Shove Halfpenny

If anyone has a moment would you mind taking a look and feeding back your thoughts - this is planned for a  WP7Dev - Windows Phone 7 release.

Thanking you.

http://apps.webservicesuk.com/Shove

PS You cann feedback here or on my blog: http://rd3d2.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E8560F926A112380!21221.entry?&_c02_vws=1

PPS One worry I have - it is all to scale and maybe the halfpennies are too small?

How do you play? Is the score supposed to reset between heads' turn and tails' turn?

How about allowing me to use my local currency? Maybe base it off of system settings or, even cooler, where I'm actually standing.

spivonious said:

How do you play? Is the score supposed to reset between heads' turn and tails' turn?

Yep, its on my todo list!

Each player shoves five coins up the board in each turn.  To prepare each coin to be pushed, the player positions the Ha'penny at the front of the board with the rear of the coin just sticking over the front edge of the board.  Any part of the hand can then be used to shove the coin up the board.  If a coin does not actually reach the first line on the board, that coin does not count as having been played and can be shoved again.

At the end of the turn each coin that is completely within a 'bed' (between two horizontal lines and within the bordering vertical lines) scores a point for that player in that bed.   The points are scored with chalk marks in the squares at either end of the bed on the edge of the board, one player owning the right side, the other, the left.  The aim is to get three chalk marks in each of the squares - three scores in each of the nine beds.  However, once three scores have been made in a bed, any further scores in that bed will be given to the opponent instead, unless the opponent already has three scores in the bed.  The one exception to this is the winning point which must be scored properly by the winning player, not given away.

Good players will attempt to cause a coin to knock onto one or more previously pushed ha'pennies in an effort to improve their position as well as trying to make a score with the Ha'penny being played.  A little thought is also required - it is not usually a good move to score the third coin in a bed until towards the end of a game....

Copyright © 1999 Masters Games   

Is the score supposed to reset?

OK, I have to come clean and say that while I have the back end sorted for scoring I havn't done the pretty UI bit yet (I'm going to use the left and right borders for scoring as with the traditional game.  (Not sure if I will keep the 'digital' score or not)

kettch said:

How about allowing me to use my local currency? Maybe base it off of system settings or, even cooler, where I'm actually standing.

Yep, Great idea, I was going to start with 'Dimes' but no reason to leave it there. 

Looks promising...

A few quirks I found:

1) apparently it's possible to get two coins to overlap. A grating sound will result and after a few seconds one or both coins will be shot in random directions. Sorry, no repro steps.

2) if you can get a coin to bounce back enough (more than half way below the first line, it would seem) you may get to play that coin again. This is especially fun when you are also given a new coin to play with. All I know about the rules is what I found in wikipedia, and I guess there are several popular variations, but it still seems weird.

A little note: scaling is a problem. Since I would get to use my finger to push the coin on the phone exactly as I would on the real thing, the different behavior might take a while to get adapted to. Have you considered using a split screen approach? This way you could still display the whole board in the upper part of the screen (squeezed down a little further) and leave a 1:1 area players can use to interact with the coin. Just my two halfpennies.

Blue Ink said:

Looks promising...

 

A few quirks I found:

1) apparently it's possible to get two coins to overlap. A grating sound will result and after a few seconds one or both coins will be shot in random directions. Sorry, no repro steps.

2) if you can get a coin to bounce back enough (more than half way below the first line, it would seem) you may get to play that coin again. This is especially fun when you are also given a new coin to play with. All I know about the rules is what I found in wikipedia, and I guess there are several popular variations, but it still seems weird.

 

A little note: scaling is a problem. Since I would get to use my finger to push the coin on the phone exactly as I would on the real thing, the different behavior might take a while to get adapted to. Have you considered using a split screen approach? This way you could still display the whole board in the upper part of the screen (squeezed down a little further) and leave a 1:1 area players can use to interact with the coin. Just my two halfpennies.

Thanks for the feedback.

Overlapping Coins - Yep, I am aware of this, apparently it is an issue with the physics engine - I am looking at what I can do to workaround. 

Bounce Back Coins -  I should be able to check for this happening and hold off on the second coin - I'll add it to my ToDo list.

Scaling  - Split screen is an interesting idea but I'm not sure I want to go that far.  I am considering abanding the tradditional board and utilsing a version with fewer beds but I want to be really sure that the current verson isn't workable before I go down this road.

Useful feedback, thanks very much.

Ian2 said:

spivonious said:

*snip*

Yep, its on my todo list!

 

Each player shoves five coins up the board in each turn.  To prepare each coin to be pushed, the player positions the Ha'penny at the front of the board with the rear of the coin just sticking over the front edge of the board.  Any part of the hand can then be used to shove the coin up the board.  If a coin does not actually reach the first line on the board, that coin does not count as having been played and can be shoved again.

At the end of the turn each coin that is completely within a 'bed' (between two horizontal lines and within the bordering vertical lines) scores a point for that player in that bed.   The points are scored with chalk marks in the squares at either end of the bed on the edge of the board, one player owning the right side, the other, the left.  The aim is to get three chalk marks in each of the squares - three scores in each of the nine beds.  However, once three scores have been made in a bed, any further scores in that bed will be given to the opponent instead, unless the opponent already has three scores in the bed.  The one exception to this is the winning point which must be scored properly by the winning player, not given away.

