14 ms·

Show HN: Classic Video Poker

I'm a Unity 3D refugee, certified expert, started in 2005 when it was a two man-band with Joachim and David. I've been lucky enough to make a good living out of Unity with my own consultancy over the years making data visualisation applications (Wind Energy) and innovation projects (Visualising accounting data for Wolters Kluwer etc.). Godot is pretty amazing in my opinion. Wrote this game over a few days and was productive in Godot basically instantly. I couldn't get up and running in Unreal despite trying a few times. It's my ambition to start a niche agency developing 80's style games of skill and chance for the corporate world. So... If anyone has any leads for making Space Invaders for Nike - please help! Happy to pay 5% on whatever work I get.

jprete 3y ago
I’m curious about your experience with GDScript - which I presume is new to you - because it’s been a stumbling block for me trying Godot.
- giancarlostoro 3y ago
  Its possible he also used the C# variant of Godot. I find GDScript easier for myself, though I come from a Python background. I highly recommend learning Python basics. There are nuanced differences, I think of GDScript as a Python / JavaScript type of language, has the syntax of Python but has some JS / TypeScript things to it.
  - url00 3y ago
    The current V4 of Godot doesn't support web export via C# - unless it's on a dev branch maybe?
  - default-kramer 3y ago
    "ERROR: Mono: Core API hash mismatch." is a strong clue that it's using C# instead of GDScript. (I was on the lookout because the same error appears in my own game. Apparently it's benign.)
- fransje26 3y ago
  GDScript is very similar to Python with the additions of signals and slots, which is nice. Except for some minor quirks which I don't remember from the top of my head, it nicely gets the job done. I haven't tried Godot 4 yet, but from what I read, they improved GDScript even further, which should be nice. If you think GDScript is holding you back, you can always try C# or C++.
krenzo 3y ago
Ended on a hand of: K J A A Q and did not receive the Jacks or Better $1 payout. According to a brief search about the rules of video poker, a pair of aces is considered better than a pair of jacks.
- simpaticoder 3y ago
  I also had a pair of aces and did not "win". Definitely a bug (probably aces are low in his code).
  - seiferteric 3y ago
    same here
    - abluecloud 3y ago
      yep, definitely a bug - seems like with when getting a winning of aces after the second deal. interestingly if you get a pair of jacks you get your winnings correctly. guessing aces are low. https://imgur.com/a/H1Nzno3 https://imgur.com/a/H1Nzno3
      - hunter2_ 3y ago
        > after the second deal It's different on or before the second deal?
- jonny_eh 3y ago
  I came here to complain about the same bug. I want my money back!
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Aces low ;-)
  - jcampbell1 3y ago
    That is a bug :)
helloplanets 3y ago
Awesome. I remember when everybody played basically this exact machine in middle school when we used to sneak to the market during recess. There used to be all kinds of different varieties of slot machines at basically every market and gas station in Finland, regulated by a sanctioned monopoly called RAY. Nobody really cared if you played one at whatever age, especially in the 90's. Wild times.
- 4hg4ufxhy 3y ago
  People cared even less on cruise ships. Those were mainly using paf machines though, probably for legal reasons. Search "paf joker poker" for images of the classic machine. Nice features was the joker and double or nothing. I played this kind of games a lot since I was 7 years old because we used to travel a lot. One time I made a win sharing deal with my brother to reduce risk of an unlucky streak, but I immediately hit the jackpot after that. Good times.
m000 3y ago
Lol. Awesome theming. For a minute I was stuck wondering "why is there a link to a screenshot on the HN frontpage"?
umen 3y ago
how big is the wasm file ?
- ale42 3y ago
  26.07 MB (index.wasm) and 16.35 MB of resources (index.pck)
- tsukurimashou 3y ago
  26MB according to firefox network tab
- smallstepforman 3y ago
  The original IGT binary version on EEPROM? Probably 2Mb, but also including all gaming machine monitoring code, attendant screens, device drivers, network protocols etc, with room to spare on the EEPROM.
werdnapk 3y ago
The CRT looks really good. Definitely a good reproduction of classic video poker.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Thank you!
richrichardsson 3y ago
Nice. Sounds seem to only come from left channel, and also had the "pair of Aces" issue, but otherwise job well done.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  aces are low - will look into the audio - thanks :-)
chaosprint 3y ago
looks great. the audio got me interested
tetha 3y ago
Yeah, applying some realization about learning instruments, I'm currently more or less forcing me to just do stuff in Godot. More focus on doing and learning, less focus on the result. It's part struggle with other programming mindsets I have from backend servers for game and other web applications - "Oh, just shove all data into this system" is a valid answer, and "really, really just do what you need right now" is a good idea. And having implemented some of this on straight up SDL, it's pretty impressive how something that would cost you like 1-2 days to make fall down to... 10 minutes of clicking around in a tileset editor.
- matsemann 3y ago
