the fleshing of a mini game - eep!

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

certain situations call for a mini game that may of sounded good to just be scrapped. ive done this so many times that its rather discouraging. this time ive decided to shut down my poker game in favor of a slightly different setup.

this new set up is the game seen at the casino in xenosaga. you get a 5 card hand, choose which to keep and are dealt new cards to replace the ones you gave up. winnings are multipliers based on poker hands. after the initial game if you win you have a chance to play high low for double or nothing all the way up to 16 multiplier.

since the game was rather fun to play and its relatively doable in rpg maker, i decided that this will be the game for me. the problem is just how many parts are needed and a hard choice as to what i should sacrifice in favor of cheaper memory or even realistic execution.


breaking up a game into bits is how any sane developer should create their mini game in rpg maker. doing so allows for each step to be neat (no zigarat coding), easy to detect bugs, and allows for additional addons.

for this mini game i will need these steps:

1 initial 5 card selection
2 choice meter for removing cards i dont want/proceed when finished
3 replacing surrendered cards with new cards
4 tracking scored cards and executing reward multiplier
5 changing to hi low game which is relatively easy to create

the first is an easy process of generating 5 random cards from a possible combination of 52. the trick will be preventing duplicate cards from surfacing. i will not settle for a semi random system for a game like this so i wont do pre rendered sets. this is tough but doable i believe.

having the cards display is simple with switches and graphic set. how i will do this i will need to decide, but i most likely will cheat since i dont want to make 52 card graphics.

the hardest part is making the system that chooses which cards to keep and regenerates a final set of cards. i will use the highlight system of showing which card set i am on and x being the selector. the removing card process would both need to remove the card from the current stack, keep it from returning, and trigger that the card needs to be replaced. this is quite difficult and im still brainstorming a solution that is sane to produce.

replacing the cards could work on a switch basis. if switches 1-5 are used to denote card placement, and if i use either 52 switches to denote cards or 260 switches to denote each unique card space, then i can trigger a card replacement that way through move location and just do that till the slots are filled. it can get costly so i will need to make it as sane as possible.

the tracking process is "easy" compared to everything else. i just set the final part to check which switches are activated together to decide which multiplier youd receive. id only have one bet range anyway as its already going to be evil.

the high low game would come after as a separate game and is easy to make once the first part is finished.


talking out the system helps me to find a solution but ill put the question to you. how do you suppose i tackle these obstacles?

[Wavelength]

Re: the fleshing of a mini game - eep!

On the main page, I saw this topic displayed as "the fleshing..." Eep, indeed!

It seems to me like the hardest part would be to check for winning combinations, because I can't think of any way using RM1 to check for (any combination of suits) 4-5-6-7-8 at the same time as (any suits) 5-6-7-8-9, without writing out the code twice using different values.

But as to how to approach the re-draw? Seems to me like you could set a flag for "freeze" on each card, and if the flag is still off after the player chooses to "re-draw," it will be replaced. Easy enough! It seemed like you were worried about having the same card appear twice, though (either in the initial draw or in the re-draw)?

You could say it's "eight-deck poker" and therefore you might see three 3 of Diamonds in the same hand. Some casinos actually do this (it alters the odds of getting certain hands somewhat. It makes Straights slightly harder and 3/4 of a Kind much easier, for example).

Or, you could have 52 flags which track whether a card has been shown this hand (whether it's in your hand already or has been discarded), and when you run the script to have a random card be chosen, and get the result of this randomizer, check the result to see if it's already been shown. If so, "loop" (transition) back to the start of the randomizer to pick another card, until it passes the "have not seen" check, before moving onto the next card.

In the end, this kind of thing is much easier to program from scratch than it is to program using RPG Maker logic, especially if you're good with intermediate code (but even as a neophyte, I can do it much easier with simple code concepts than with RM-style event commands). However, to see it in an RPG Maker game would be absolutely sweet! Good luck, man, I hope it works out for you.

[Karr Lord of Chaos]

Re: the fleshing of a mini game - eep!

On the main page, I saw this topic displayed as "the fleshing..." Eep, indeed!

It seems to me like the hardest part would be to check for winning combinations, because I can't think of any way using RM1 to check for (any combination of suits) 4-5-6-7-8 at the same time as (any suits) 5-6-7-8-9, without writing out the code twice using different values.

this can be done through using the priority check (rpg maker checks the last past first and checks backwards till all conditions are met. pages without conditions automatically default to the first page being executed) and just going through each value. the only pages id need to make would be ones where you would win, any others would automatically default to the first page which is a you loose thing.

But as to how to approach the re-draw? Seems to me like you could set a flag for "freeze" on each card, and if the flag is still off after the player chooses to "re-draw," it will be replaced. Easy enough! It seemed like you were worried about having the same card appear twice, though (either in the initial draw or in the re-draw)?

with the way rpg maker 1 works, i need to remove the switch for the card i want gone as well as add a switch to indicate that i have removed a card. i am worried about a card repete but i may have to settle with the 8 deck set.

You could say it's "eight-deck poker" and therefore you might see three 3 of Diamonds in the same hand. Some casinos actually do this (it alters the odds of getting certain hands somewhat. It makes Straights slightly harder and 3/4 of a Kind much easier, for example).

this is what i most like will have to do since its far too much coding to keep multiple cards from showing up. this increases the amount of combination dramatically but i can handle that much easier then i can developing a system to check and change multiple cards.

Or, you could have 52 flags which track whether a card has been shown this hand (whether it's in your hand already or has been discarded), and when you run the script to have a random card be chosen, and get the result of this randomizer, check the result to see if it's already been shown. If so, "loop" (transition) back to the start of the randomizer to pick another card, until it passes the "have not seen" check, before moving onto the next card.

this is very hard to do in rpg maker 1 as i would have to link to a matrix that would try every combination. ive done successful randomizes before but no true randomize is sane, its usually a dummy. that you can select the cards you keep means it has to be a true randomized game as its user driven.

In the end, this kind of thing is much easier to program from scratch than it is to program using RPG Maker logic, especially if you're good with intermediate code (but even as a neophyte, I can do it much easier with simple code concepts than with RM-style event commands). However, to see it in an RPG Maker game would be absolutely sweet! Good luck, man, I hope it works out for you.

thanks, im going to try to fiddle with a few ideas and see if i can break the system. ive done some pretty cool stuff with the software so far, so im confident that i can develop something akin to this idea though it maybe different then what i imagine it to be. when i do break it ill tell you all how.