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(3 edits)

Thanks for trying it, bro.

Did you try using your skills on the community cards themselves?

What the tricks can do are fairly constrained, so you generally don't need to check everything. Like if you can hit a full house, you can use 'reveal' and 'values' to make sure it's an actual full house. You can also play it riskier and like use only one skill to check the community cards, and then try to use other contextual info to have some degree of confidence that the rest of the cards are you expect (and use the other skills to check your opponents card, or maybe you need to spend an MP on changing your own card to have something in the first place). What I mean with extra info is, if you have 4 players, everyone does only 1 trick, so if you're seeing two faded suits, plus your own trick, you only have one trick unnacounted for, which has a low probability of being like, a 'Tinker rank' on the exactly card you're expecting (although it could happen). Meanwhile a board without anything faded, probably has a couple of things 'tinkered', so it's riskier to rely on that info. If you apparently have something, you can also try raising on first bet to get some people to fold, and if have 1 on 1 you can read the opponent's hand and not necesarily know if you'll make your hand 100%, but you might be able to deduce if you can beat them. Or if they're raising, you might get a clue on something that's tricked if you see their hand. Stuff like that.

I did have thoughts on skills that gave more aggregated info over a bigger set of cards. Like a 'sum three consecutive cards' so you could verify if any got tricked, but don't get much other than that. On earlier iterations I did try to lean more on 'deduction',  the skills gave you more vague info, but I didn't really find the right way to make that good, lol. Like, it wasn't really deduction, it gave you a lot of info that ended up in like a 50%/ 50% and you often straight up lost anyway. So I found that giving more direct info like just straight up telling the value or the suit, kind of worked better.... Couple with this 'trick' system that reduces info on the community cards, plus the limited MP, meaning you can't validate literally all the info. My intent is that there's some element on deduction in choosing what info to get exactly with your limited resources. Emm... Not sure the depth of it, though. I'd venture not too much since I haven't iterated on it enough, but I'm not sure.....

The psychological aspect.... Is something I do want, but I'm getting the feel it's pretty tricky.... That's why AIs for the time being don't bluff, which ideally, they would, so it feels like... Poker. But uhhh it can't feel like bullshit either, the player should be able to win often if they play good, which is not like Poker, so not sure, not sure..........

Oh wait, the mp isn't per whole game but per hand, holy shit, nevermind. I won tricks by using no skills because of being too conservative with it. I'll replay it tomorrow.

yeah that would explain it lol

I'll add something that isn't the tutorial just in the case, every hand you get 2 MP, but also regain 1 MP in the second bet. Meaning you can use three skills total per hand.

Since the enemies can't use skills themselves, it isn't impossible to win if you don't use them either, although odds aren't quite in your favor. It is pretty funny, tho, it becomes kind of just bullshit, lol.

(+1)

Alright, the mp system makes sense now so there's more decision making for sure. But holy shit, I just had the worst streak of unlucky hands ever, and no amount of mp could help me. No idea how could I have beaten this first try with no skills.

Current setup works mechanically, but there are probably more interesting ways to make this twist. Right now it feels like fighting against the community cards rather than the npcs, especially since it's asymmetric. If you are going the game-y route and slowly become balatro/solitaire battle then it should be fine.

Alright, the mp system makes sense now so there's more decision making for sure. But holy shit, I just had the worst streak of unlucky hands ever, and no amount of mp could help me. No idea how could I have beaten this first try with no skills.

Yeah, I know, I don't know how did it in the first place, lol

Also yep, the aim is indeed for it to be mostly symmetric and for the opponents to feel like actual opponents taking decisions. But absolutely, it's not there right now, more work is needed.

Anyway, thanks for playing and sharing your opinion! :) :)