  I have a hard time actually making games. Not in Unity or Godot specifically, but games in general. I end up going down rabbit holes in the infinite. Like, I was making a puzzle game, where you need to move pieces in a way to move from A to B. I ended up theming it as crossing a river where A and B are on different sides. I think I've spent 95% of my effort on that game on writing a water shader with the look and feel I'd like. But it's inconsequential to the actual gameplay. I could have just copied some code online or bought an asset and moved on. But at the same time, I'm enjoying myself. I like learning this stuff, and perhaps my goal is really to have fun rather than actually ship something. So it's OK.
  - yard2010 3y ago
    This is art. Art shouldn't be confined to foreign interests like making money
    - djbusby 3y ago
      ars gratia artis
  - tetha 3y ago
    IMO it all depends on the goal. If you're just noodling around on the guitar to have some fun, you're not strictly trying to pick better. If you're doing picking exercises, you're not exploring what a new pedal can do. If you're exploring a pedal, you're not trying to learn a specific song. For example, I'm currently deliberately moving slower in an idea to figure out good ways of doing things in Godot as well as reading a lot about thes systems. And I've learned a few things along the way. However, if I was in a Ludum Dare mode of working, I could've had something doing the same things I have now much, much faster, because if you don't have core game mechanics working in 8 - 12 hours you're utterly doomed in that context.
toxik 3y ago
Just me or is it super unintuitive that you HOLD rather than dismiss cards? Happened like a dozen times now that I throw the cards I want to keep.
- itomato 3y ago
  Always was
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- carstenhag 3y ago
  Usually you only have 1-2 cards you want to hold. So it's 1-2 clicks. If you had to throw them, it would be 3-5 clicks.
  - toxik 3y ago
    I flushed a flush for this reason :(
- rigmarole 3y ago
  I suppose it is emulating the original. But yes, same experience here. I made the mistake multiple times.
nuancebydefault 3y ago
The screen seems somewhat distorted/deformed when displaying on my phone browser.
- itomato 3y ago
  Suitably so, I think. What’s missing is the whole unit swiveling when you press Hold on cards 1 and 5 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-igt-fortune-draw-video-poker-469076231 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-igt-fortune-d...
  - nuancebydefault 3y ago
    Another thing what's missing is the effect of holding a magnet next to the screen (smiles)
- progbits 3y ago
  It's a CRT, it's supposed to look like that :)
  - nuancebydefault 3y ago
    Sorry the smiley somehow disappeared...
msla 3y ago
All that's missing is the cigarette smoke and the sense of small-town desperation.
toxik 3y ago
I guess you could tractably compute the optimal policy for every hand. What is it?
- cdelsolar 3y ago
  There’s pages on the internet for this, with nice mental shortcuts. I remember trying to study one such page before going out in Vegas. It’s pretty silly because even playing optimally your EV is still negative
  - toxik 3y ago
    That’s what I figured, you always lose in the end.
- acheron 3y ago
  It's fairly complicated. https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/ https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/
calini 3y ago
Lovely game and art style, and the idea of 80s style games is great! I would throw in my two cents with the following idea: I would love a modern, well made collection of classical games such as the one linked, available on many platforms, with cloud saves, even to the point of which game was picked. I would love to decompress by playing Solitaire for 5 mins in my lunch break on my iPhone, come home, open the computer and finish the game up on the big screen and enjoy the cards jumping all over the place.
ireallywantthat 3y ago
Awesome. Please make your games supportable in Linux(or Proton) as well if your game ships natively.
- dolmen 3y ago
  It works in your browser. Why do you need more platforms support?
- extraduder_ire 3y ago
  If you extract the (I think) data.pck file, you can run it with the normal godot engine wherever it's supported. (as long as there's no missing features the game uses on that platform.) It'd be easier for the developer to do it, but anyone can theoretically.
loufe 3y ago
I really like Godot so far but the debugging tools are massively inferior to any other IDE and language I've ever used. I waste so much time trying to track down bugs. Proper variable inspection would be a life saver, for instance.
- razodactyl 3y ago
  And this is the magic of open source and the current situation. There will be many like you and a few with the dedication and skills to make that happen for the benefit of us all. The Unity move was VERY silly considering the state of Godot and Unreal. Literally treating your entire user base like that. I spent $400 for the Pro license when I was a poor Uni student back in '09 and it didn't translate to the newer versions - I just cut my losses and never looked back.
  - december456 3y ago
    > There will be few people with the dedication to benefit us all > The Unity move was VERY silly considering the state of Godot and Unreal In my opinion, opposite, Unity just pulled its oligopoly strings. It wasnt bad management or desperate business choices; they knew the state of the industry.
    - troynt 3y ago
