World of Card Games

Thanks to everyone who reported the problem with the site! The server is currently down. I've contacted my host, and they tell me they are working on the problem. I'll post with details as soon as I know more.

[Edit: the site is back up as of noon, EST. My host had some problems with their power supply, and then had some hardware issues. Ugh! Many others were affected as well.]

Last night, I met up with some folks for a few card games. This was the first time I ever played Spades or Hearts offline!

It turned out to be a lot of fun. It was a little disconcerting to play with real cards at first, but I found that my "training" from playing at World of Card Games had really paid off. After a bumpy start, I was soon using the same strategies that I've developed online.

dealing a round of Spades

I noticed a few crucial differences between card games on the website and those in real life.

For one, games take longer in meatspace! The dealer has to shuffle the deck and deal out cards, and players have to sort the cards in their hands. The score has to be totted up after each hand. All of that takes longer when the computer is not doing it for you.

In addition, games are more confusing and disorganized in real life! For example, in a game of Spades at World of Card Games, the computer tells you who deals. In real life, it's up to the players to keep track. After many hands of cards have been played, people tend to forget who dealt last. Was it you... or me... or...?? And in Hearts, the computer tells you whether it's time to pass cards left, right, or across, or whether it's a no-passing round. Not so in real life! I realized I've been relying on the computer to do these things, and I found I lost track easily.

Anyway... here's a brief summary of the games last night.

We started with a few hands of 3-player Hearts, since not everyone had arrived and we didn't have a full set of four players. Once we got four players, we switched to a game of Spades. I enjoy Hearts, but I prefer Spades, so I was happy to switch.

My partner and I failed to make our bid, and got set in the very first round - we would have to dig our way out of a negative score. Soon thereafter, we ran into some luck when one of our opponents (I'll call him West) bid nil, and their partner (East) failed to cover. After we set them, we learned that East had not had to cover a nil-bidder before, and didn't realize what she was doing by leading with a low card - so we got an unfair handicap there. At this point, our opponents were in a negative-score hole!

We managed to set our opponents 2 or 3 times, burying them. They never recovered, and we won!

Afterwards, we played another game of 3-player Hearts. By some kind of miracle, I won this game! (I almost never win at Hearts, online.) I snapped a shot of the scores as evidence, see below. For anyone who does not play Hearts - it's a game of trick avoidance, and the low score wins. Notice my opponents tied for second place, which is a bit unusual!


I'm looking forward to more games in real life. But it's nice to be able to sit down and play a game online when I've got the time - no commuting necessary!

How about you - do you play cards in "real life" or only online? If you've never played with others in real life - I encourage you to find a group to play with. It adds a whole new dimension of fun to it!

The server was out for a few minutes this morning while it got a bug fix update.

Sometimes a blank table would appear when clicking into the Hearts game. This bug has been fixed. Please let me know if you see anything like this again!

Also, the robot strategy in Euchre has been tweaked. Previously, if a robot went alone, it had the habit of leading with a low trump card. That's a bad strategy, since the low card would be more likely to get trumped on the first round. This has been fixed.

Thanks to everyone for reporting bugs, and flaws in the robot strategy. There's still a lot of work to do, but improvements will come over time. Meantime, enjoy the games!

If you were affected by the problems at World of Card Games this evening, I apologize!

The server had stopped responding to many requests - people weren't able to get to tables, couldn't invite robots, etc - and I wasn't able to do anything to fix it. I've restarted the machine. I hope this reset will keep problems at bay for a while.

I just wanted to post here that if you've had problems connecting with World of Card Games, you are not alone! The site was down for a few minutes at several different times today. The only information I have is that it was a "Network error." I've contacted my host and am waiting for a response. Meantime, I appreciate your patience. Unfortunately there's not much I can do except wait and hope it gets fixed.

Edit: I just got a note from my host that they are "aware of the problem" and are getting someone to look into it. I hope it's easy to fix!

PS: The problem was fixed as of last night (Dec 23) around 9 pm EST. They told me "one of the distributions shut itself off and we had to fix it twice."

World of Card Games got some updates for minor bug fixes this morning. For example, a bug sometimes caused the table info to be displayed incorrectly; that was fixed. Also, if your turn times out when playing Spades, as you probably know, the computer will play a card for you. Previously, if you had bid nil, the computer's unwise choice could cause you to lose your bid. This has been corrected so that the first few times that you timeout, a better card is picked.

In addition, five new avatars have been added. Enjoy!

A few changes were applied to World of Card Games this morning. Seven new avatars have been added! There's a snowboarder, a skier, and more... Check them out by clicking on the "Avatar" link in the upper left corner.


In addition, the "Options" panel has been made a bit larger and is now contained within its own dialog. Previously, it was confined to the space reserved for each game panel. You can see the old "Options" panel in my post about the "no robots" option. Here's a screenshot of the new "Options" panel:
I hope this makes it easier to change options for those with small screen sizes. Please let me know if you have any trouble with the new dialog.

Finally, a bug fix was applied to Euchre. Several players noticed that robots never "go alone," and pointed that out to me. This has now been fixed.

Thanks to everyone who sends me feedback! I'll keep working to fine-tune the site so that it's easier to use for everyone.