Project Title: American Karuta
Development: C# / XNA
My Role: Gameplay / Network Programmer, Designer
Designer: Evan Schipellite
Programmers: Evan Schipellite, Jake Ellenberg
Designed as a simple networked game in the time allowance of about 12 hours, American Karuta is a competitive card game played by 2 players.
The game style utilizes a standard 52 card deck, and each player receives a specified amount of face-up cards on their side of the field at the start of each match.
The goal of the game is to be the first player to remove all cards from your side of the field. Each game is broken down into rounds, and each round a card is revealed from a separate shuffled deck. Once the card is revealed, both players must quickly locate the displayed card on either side of the field. Finding the card on the player's own side removes it from the game, while taking it from the opponent's side not only removes it, but also allows the player to randomly send one of their current cards to the opponent.
If a player clicks on the wrong card during a round, at the end of the round the opponent will send a card over as a form of penalty, therefore encouraging players to combine memorization, swiftness, and precision to win the game. Sometimes a revealed card may be considered a 'dead' card, as it may not be on either side, and in these instances the next round will begin after several seconds in case tricked players incur penalties.
For this project, Jake and I concentrated on the programming perspective and implementation of various design patterns. While most of the gameplay remained simple, the extra addition of the online components further limited time for polish as we focused efforts on testing the reliability of the gameplay over the network. Due to the game's simple nature, most online interactions were relatively easy, as the only crucial components related to flagging card hits and comparing time stamps. Overall, American Karuta was a simple and fun online game to create in a short span of time.