      If they knew, why then did they need to adjust their fees after initial announcement? Looks like the management is pretty disconnected and desperate to me.
  - Qwertious 3y ago
    Unity is an advertising company that also has a game engine hobbyists use - I don't think what they did was necessarily a bad financial move, they just shafted the part of their userbase that doesn't generate much money and then wound it back when they realized it was really bad PR.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  If you're using C# instead of GDScript you can use Visual Studio (or VS Code or Rider) and get access to all the debugging tools available in those IDEs. You can also use VSCode for GDScript but I've never tried it so not sure how the debugging experience is with that.
bloopernova 3y ago
This is so cool, I really dig the CRT look! Nice job!
nologic01 3y ago
Side remark, but it is always intriguing to see what can be achieved with wasm technologies. There seems to be still significant potential in this direction and Godot's html5 export gives a good example of how to tap it.
CrociDB 3y ago
I feel the same. I've worked with Unity for quite some time (though gladly don't anymore), but always had trouble trying to learn Unreal. Recently I tried godot and I found it quite easy to get started! I love the game. Had a lot of fun playing for some time. but just one question, shouldn't pair of A be considered "higher than jacks"? Because it looks like it's not: https://imgur.com/a/ov2UP1D https://imgur.com/a/ov2UP1D
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Happy that you like the game :-) Aces are low in this version.
  - bbarn 3y ago
    Missed requirement :)
g232089 3y ago
It's nice but the CRT filter in a big monitor burns my retinas. CRTs didn't look like that unless you got too close to the screen. I guess I'm supposed to move away from the screen but then I can't reach the mouse, :)
- jonny_eh 3y ago
  Shrink the window?
carstenhag 3y ago
Is there a reason it's only playing sound effects on the left side? Using macOS/Chrome/Earbuds there's nothing on the right.
BigglesB 3y ago
Nice work! Good to see another Godot convert on here as well :-) It is great how quickly you can get something up & running & then iterate on it.
tyingq 3y ago
The visuals are perfect, looks very much like a CRT...nicely done. I think I found a bug though...pair of Aces doesn't pay as "Jacks or Better": https://imgur.com/a/78B3oPV https://imgur.com/a/78B3oPV
- yohannparis 3y ago
  Okay, I though I was getting something wrong there.
- hunter2_ 3y ago
  Indeed, I encountered the same. Rock solid otherwise, so far! Something at the end (bankruptcy) besides just locking up (other than the mute button) would be a nice touch.
  - appstorelottery 3y ago
    Yes. I've got plans for this - sign up for free credits. lol :-)
- ZenBlender 3y ago
  [flagged]
- tspike 3y ago
  Aces low?
  - appstorelottery 3y ago
    aces low - yes!
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Aces are the low card in the game. You are not the first person to say this! I need to look at the math again to make them high cards... However in my opinion (at risk of getting everyones ire) - I think the ace is the "1" card.
andrewclunn 3y ago
Ummm why didn't my two aces qualify for jacks or better? Also if I changed enough settings (moving the bet up and down) then the game glitched out on the first deal.
palavrov 3y ago
AH, memories. Card faces are from real machine - Novomatic American Poker 2 - back in time did lot of hacks on this platform. Even wrote a emulator in x86 assembly to speedup the development. This Godot game is quite good to recreate the atmosphere of the ancient video poker machine. Lacks only cards autohold and sound could be a bit more polished, but these are minor things that could be easily improved.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Thank you! Yes, I wondered about auto-hold but in the end decided that it was a bit more engaging and fun not to do that...
jakearmitage 3y ago
Did you write the CRT shader yourself? Because it looks really good.
siliconescapee 3y ago
Very cool. I got my first royal flush in my poker history. Too bad it isn't real $!
- Exuma 3y ago
  649,739 : 1
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  That's huge. The odds are roughly 1 in 46,000 hands of this.
devmor 3y ago
Wow, reminds me of going to the bar with my dad after I turned 21. Now if you could just find a way to include faint, bad, country music and the taste of cheap whiskey.
rmac 3y ago
sick style!
felixarba 3y ago
Exceptional and very fun, all I have to say.
boredhedgehog 3y ago
It's remarkable how divisive CRT shaders are. Some love them, some hate them, very little middle ground.
- wiz21c 3y ago
  depends on your year of birth maybe ? Mine allows me to appreciate them much!
  - rigmarole 3y ago
    I also grew to associate scanlines with sci-fi, which I love. I remember loving the original Ubuntu boot splash logo which had the line effect. And then was disappointed when it was changed to smooth and crisp.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  They give me PTSD flashbacks to my parents' awful old TV, which they got in the mid 80's and didn't replace with a modern flat screen until ~5 years ago.
feintruled 3y ago
Very cool! Interested in the dealing logic, is it 'fair' or does it mimic real machines and do payout percentages?
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  It shuffles one deck randomly and deals from that deck. New shuffle every deal/draw cycle.
