Eventually, yes. I don't exactly have to start from scratch, but it sure feels like it.

And with that, Texas42 HD for the iPad has been submitted. I delayed its release in order to implement some of the changes some of you requested for the iPhone and corrected a few bugs.

This version is fully compatible with your music. If you want to listen to it while you play, feel free. I've also added a mute button to turn off the sounds altogether.

I...and I'm sure a few of you...had found the Follow Me and 2 Mark AI a bit lacking. The AI should do a better job at identifying slough tiles for Follow Me and should be much more aggressive at winning tricks for 2 mark bids instead of holding tiles for count.

The bid picker/trump picker is now fully functional. Feel free to go to the menu whenever you want.

1.0.1 for the iPhone is still in review (grrrr). Once it's approved, 1.0.2 will be submitted and the iPhone version will be on par with the iPad.

Unless there are any major issues that need my attention, I'll start working on Nello.

My iPad 3 just hasn't been complete.....until now. Keep up the good work!

So I've been looking into multiplayer tonight.

http://www.raywenderlich.com/4456/how-to-make-a-multiplayer-iphone-game-hosted-on-your-own-server

Holy cow! That looks like a daunting task.

Great job!!! Already the best by far I've played and I bought it an hour ago. There is one small tweak I may suggest (more of an annoyance from operator error, but you have obviously been open to suggestions ). I did not read the last three pages of posts, so if someone already brought this up, I apologize.

In the bidding "wheel," if I try to just tap on 30 without rolling up to it, it chooses PASS. I assume that tapping will select whatever is highlighted, even if it's not what I tap. If there is a way to allow the wheel to move to 30 when you tap it, that would be great.

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So I got a request to add "Low Boy" in to the game. I assume that's another term for Nello?

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Your assumption is correct. From my experience it is normally people that have been playing the game for like 60-70 years that call it that.

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Holy cow! That looks like a daunting task.

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But it would be SO worth it. I know you can do it; I'll be quietly rooting for you from behind my monitor. Stay strong.

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Great job!!! Already the best by far I've played and I bought it an hour ago. There is one small tweak I may suggest (more of an annoyance from operator error, but you have obviously been open to suggestions ). I did not read the last three pages of posts, so if someone already brought this up, I apologize.

In the bidding "wheel," if I try to just tap on 30 without rolling up to it, it chooses PASS. I assume that tapping will select whatever is highlighted, even if it's not what I tap. If there is a way to allow the wheel to move to 30 when you tap it, that would be great.

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The sky is the limit when it comes to coding. I suspect that's where my 1 bad review came from.

That being said, the easiest thing to implement is probably to limit the touches that submit the bid to the blue rectangle area.

Five stars from me. No worries.

PJF you've got some more questions/feedback over on the OB thread. I didn't know how often you still check back over there since it seems the thread will slip back a few pages but then someone will bring it back up. Just a heads up

[This message has been edited by Agfan2013 (edited 7/9/2012 12:22p).]

Thanks for the heads up!

Downloaded this app over a week ago on my ipad and have greatly enjoyed it!

Noticed something today I had not seen come up...

When drawing to see who goes first, if you tie, the message that pops up (and I cannot remember which is accurate) says either "halved" or "halfed" tied.

LOL.

I will halve to look into that tonight.

Speaking of drawing to see who goes first (and this may be just me), but do you guys play that whoever wins the draw gets first bid? I've always played it so that the winner of the draw shakes so that he can have last bid and not have to worry about having a hand overbid on his winning draw. After playing this game I was wondering if I've been doing it wrong all these years.

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Speaking of drawing to see who goes first (and this may be just me), but do you guys play that whoever wins the draw gets first bid? I've always played it so that the winner of the draw shakes so that he can have last bid and not have to worry about having a hand overbid on his winning draw. After playing this game I was wondering if I've been doing it wrong all these years.

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You're not the only one. That's how me and my friends play too. It didn't bother me though so I never mentioned it before.

So you would be happy being in a situation where you were forced to bid and couldn't go nello?

For the record, this would only require a very minor tweak if you want it implemented.

[This message has been edited by Philip j fry (edited 7/9/2012 3:55p).]

I would rather have last bid on the first hand mainly because there is a higher chance of having last bid on the final hand if it gets to 6-6.

It's funny. The original message was "pick tile for first DEALER"...but I started thinking to myself that the dealer actually bids last...so naturally I assumed the message was just wrong. I get confused easily when I'm in my own coding world.

