card-games – Play card games in Emacs

• Games
  • Trick-taking
  • Solitaire
  • Shedding and climbing
• TODO
• Install
  • From the package tarball
  • From a local ELPA archive
  • Manually
• Playing
• Customization
• Development
• License

Card games for Emacs.

Renders SVG by default when display-graphic-p is t and rsvg is available. The default (UNICODE) symbols maybe customized by configuring card-game-symbols.

Games

To open the game menu type M-x card-game, or start a game directly with its command.

Trick-taking

• cg-bid – 500 (Bid). Win the auction, name the trump suit, then take tricks with your partner to reach 500 points before the opposing pair. Also playable live over the network (M-x cg-bid-host / cg-bid-join).
• cg-hearts – Hearts. Avoid taking hearts and the Queen of Spades, or take them all to "shoot the moon"; lowest score loses.
• cg-spades – Spades. Partnership bidding to 500; spades are always trump. Make your side's combined bid, mind the bags, dare a nil.
• cg-whist – Whist. Trump is the turned card, there is no bidding; score one point for each trick past the book of six.
• cg-ohhell – Oh Hell. The hand shrinks each round; bid the exact number of tricks you will take, no more and no fewer.

Solitaire

• cg-montana – Montana (also called Gaps). Each row is anchored by a Two and built upward in one suit, 2 through King; slide cards into the gaps until all four rows are sorted.
• cg-gaps – an alias for cg-montana.
• cg-hells-half-acre – the build-down variant: each row is anchored by a King and built downward, King through 2.
• cg-klondike – Klondike, the classic "Solitaire": build the four foundations up by suit from the Ace.
• cg-freecell – FreeCell: every card in view, four free cells, a game of nearly pure skill.
• cg-spider – Spider (two decks): build down regardless of suit, but only same-suit runs move; clear eight King-to-Ace runs.
• cg-yukon – Yukon: Klondike's layout dealt mostly face up, with any buried group movable and no stock.
• cg-canfield – Canfield: a 13-card reserve and a foundation base rank set by the deal; foundations wrap King to Ace.
• cg-forty-thieves – Forty Thieves: two decks, ten columns, eight foundations, build down by suit, and no second pass through the stock.
• cg-scorpion – Scorpion: build down by suit and free any buried group to assemble four King-to-Ace runs.
• cg-golf – Golf: clear the layout by playing exposed cards one rank above or below the waste top.
• cg-tripeaks – TriPeaks: the same, on three overlapping peaks, with Ace-King wrapping for long chains.
• cg-pyramid – Pyramid: remove pairs of exposed cards whose ranks sum to thirteen; Kings go alone.

Shedding and climbing

• cg-eights – Crazy Eights. Match the suit or rank of the discard; eights are wild and let you name the next suit.
• cg-president – President (Scum). Climb: play one to four of a rank, beat it or pass; first out rules, last out scrubs, and the roles trade cards on the next deal.

TODO

• make the suit symbols customizable (cg-symbols) and obey them
• a Texinfo manual
• renderer "skins": let games subclass the display components (text, SVG, full-window SVG)
• a manual card-size control for the full-window SVG UI
• more games

Install

From the package tarball

make package           # builds card-games-1.0.60.tar

Then in Emacs: M-x package-install-file RET card-games-1.0.60.tar.

From a local ELPA archive

make elpa              # builds dist/ (archive-contents + tar)

(add-to-list 'package-archives '("cg" . "/path/to/dist/"))
(package-refresh-contents)
(package-install 'card-games)

Manually

Put the cg-*.el and card-games.el files on your load-path and (require 'card-games).

Playing

Both games work with the keyboard everywhere and with the mouse on a graphical display.

• 500: b bid, p pass, arrows + RET to play (or click a card), n next hand / new game, ? help.
• Gaps: arrows to move (or hjkl when cg-keys is classic), RET to fill a gap (or click it), r redeal, u undo, n new, ? help.
• Klondike / FreeCell / Spider / Yukon: arrows move between piles, RET picks up a movable run and drops it, f sends a card to a foundation, a auto-plays everything it can, u undo, n new, ? help. On the stock pile, RET deals or recycles.
• Hearts / Spades: arrows choose a card, RET plays it (in Hearts, RET marks a card to pass and p sends the three), n new match, ? help.
• Crazy Eights: arrows choose, RET plays, d draws, x passes, n new deal, ? help.

On a graphical display, v toggles the full-window SVG table and + / - / 0 (Emacs text-scale-adjust) resize the cards.

Customization

M-x customize-group RET cg-svg and RET card-games:

• cg-svg-theme-colors – derive the highlight ring and card backs from your theme (on by default).
• cg-bid-felt-color – the 500 table felt.
• cg-svg-card-width, cg-svg-card-height, cg-svg-card-shadow, cg-svg-font-family – card appearance.
• cg-svg-card-back – card-back pattern: dots, rings, or solid.
• cg-symbols – the Unicode suit glyphs (and the joker) drawn on cards.
• cg-svg-four-color – draw a four-colour deck (clubs green, diamonds blue-purple).
• cg-keys – emacs (default) or classic (adds vi-style hjkl and SPC).
• cg-bid-animate, cg-bid-ai-delay, cg-bid-trick-pause – pace the 500 AI so play is watchable and completed tricks linger.
• M-x card-games-set-theme – apply a preset (classic, dark, contrast).

Development

make compile     # byte-compile (should be warning-free)
make test        # run the ERT suite
make checkdoc    # documentation lint
make release     # clean + test + package + source tarball

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See the file headers; add a COPYING file with the full GPLv3 text for distribution.