unixhero 3y ago
Wow it runs like a MAME game in the browser. Love it
sbarre 3y ago
How do I get in touch with you (re: niche agency)
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  send email to rpearson@lfgslots.com :-)
lacoolj 3y ago
this takes a very long time to load. why is that?
guntherhermann 3y ago
Wow this is very slick, nice job!
lifeinthevoid 3y ago
as an aside: I'm currently a low-level systems programmer working on distributed database internals, but I'm looking to transition into 3D animation / game design because the combination of programming, visual creativity, math & physics sounds attractive to me. How much time would it take me to start creating non-trivial content and be able to charge for my work?
- MattRix 3y ago
  I’m not OP but I’ve been doing game dev for 15 years professionally for the same reasons you mentioned. I’ll be honest up front though, it’s not a great field if you’re going into it trying to make money, but it can be incredibly satisfying. As far as how long it’ll take, that depends on what kind of things you want to make and how much time/effort you’re willing to put into them, especially on the visual polish side of things. The hardest part of learning game dev is learning how to program, and it sounds like you already have a good foundation there. The current tools, especially Unity and Godot, are very quick to get up and running with. You could learn the basics in a dozen hours, and be making (bad) games in less than a month. Game design is a skill that is hard to learn except by doing it. Reading books and watching youtube videos about it only goes so far. For making games that you can actually sell, you’re looking at spending months per game, usually at least 6 months… though often the games you think are going to take 6 months often take much longer! The number one tip I would give is to actually finish your games, even your little early experiments. In game dev the “last 10%” takes way more than 10% of the effort.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- opyate 3y ago
  > non-trivial content You mention "3D animation" and "game design" as areas of focus. For the former, there are established learning paths, so perhaps quite easy to estimate when you'll get to a point where you're delivering industry-standard work. For the latter (game design), perhaps the answer is a bit different. If you study game design at, say, university, the learning path might be a combination of reflective practice (studying games, writing critically/analytically about them), prototyping, making a bunch of games (including the final major project), and doing lots of experimentation (and maybe also going deep into a particular unexplored game mechanic, world building, character design, etc). Even if you finish university, you'll still have to make plenty of games to hone your craft. And the, for both of these areas of focus, to actually stand out from the crowd, would require something special. Maybe innate talent, maybe a new way of seeing the world. This is difficult to estimate. (But perhaps you've been sculpting 3D models and making small games in your spare time anyway, and maybe you're already quite good, so who knows? :) > charge for my work You're competing with a lot of other people for gamedev work :-) Most gamedev programming jobs don't pay as well as other programming jobs. You'll be doing it for the love of it! Someone I know worked at a gym, but made games in Unreal in their spare time, then did a 2-years remote masters in indie game dev, and got a job as a technical artist at a small indie studio. AFAIK he still just uses blueprints. I don't know how long he spent before university working on games in his spare time, but the 2 years of fast-tracking his knowledge really helped.
mistrial9 3y ago
Video Poker! just yesterday a video on YouTube was interviewing a old man about his years as an enforcer for an active New York City organized crime group - video poker was explicitly one of his stories about how they ran the gambling rooms. The machines were part of gambling equipment that they were supplied with from another crime group, in exchange for a cut of the profits. Not long after, the "pizza-gate" events happened and changed the business a lot.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Commission_Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Commission_Trial
jonnycomputer 3y ago
I'm afraid I only get a black screen on Firefox.
- stefs 3y ago
  works for me on 118.0.1
- bogwog 3y ago
  works for me (Firefox 118.0 on Linux)
jonwinstanley 3y ago
Love it!
CSSer 3y ago
This is more a question of curiosity than one of judgment: why does it take so long to load? I guess I expected it to be very fast because of the relative simplicity. Forgive me, I know nothing about Godot or Unity. This is still very cool.
- Tiberium 3y ago
  Godot packs the whole engine runtime when packing the game no matter the platform, but in this case it's also probably because the internet connection on the server is slow - https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.wasm https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.wasm (26MB, main engine runtime) took me 22s to load, and https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.pck https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.pck (16MB, game resources) 34s.
  - sinuhe69 3y ago
    Must be the bandwidth to the server. On my PC, it took 18 s to load.
- ajdegol 3y ago
  looks like the loading is the 45mb download it needs to do.
- danielheath 3y ago
