Mother: A text Based Card Game

• 

  user interface

• 

  behind the scenes

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  console prototype

Inspiration

As someone who is new to API's and was still learning the basics during this hackathon, I wanted to do a project that presented a decent challenge of the backend to make good use of my skills. And what better way to make use of data storage and manipulation than with a card game, and what better card game than one that hasn't been done before (at least as far as I know; for some baffling reason no one outside my family seems to have heard of it!).

What it does

Mother, in its original card based form, can probably be best described as long form strategic Uno. It has the same basic play style, just with a regular card deck, some moderately more complex card behavior, and score tallying done over multiple rounds. Mother: a Text Based Card Game sticks pretty close to those rules, implements them in a text based format using a C++ based class to store and manipulate card data and the Qt app designer to create a user friendly interface.

How we built it

I started off with what I was familiar with and first created a console prototype of what would eventually become my app. The Game class remained mostly the same between each version, with decks being represented by vectors containing indices to a reference matrix of cards, although there were some small tweaks necessary to make the game sufficiently random. The Qt app designer interface, however, drastically simplified the front end code while providing greater capabilities to interact with the user.

Challenges we ran into

As I mentioned, I am a beginner to API's, and I made the mistake of thinking that the learning curve of C++ APIs would be less than the learning curve of JavaScript. I honestly had a mini panic attack after finishing the console app while reading documentation on an overwhelming amount of unfamiliar API options. I also did not have time to do everything I wanted to, and unfortunately had to forgo making a computer player class. However, ultimately the mentors helped me through and I had a lot of fun.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I was able to implement my first C++ API, create a more complex data storage system, and create a working game with an appealing interface.

What we learned

I learned a lot about API's, including several more complex options that I did not choose to use for this particular project.

What's next for Mother: A Text Based Card Game

In the future, I would like to complete the computer player class, look at cloud based solutions for multiplayer gameplay, and look into SDL and possibly including card sprites in my program.

Built With

• c++
• qt