06.06
Five Hundred game
Update: Version 1.00 now available – get it from this link!
Wow, far, far too long between posts!
Icefall development is currently on hold for a little while as… the problem is… I’m not finding it as fun to play as it should be. So I think I need to take a break and focus on something smaller and easier for a little while.
Out of all my past projects, my “X500” game is the one I still get the most comments and emails about. Back in the day, I wanted to play the Five Hundred card game, but, looking around the ‘net, decent implementations were pretty much non-existant. So I created a version and released it online. Surprisingly, it actually was fairly well received and became quite popular (Completely Free Software gave it a “5 stars award” which was pretty cool).
Unfortunately, back at that time I was working on a game/graphics library that was source-compatible between DOS and Windows/DirectX versions… (looking back, I have no idea why I clung to DOS compatibility for so long.. oh well). As a consequence, I couldn’t implement a 100% compatible DirectX implementation for the Windows version… and as a result, it no longer runs currently on modern Windows versions.
So, time for a rewrite! Looking around the internet, I came to the disappointing realisation that there are still no really good Five Hundred games out there! So I’m currently putting the finishing touches on a redesign (early screenshot of the new version above) for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, and 8 PCs (yes, it will even support touchscreen play since I recently bought a Surface Pro tablet for testing).
I also want to take the opportunity to improve some of the AI from the old version. I hope to release the final version by the end of June!