  Cross-compilation to webassembly doesn't typically produce small binaries at this point (although it's possible to make small webassembly programs, compiling arbitrary C code to wasm results in large binaries).
  - skywal_l 3y ago
    Couldn't this be reduced with LTO?
  - DannyWebbie 3y ago
    Maybe, but Godot does particularly poorly in this area. Unity can go below 3MB out of the box and that is with bunch of engine systems in use. https://github.com/JohannesDeml/UnityWebGL-LoadingTest https://github.com/JohannesDeml/UnityWebGL-LoadingTest
WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
wasm file is 42.9mb, it's way too big, doesn't godot strip unused things?
phcreery 3y ago
I think it found an infinity money gltich. I held a 2 of hearts and a 3 of clubs on the far left and far right and it glitched out and did not give me 3 cards. Instead it gave me 3 black boxes, a royal flush and says I won "$"aHROcHM6Ly".... Now my cash keeps counting up, it is at over $2,000 now.
- mactrey 3y ago
  I hear Cabo is nice this time of year.
grej 3y ago
This is amazing work, well done! I haven't seen such a great CRT effect but I would love to see that kind of effect available as something you could overlay on old retro arcade games.
- ericskiff 3y ago
  This is available! Check out retroarch (or retropie if you have a pi 3 or 4 laying around) - it’s pretty great! Lots of shaders to choose from but pi-crt has a similar look to this and performs well
  - grej 3y ago
    Awesome thx!
hinicholas 3y ago
aha this is great! I did one in phaser and typescript a while back. definitely not as fancy this though! pretty fun game once you have some of the basic strategy down. https://www.nicbarth.com/Jacks-or-Better/ https://www.nicbarth.com/Jacks-or-Better/ https://github.com/nickbarth/Jacks-or-Better/tree/main/src https://github.com/nickbarth/Jacks-or-Better/tree/main/src
mstade 3y ago
I've spent more time playing this than I want to admit. Excellent work!
cableshaft 3y ago
Looking good, except no payout on a pair of Aces like others mentioned. I'm in the market to learn Godot, and have already done a couple tutorials. What did you find was the best resource for learning Godot? And do you code in C# or GDScript while using it?
- g051051 3y ago
  I can't vouch for the quality, but Humble Bundle has a Godot bundle up now, a mix of Godot 3 and 4 stuff (and Blender), for literally whatever you want to pay for it: https://www.humblebundle.com/software/everything-you-need-to-know-about-godot-4-encore-software https://www.humblebundle.com/software/everything-you-need-to...
Kapura 3y ago
Game froze for me: index.js:369 SCRIPT ERROR: Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray'). onPrintError @ index.js:369 index.js:369 at: _http_request2_completed (res://scripts/game.gdc:281) - Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray').
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  I think the server is getting the hug of death right now...
cainxinth 3y ago
A. I forgot how addictive video poker is, and B. $250 max payout for a straight flush is crazy low!
- airstrike 3y ago
  Agreed and agreed. $250 is criminally low
NicoJuicy 3y ago
A few days! Nicely done!
akuji1993 3y ago
Went up to $60 and then went bankrupt. Reminded me of why I don't play gambling games.
- toyg 3y ago
  The house always wins.
thatgerhard 3y ago
i love this!
silok 3y ago
Pair of aces counts as 1 instead of 14? Bug or was it like this originally?
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  aces are 1
tippysdemise 3y ago
Very cool! I could see this being a fairly addictive mobile game.
kosolam 3y ago
Very cool. And I agree about Godot. Small suggestion if you could make the crt less blurred it would be an improvement.
xer0x 3y ago
This is great! Thanks for sharing! I've been curious about Godot too.
tmporter 3y ago
You nailed the aesthetics perfectly! I've been using Godot for years now so I was happy to see such a huge influx of developers after the Unity drama.
paulusthe 3y ago
This is fun, but the game doesn't seem to accept that a pair of aces is a winning result. Aces specifically, other face cards work as intended.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Aces are low :-)
  - silenced_trope 3y ago
    You've had to explain this so many times lol it's not the intuitive way people expect the game to work, I thought it was a bug too when I found it
  - 1-more 3y ago
    Then how do royal flushes exist? Is this from some version of video poker that's well known?
camdenreslink 3y ago
This works very well in a mobile browser. Super impressive! Only issue I had was a slow initial load time. Not sure if that is due to Godot, or the size of the assets.
angryasian 3y ago
Great game ! Best of luck on your goals.
Lio 3y ago
I love this! It's just perfect, thanks. It makes me think about Lemmy from Motorhead and the stories of him playing video poker in the Rainbow Bar and Grill, LA. Apparently they moved the machine to his home for his final days. https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/rainbow-bar-grill-lemmy-kilmister-death-6828094/# https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/rainbow-bar-grill...!
nickphx 3y ago
funny that it uses xhr requests to a php script to draw cards..
andy800 3y ago
