal cards? Do you mean like an electronic game table where you can create the cards and then play on the computer? If so, you might find what you need in VASSAL, a powerful virtual game table. It'll take a little bit of learning, but it's not difficult by any means to create a deck of cards in it.

If that's not what you're asking, then I don't understand the question.

[Luke]

Hate to say it, my friend, but you need to prototype those cards by hand.

I made a game with five decks of 45 cards in play. I bought five decks of regular playing cards and then made simple text labels. I stuck the labels on the cards and used those to playtest. Once we had the mechanics worked out, we made some rough art and printed it out on labels and stuck them to blank cards and worked from there.

Prototyping is a part of game design.

[twztdwndpipe]

To Luke:
     I understand that prototyping is a part of it. But as of right now, I need to just figure out if I have something here to spend the time into or if it was just a bad idea.

To Eero:
     I will be looking this program up as soon as I am done here. I hope this will work, Thanks!

[Egonblaidd]

As someone learning Java, it doesn't seem like it would be that difficult to write a program yourself to deal cards randomly, it would be more difficult if you wanted to do it over a network (so players could see their own cards without being able to peek on other people's cards, or something), but to someone thoroughly versed in the ways of programming I don't think it would be that hard.  It wouldn't be pretty, but you could whip up something functional fairly quickly.

The best option is if you can find a pre-existing program that works, or work it out somehow to playtest it with real cards.  One option might be to buy index cards and merely write on one side what card they are, a crude illustration might also help.  If worse comes to worst then you can just rip a piece of paper into a bunch of pieces and use that, it worked when I was a kid (you might want to make all the pieces the same size, though).

I could whip up a program to deal cards randomly in just a few minutes, but I'd need a few details on what you wanted, and you'd have to know how to run it (it's not hard, I could tell you how).

[sureideas]

If your question is whether it will work yes it will. I created a game of card and when I was in a position like yours I decided to do it manually. I designed it using Java. Why dont you use your Javaskills

[Josh Gertz]

I would make the argument that it would be much faster to prototype this by using some paper and plastic card covers than to program something in java.

What I did for a project awhile back ago was I went to a department store, Walmart if you are near one, and purchased the Avery perforated business cards package in the printer section.

The first round I just wrote the names of the cards on the cards, tore them apart, shuffled and tested with a few friends. The second round I went to the companies website and downloaded the business card template for MS Word...typed in the card names, inserted the artwork that a friend made and printed them. Total time prototyping these cards was maybe 20 minutes?

Programming a card creator, shuffler, dealer, and each mechanic of the card would take much longer. Even using VASSAL would take longer than 20 minutes to get your concept up and runing. Then you have to deal with testing the software to make sure that the cards do what they need to do.

-Josh

[Egonblaidd]

Yeah, the best thing is probably to use real cards of some kind, writing the name on an index card is all you really need to test the system.

But how do you actually make cards?  Do you need a special printer that can print on thicker paper, or would you just tape or glue regular paper you had printed out onto blank cards, or what?  Like, for a final product type of thing.  As someone who's tried making card games with my siblings when we were younger I'd be interested to hear how it's usually done (not that I probably couldn't find out by checking Wikipedia, in fact I'll go check now).

But yeah, to the OP, I can still write a program if you want, but real cards seems like an easier and better option.