Ha, yeah. The winner of the draw should bid last on the first hand. As far as I'm concerned it is a formality on the app, as you could simply have the computer pick a random player. That's the point of the draw anyhow...a no skill involved random draw.

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tieString = [tieString stringByAppendingFormat:@" and %@ haved tied!",player1];

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Oops.

Bwahahahahaha!

So that will be fixed in 2-3 weeks. Thanks for making updates so easy Apple.

I just mentioned it cause I was curious about how everyone else played... Doesn't change my opinion of the game one way or the other!

No worries. I want it to feel as real as playing a computer can...especially in preparation for multiplayer.

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I just went to Facebook with this. Once it hits my group of friends I expect a cut

I hope you make a killing on this thing. I think with a little marketing via social media you could spread the word all over the place.

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I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing on Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Texas-42-iPhone-App/248100331959676

And I do mean absolutely.

I’ve got two requests / recommendations.

#1. After selecting trumps but before your first play, would it be possible to add a way to go back and re-select your trumps? I had bid 2 marks on a hand wanting 4’s as trumps. While selecting trumps my kid decides he needs to grab my arm and look at my phone and my fat fingers set blanks as trumps. Not having any blanks, I got set real fast on a hand that would have been a lay down.

#2. When the game goes multi-player would you be able to hide all but the last two played trick stacks (to simulate the traditional double row stacking) when playing 2 mark hands? Right now, I doubt the AI would forget what was played and hold the wrong suit, but it’s nice when an actual person on the other team does in live play.

Other than that, awesome game!

1: I think I can resolve that by requiring more precise touches on the scroll. Another user suggested that I make setting trumps a button. That would also be a fairly easy option to implement. In fact, the title bar is already a button. I've just disabled it.

2: Yes. I already have code to do this. I haven't decided on the best way to have the AI forget tiles, so in the meantime I'm not stacking them to level the playing field.

I've been playing some more and as a whole it's still very impressive. Really great job on this.

The only weakness I've really found, and I'd imagine the hardest to code, is bidding by the other players. I've seen a few hands where a player who's wide open for one of the 10 counts bids 35, and I actually had a partner just recently go 31 and call 4s as trump as I held the 4 4, 4 5, 4 2, and 4 0 in my hand (as well as the 5 5).

Granted, the chance of me holding all of those when he decides to go 4s is slim, but it seemed odd that he would go 31 while only holding one of the 3 high trumps.

He bid 31 without at least holding the 46 and the 55? Do you remember what you bid, his bidding position, and his setting were?

The bidding weighting factors are not exactly scientific. If you read up on algorithms for bridge bidding, you'll find that they are very sophisticated with statistics, simulated games, and everything else. Mine is no where near that elegant at the moment so its going to get it wrong sometimes.

I am a but surprised at your situation though and would like to dig into it a little deeper.

[This message has been edited by Philip j fry (edited 7/10/2012 11:05a).]

I'm assuming he had the 46 but obviously didn't have the 55. He was the only bidder that hand, I screengrabbed it after the first hand as I thought it was really odd but don't have more specifics than that, sorry.



(BTW, I'd never looked at the graphics this large until scaling down this image, nicely done.)

For the AI when stacking, make it vary by difficulty. Some folks can remember each domino and from where it came. That's "expert". Then make the AI choose a few dominoes to pay attention to, the ones that are likely to set. Many times it works out like planned, sometimes you never see those certain ones or you end up playing differently. That is "normal". Finally, just have the AI know what can be seen. That is "beginner".

Everyone knows iron man can't play 42.

Barry Allen could have at least seen what you had.

[This message has been edited by TexasRebel (edited 7/10/2012 12:05p).]

Yeah, for being a genius Tony really is a crap partner.

Since he bid 31, I assume he wasn't the 4th person to bid!? I had one report that he bid 34 on a forced bid, but I was skeptical since the forced bidding code is pretty simple.

How good was the rest of his hand, btw? I can say that the intent of the code is to give a bigger point bonus if he holds the 46 than the 44...but he should not bid that high if he only has 2 trumps total. I'm guessing he also had the 41? Did he have any dangerous offs?

Rebel, that's the line of thinking I was going down. Obviously no one is going to forget that the 55 was played, but I need to figure out how often the AI will forget tiles like the 45. I'm leaning towards making it random and using weighting factors based on the user settings.

[This message has been edited by Philip j fry (edited 7/10/2012 12:26p).]