There are alternatives to Godot, in particular I'll mention ZimJS https://zimjs.com/about.html#features https://zimjs.com/about.html#features Like you, I recently created an online casino game, Cheat at Blackjack https://play.cheatatbj.com/ https://play.cheatatbj.com/ and used ZimJS for all of the animation. I considered Godot but found it simpler to do everything in client-side JS. Zim's web site is definitely a bit "out there" but the animation features are quite good and it allowed me, a terrible artist, to program my game quickly and add a lot of visual flair -- dealing the cards, the dealer checking for blackjack, chips sliding, the bouncy result status, etc.
- ipsin 3y ago
  Interesting idea. Is this being played at any casinos yet? I'm curious how you sell them on the house advantage being real (e.g. a white paper, or some kind of insurance guarantees?). One thing your game could use is a "repeat bet" button.
  - andy800 3y ago
    There's a big "repeat bet" button following every hand. Casinos and regulators require a game's house advantage to be "certified" by one of two specific third-parties. A big expense (both cost and time) when I am sufficiently qualified to calculate the long-term house advantage of the game (and spent lots of hours tweaking the rules and running models to reach a very specific result goal), but no way around it if you want to be in a b-and-m casino.
- WA 3y ago
  Fun game, but I might have encountered a bug. I played fair and were allowed to split 3 times. This made the UI crash after I won so that I couldn't continue. The buttons "repeat bets" and "collect" wouldn't show anymore: https://imgur.com/TcpHzT5 https://imgur.com/TcpHzT5 Checked the console, not sure if this caused the error, but here's an error trace: https://imgur.com/g75OXgJ https://imgur.com/g75OXgJ
  - andy800 3y ago
umvi 3y ago
Any way for me to listen to all the different jingles? I've been able to hear all the jingles through 4 of a kind, but I have no hope of hearing the straight flush/royal flush jingles without cheating somehow.
- cridenour 3y ago
  You could grab the pck file the browser downloads and expand it using Godot itself or a Godot CLI tool.
  - umvi 3y ago
    Yep, was able to listen to all of the jingles by downloading: - https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.pck https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.pck And unpacking it with: - https://github.com/bruvzg/gdsdecomp https://github.com/bruvzg/gdsdecomp
omoikane 3y ago
Looks like you exported your project in debug mode, you probably want to export in release mode.
Andrew018 3y ago
[dead]
rezmason 3y ago
This looks great. Audio's left-speaker only? Might be a problem on my end. I will learn video poker, and get good at this. I wouldn't mind an option to disable the CRT simulation, but it's outstanding anyway.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  I'll look into the audio. Might also be an idea to disable CRT effect... thanks for your feedback :-)
nikolay 3y ago
Nice! Although most video pokers allow you to gamble your winnings so you can double up (up to 10 times) or lose it.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Yes - this is the next feature I'm going to add.
mplewis 3y ago
Thanks for sharing! This is really well done. I was wondering if you would be willing to put the source code for this on GitHub? I've been meaning to learn Godot for a while for a simple 2D RPG and I'd love to see how you did things here.
pryelluw 3y ago
This is amazing! Totally nailed it. Do you plan on releasing the source? Even if it’s not open source I’d like to take a peek.
empressplay 3y ago
Crash when 4 cards held (attempting to deal 1): Failed to load resource: net::ERR_HTTP2_PROTOCOL_ERROR index.js:369 TypeError: Failed to fetch at Object.create (index.js:9:273127) at _godot_js_fetch_create (index.js:9:274152) at HTTPClient::make_request(HTTPClient::Method, String const&, Vector<String> const&, unsigned char const*, int) (06371b4a:0x1c75df) at HTTPClient::request_raw(HTTPClient::Method, String const&, Vector<String> const&, PoolVector<unsigned char> const&) (06371b4a:0x452bef) at HTTPRequest::_update_connection() (06371b4a:0x45177c) at HTTPRequest::_notification(int) (06371b4a:0x452689) at HTTPRequest::_notificationv(int, bool) (06371b4a:0xe8b414) at Object::notification(int, bool) (06371b4a:0x4d563) at SceneTree::_notify_group_pause(StringName const&, int) (06371b4a:0x1b1818) at SceneTree::idle(float) (06371b4a:0xacf3f1) onPrintError @ index.js:369 index.js:354 SERVER RESULT 2 = index.js:369 SCRIPT ERROR: Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray'). onPrintError @ index.js:369 index.js:369 at: _http_request2_completed (res://scripts/game.gdc:281) - Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray'). onPrintError @ index.js:369
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  server is getting hugged to death - error handling should be a little smoother :-)
bfrog 3y ago
Pretty nice, though feels a bit slow to me... on my 10980xe which is kind of painful I guess given that it's mimicing a late 80s/early 90s video poker machine
- stuckinhell 3y ago
  That might be side effect of using godot. It's apparently just a lot slower than unity and unreal.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
fransje26 3y ago
Very, very nice. A "play-again" button/screen would be a nice addition, as reloading the page to play again takes some time.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Yes... didn't expect the attention :-) Server is a potato.
laissezfart 3y ago
game froze on second deal after holding J-33- :(
laissezfart 3y ago
love it! but freezes sometimes (froze on second deal after holding J-33-)
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  server is getting hug of death :-(
elwell 3y ago