Good players will attempt to cause a coin to knock onto one or more previously pushed ha'pennies in an effort to improve their position as well as trying to make a score with the Ha'penny being played.  A little thought is also required - it is not usually a good move to score the third coin in a bed until towards the end of a game....

 

Copyright © 1999 Masters Games   

 

Is the score supposed to reset?

 

OK, I have to come clean and say that while I have the back end sorted for scoring I havn't done the pretty UI bit yet (I'm going to use the left and right borders for scoring as with the traditional game.  (Not sure if I will keep the 'digital' score or not)

Ah that makes sense now.

One thing I noticed, and it probably wouldn't make a difference on the phone, but there is no scrollbar for the webpage, and the game screen is taller than my screen (1280x960 res).

A suggestion is to put the winning message in the interface rather than an alert window.

spivonious said:

Ian2 said:

*snip*

Ah that makes sense now.

 

One thing I noticed, and it probably wouldn't make a difference on the phone, but there is no scrollbar for the webpage, and the game screen is taller than my screen (1280x960 res).

 

A suggestion is to put the winning message in the interface rather than an alert window.

Thanks for the feedback. 

 I have put up a version of the new scoring system, it took me a little time as there are some quirks to scoring in this game  (when you get 3 in a bed the other player gets the next point). 

I've also added scrollbar support (my HTML is a bit rusty)

A side effect of the new scoring system is the removal of the alert windows.

Ian2 said:

spivonious said:

*snip*

Thanks for the feedback. 

 

 I have put up a version of the new scoring system, it took me a little time as there are some quirks to scoring in this game  (when you get 3 in a bed the other player gets the next point). 

 

I've also added scrollbar support (my HTML is a bit rusty)

 

A side effect of the new scoring system is the removal of the alert windows.

Whilst I appreciate you are keeping to the pure form of the game the win condition does seem to take a long time. 

It would also be a big help to be able to identify which side was in play. A moments distraction and you can lose who is to play. This may be removed if there is an "against the computer" mode.

For beginners it would also help if there was some indication of when the calculations indicated the coin was in a bed.

CplCarrot said:

Ian2 said:

*snip*

Whilst I appreciate you are keeping to the pure form of the game the win condition does seem to take a long time. 

It would also be a big help to be able to identify which side was in play. A moments distraction and you can lose who is to play. This may be removed if there is an "against the computer" mode.

For beginners it would also help if there was some indication of when the calculations indicated the coin was in a bed.

 

 

Great feedback thanks:

Takes a long time to finish  Yep, I was toying with the idea of a mini version (first one to get three coins in a bed perhaps?)

It would also be a big help to be able to identify which side was in play  Agreed, I will see what I can come up with.

Coin is in a bed?  I will put this in to the next build.

Thanks again.

Ian2 said:

CplCarrot said:

*snip*

Great feedback thanks:

 

Takes a long time to finish  Yep, I was toying with the idea of a mini version (first one to get three coins in a bed perhaps?)

 

It would also be a big help to be able to identify which side was in play  Agreed, I will see what I can come up with.

 

Coin is in a bed?  I will put this in to the next build.

 

Thanks again.

I've put a new version up this morning that includes:

• An indication of whos turn it is
• Enhanced scoring (down the side panels)
• Coin Options (Halfpenny/Dime)
• Win Markers (an indication of whether the coin is a scoring coin - especially useful if you set the difficulty to low)

There is also quite a few bug fixes and I've also been able to shrink the XAP down in size.

Please take a look and feedback if you get a chance.  I'm hoping to be able to test this out on some hardware next week so woulod like to get it bedded down asap.

Thanks.

http://apps.webservicesuk.com/shove

Ian2 said:

Ian2 said:

*snip*

I've put a new version up this morning that includes:

• An indication of whos turn it is
• Enhanced scoring (down the side panels)
• Coin Options (Halfpenny/Dime)
• Win Markers (an indication of whether the coin is a scoring coin - especially useful if you set the difficulty to low)

There is also quite a few bug fixes and I've also been able to shrink the XAP down in size.

 

Please take a look and feedback if you get a chance.  I'm hoping to be able to test this out on some hardware next week so woulod like to get it bedded down asap.

 

Thanks.

 

 

http://apps.webservicesuk.com/shove

 

Hmm...I chose single player mode and it seems I can't win. I've gotten both sides to the roman numeral 3s on every bed and the game keeps going.

spivonious said:

Ian2 said:

*snip*

Hmm...I chose single player mode and it seems I can't win. I've gotten both sides to the roman numeral 3s on every bed and the game keeps going.

Ahem, yes, I think you can choose single player in the options if you like, sadly the app doesn't really much care though.

I pretty much got the basics of single player going this afternoon so I will put it up in a minute.

Thanks for testing, deeply impressed that you filled out both sides and then kept going ...  ! 

EDIT: OK Is up with the Single Player mode as the default.  (Not very pretty yet though). http://apps.webservicesuk.com/Shove

NB I've noticed some caching issues with new builds sometimes (which I get round by firing up Safari or Firefox, not very scientific I know)