Using Card Decks

[Mr Crumbly]

Hi,

I've created a card deck on the game table for use in a game. It consists of various location and event cards. I either flip a card and move it next to the face down pile or use Shift+D to do the same, and then act on the content of the card. Currently, when I draw the next card using either method it moves under the previous card rather than sitting on top.

I know I can use move to top/bottom etc. but is there a way to get the deck to place each turned card on top of the previous one by default?

Also whilst writing, can Heruca advise why he renamed all cards in a deck to the same name in the Island of D tutorial video? I understand how to do it, but I can't figure out what the outcome is.

Thanks in advance,

Alan

[heruca]

Simply flipping a card is different from Drawing the card. The latter gives you ownership and reveals the card only to you, whereas by simply flipping the card, everyone can see what it is. When you draw a card, it is placed to the right of the deck, but the expectation is that you will move it to wherever you store your "hand". Do not designate your discard pile to be to the right of a deck, or you may have stacking order issues. Place the discard deck to the left of a deck, instead. Drawing a card or cards should be raising the card/s to the top of the stacking order. Is this not happening for you? Flipping a card does not change its place in the stacking order.

I renamed all the cards in Island of D so that you can't the "Select" command to pull a particular card from the deck. Not that anyone would want to cheat in a solitaire game...

[Mr Crumbly]

Hi Heruca,

I apologise if I didn't make things clear enough. It's a solo game, so there's no problem with hiding the card from other players.

What I want to do is to take the top card off a deck and place it on the table, then turn it over. When I have followed the instructions on it, the card is effectively the start of a discard pile. When I move to another location I want to take the next card off the deck, place it on the table, and again flip it over. Having carried out the instructions, I want to place that card on top of the one I previously discarded. However, when I move it onto the previous card, it slides underneath rather than on top of the old card.

I want to see the last card turned over on top of the discard pile to remind me of my last action.

I've tried your suggestion of drawing a card, then moving the drawn card to the left of the deck. I then draw another card which appears to the right of the deck. However, when I move that to the left of the deck it slides under the previous card rather than on top of it.

Hope this makes more sense

Regards,

Alan

[heruca]

Flipping instead of Drawing is fine for solo play in many cases, but Drawing has the advantage of rearranging the stacking order. I just tested this in BGE using the Shift-D command and it is working fine. But you have to remember that if you flipped a card, it is now the selected component. You must click on the top card of the deck in order to draw another card, otherwise the Shift-D command is Discarding the card you had just drawn.

I had no trouble Drawing cards in sequence and having each drawn card being place OVER the previously drawn card. Might have to test it on Windows, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

[heruca]

And if flipping is your preferred method, just get in the habit of pressing two commands in succession: right square bracket to "Move to Top", then [>] to Flip.

[Mr Crumbly]

Move to top and Flip works fine in my Windows version. If I use Shift-D to draw the top card, then click on the top card of the deck and use Shift-D again, it doesn't seem to change the stacking order, so the second card goes underneath the top card, rather than on top of it.

When you use Shift-D to draw a card, it looks like it moves it to the right and flips it, but doesn't move it to the top of the stacking order, so the original stacking order still applies. Even if I move the drawn card out of the way, any subsequently drawn card still slides underneath it rather than on top.

In case it makes any difference I'm using BGE 1.5 beta on Windows 7.

I'm quite happy with the two-key press for move to top then flip for my game, but I'm just curious as to what I'm doing wrong when using Shift-D.

Thanks again,

Alan

[heruca]

You might not be doing anything wrong. It could be a Windows-only bug. I will test BGE v1.5 Win later today and see what I find.

[heruca]

Nope, nothing seems to be wrong. Tested in Windows 7. I'm baffled as to why it is misbehaving for you. Have you assigned Ownership of the deck to "Everyone"?

[Mr Crumbly]

I have assigned ownership to Everyone, but the cards still move behind rather than on top. If I Shift-D to draw the top card, then click on the deck to move the focus back, then hit ] before Shift-D, the next card goes on top of the first card. Without the ], it goes underneath.

Regards,

Alan

[heruca]

Can you please send me a saved Game File via email?

[Mr Crumbly]

File attached. I used some of your media from Island of D as it was the only way I could think of to get hold of the jpeg of the awesome wooden game table

Regards,

Alan

[heruca]

Hmm, I am having a hard time testing without the game media bundle, since all the on-screen cards show up as a placeholder icon. Hard to tell which questionmark is on top, LOL!

[heruca]

Never mind, I managed to test effectively by simply staggering the cards in the deck.

See the below Before and After pics. Seems to be working just fine for me, as far as the stacking order is concerned.

Staggered Deck.png (57.08 KiB) Viewed 14123 times

Staggered Deck after drawing.png (56.81 KiB) Viewed 14123 times

[Mr Crumbly]

Something more peculiar is happening now - I've run the application this morning and loaded in the Clockwork Cabal saved game. I was going to try the stagger idea you displayed to see the order of the drawn cards. When I tried to draw or flip the top card using hotkeys I got an error message telling me that the component had to have more than one token attached to it. When I right-clicked on the card and selected Draw it flipped, showing me the other token! Also, movement guides were displayed although I'd previously switched them off. All very odd.

I'll dabble some more during the day, perhaps try starting from a vanilla copy of BGE and let you know how things go.

By the way, is there any way to extract or otherwise get hold of a copy of "wooden table.jpg" rather than copy over the entire .cxt file from Island of D?

Regards,

Alan

[heruca]

I was going to try the stagger idea you displayed to see the order of the drawn cards. When I tried to draw or flip the top card using hotkeys I got an error message telling me that the component had to have more than one token attached to it.

You forgot the CapsLock key was still pressed.

Also, movement guides were displayed although I'd previously switched them off.

Did you rename the app/executable? That would have the (side) effect of forgetting all your prior Preferences settings.

By the way, is there any way to extract or otherwise get hold of a copy of "wooden table.jpg" rather than copy over the entire .cxt file from Island of D?

That's currently the best way to do it. Start with any game conversion that uses the table graphic, then delete all units and do a "Save As...". If you later export a media bundle, the table graphic will be included in it.

I should probably just include the table graphic as an embedded and placeable element in BGE (not BRPG). This will increase the size of the BGE zip file considerably, but I think it will see enough use (pretty much most card games can make use of it) that this is justified.

[Mr Crumbly]

Thanks, Heruca. I'd pressed Caps Lock to change the stagger distance and didn't realise it would have such an impact on other normal operations. I also renamed the executable and forgot that it would affect the Preference settings.

Things seem to be working OK now, but I'm changing the interface to use different views, so still more work to do

Another question I'm afraid. Is there any way to apply the 'Match Component's Rotation' command to a multi-component selection? I've realised that one of the card decks I created can have individual cards rotated by events and it would be useful to see the accurate image in the Portrait. I was hoping to be able to do the whole deck in one go rather than select each card individually.

Thanks again,

Alan

[heruca]

I'm afraid there is no batch command for that. You'll have to set one card at a time until you've gone through the whole deck.

[heruca]

Just to be clear, is your card stacking order issue resolved after disengaging the CapsLock key?