Ran it up to $190 in 15 minutes. Are you trying to make me a gambling addict? PS: Now down to $100.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  This warms my heart - thank you :-)
bluepanda1234 3y ago
Nice, very fun! Did freeze after playing a few hands. These are the logs: Failed to load resource: net::ERR_HTTP2_PROTOCOL_ERROR /classicvideopoker/vpg2.php?hold=00101&session_id=8941b3fb202e51e9b20a3f4a40d9013a:1 Failed to load resource: net::ERR_HTTP2_PROTOCOL_ERROR TypeError: Failed to fetch at Object.create (index.js:9:273127) at _godot_js_fetch_create (index.js:9:274152) at HTTPClient::make_request(HTTPClient::Method, String const&, Vector<String> const&, unsigned char const*, int) (06371b4a:0x1c75df) at HTTPClient::request_raw(HTTPClient::Method, String const&, Vector<String> const&, PoolVector<unsigned char> const&) (06371b4a:0x452bef) at HTTPRequest::_update_connection() (06371b4a:0x45177c) at HTTPRequest::_notification(int) (06371b4a:0x452689) at HTTPRequest::_notificationv(int, bool) (06371b4a:0xe8b414) at Object::notification(int, bool) (06371b4a:0x4d563) at SceneTree::_notify_group_pause(StringName const&, int) (06371b4a:0x1b1818) at SceneTree::idle(float) (06371b4a:0xacf3f1) SCRIPT ERROR: Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray'). onPrintError @ index.js:369 index.js:369 at: _http_request2_completed (res://scripts/game.gdc:281) - Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray').
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Server is getting hugged to death. It's the cheapest server Hetzner offers :-)
  - coolspot 3y ago
    Try Oracle (boo) Cloud Free tier. 4 ARM vCPUs + 24GB RAM
    - appstorelottery 3y ago
      I'll look into it - thanks!
shantanujoshi 3y ago
Yo this is awesome thank you for making it!
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  No worries ;-)
sci_prog 3y ago
There's a video poker version, which I played on a machine years ago, where after being dealt a winning hand we have an option to infinitely double the winnings if we correctly guess if the next card is higher or lower than 7. Does anyone know what I am talking about and what the name of this poker variation is called?
- janesconference 3y ago
  I saw it too in the 90s, unfortunately I can't remember the game's name.
unixhero 3y ago
I am very interested in discussing visualization solutions with you. I was planning to do what you mentioned here in Unreal to visualize financial data.
jihadjihad 3y ago
The audio is so good!
tibanne 3y ago
Bug? Shoulda won back my 5. https://i.imgur.com/iZavzr6.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/iZavzr6.jpeg
glimshe 3y ago
It's a very accurate emulation, it feels almost like a video. Great work!
chriscjcj 3y ago
Besides fixing the low Ace value, I would suggest allowing the player to use the keyboard play. It looks like the space bar does trigger a deal. Perhaps 1-2-3-4-5 selects and deselects cards and plus/minus allows the bet to increase or decrease.
jheriko 3y ago
over a few days is pretty good. not sure you are onto a winner here given that every junior game programmer should be able to make something like this in a day or less.
doctorpangloss 3y ago
> So... If anyone has any leads for making Space Invaders for Nike - please help! Happy to pay 5% on whatever work I get. Our partner built a game for Nike that had a big audience - https://appmana.com/watch/lbxx https://appmana.com/watch/lbxx This is a streamed Unity experience built on our unique infrastructure: unlike WebGL or Stadia, it loaded instantly and supports all browsers. This means it can work as an ad destination, and it's why we have a partnership with Meta. You should feel right at home! Feel free to reach out on our contact page at https://appmana.com/contact https://appmana.com/contact
- helsinki 3y ago
  Visually, this game is pretty cool. On the other hand, this is the least fun ‘game’ I’ve played.
birracerveza 3y ago
Very simple, very good. I love the CRT effect. And being able to immediately play in the browser like this, even from mobile, is amazing. Also serves as a stark reminder of why video pokers are a bad idea, as I immediately lost everything, then proceeded to do so 5 more times.
computershit 3y ago
Great nostalgic implementation, took my money for sure. One suggestion I'd make to make it more like the real thing is make a number press of 1-2-3-4-5 hold/unhold their respective card on desktop.
Sophistifunk 3y ago
This is rad
helsinki 3y ago
How did you miss the fact that a pair of aces qualifies as ‘jacks or higher’? Did you even play the game?
hn8305823 3y ago
This is amazing! Thank you for building it. Please fix the bug with a pair of Aces. I fell like I'm getting robbed each time it happens. Also, here's the correct payout odds and basic strategy for "full pay" jacks or better that most people are familiar with: https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/jacks-or-better/9-6/optimal/ https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/jacks-or... An option to reload/restart without having to hit browser refesh would be nice. An option for basic strategy hints might also be cool but certainly not original/authentic.
Madmallard 3y ago
the number of comments about aces is astounding. well done! any advice for new devs tryin to get used to godot? i have been writing phaser games for 7 years
InitialLastName 3y ago
You have a memory leak somewhere; I came back to this after the tab was open overnight and it was using 3GB of RAM in firefox 118.
tspike 3y ago
Did you take this down?! I was really enjoying it

jprete 3y ago

I’m curious about your experience with GDScript - which I presume is new to you - because it’s been a stumbling block for me trying Godot.

giancarlostoro 3y ago
Its possible he also used the C# variant of Godot. I find GDScript easier for myself, though I come from a Python background. I highly recommend learning Python basics. There are nuanced differences, I think of GDScript as a Python / JavaScript type of language, has the syntax of Python but has some JS / TypeScript things to it.
- url00 3y ago
  The current V4 of Godot doesn't support web export via C# - unless it's on a dev branch maybe?
- default-kramer 3y ago
  "ERROR: Mono: Core API hash mismatch." is a strong clue that it's using C# instead of GDScript. (I was on the lookout because the same error appears in my own game. Apparently it's benign.)
fransje26 3y ago
GDScript is very similar to Python with the additions of signals and slots, which is nice. Except for some minor quirks which I don't remember from the top of my head, it nicely gets the job done. I haven't tried Godot 4 yet, but from what I read, they improved GDScript even further, which should be nice. If you think GDScript is holding you back, you can always try C# or C++.

krenzo 3y ago

Ended on a hand of: K J A A Q and did not receive the Jacks or Better $1 payout. According to a brief search about the rules of video poker, a pair of aces is considered better than a pair of jacks.

simpaticoder 3y ago
I also had a pair of aces and did not "win". Definitely a bug (probably aces are low in his code).
- seiferteric 3y ago
  same here
  - abluecloud 3y ago
    yep, definitely a bug - seems like with when getting a winning of aces after the second deal. interestingly if you get a pair of jacks you get your winnings correctly. guessing aces are low. https://imgur.com/a/H1Nzno3 https://imgur.com/a/H1Nzno3
    - hunter2_ 3y ago
      > after the second deal It's different on or before the second deal?
jonny_eh 3y ago
I came here to complain about the same bug. I want my money back!
appstorelottery 3y ago
Aces low ;-)
- jcampbell1 3y ago
  That is a bug :)

helloplanets 3y ago

Awesome. I remember when everybody played basically this exact machine in middle school when we used to sneak to the market during recess. There used to be all kinds of different varieties of slot machines at basically every market and gas station in Finland, regulated by a sanctioned monopoly called RAY. Nobody really cared if you played one at whatever age, especially in the 90's. Wild times.

4hg4ufxhy 3y ago
People cared even less on cruise ships. Those were mainly using paf machines though, probably for legal reasons. Search "paf joker poker" for images of the classic machine. Nice features was the joker and double or nothing. I played this kind of games a lot since I was 7 years old because we used to travel a lot. One time I made a win sharing deal with my brother to reduce risk of an unlucky streak, but I immediately hit the jackpot after that. Good times.

m000 3y ago

Lol. Awesome theming. For a minute I was stuck wondering "why is there a link to a screenshot on the HN frontpage"?

umen 3y ago

how big is the wasm file ?

ale42 3y ago
26.07 MB (index.wasm) and 16.35 MB of resources (index.pck)
tsukurimashou 3y ago
26MB according to firefox network tab
smallstepforman 3y ago
The original IGT binary version on EEPROM? Probably 2Mb, but also including all gaming machine monitoring code, attendant screens, device drivers, network protocols etc, with room to spare on the EEPROM.

werdnapk 3y ago

The CRT looks really good. Definitely a good reproduction of classic video poker.

appstorelottery 3y ago
Thank you!

richrichardsson 3y ago

Nice. Sounds seem to only come from left channel, and also had the "pair of Aces" issue, but otherwise job well done.

appstorelottery 3y ago
aces are low - will look into the audio - thanks :-)

chaosprint 3y ago

looks great. the audio got me interested

tetha 3y ago

Yeah, applying some realization about learning instruments, I'm currently more or less forcing me to just do stuff in Godot. More focus on doing and learning, less focus on the result. It's part struggle with other programming mindsets I have from backend servers for game and other web applications - "Oh, just shove all data into this system" is a valid answer, and "really, really just do what you need right now" is a good idea. And having implemented some of this on straight up SDL, it's pretty impressive how something that would cost you like 1-2 days to make fall down to... 10 minutes of clicking around in a tileset editor.

matsemann 3y ago
I have a hard time actually making games. Not in Unity or Godot specifically, but games in general. I end up going down rabbit holes in the infinite. Like, I was making a puzzle game, where you need to move pieces in a way to move from A to B. I ended up theming it as crossing a river where A and B are on different sides. I think I've spent 95% of my effort on that game on writing a water shader with the look and feel I'd like. But it's inconsequential to the actual gameplay. I could have just copied some code online or bought an asset and moved on. But at the same time, I'm enjoying myself. I like learning this stuff, and perhaps my goal is really to have fun rather than actually ship something. So it's OK.
- yard2010 3y ago
  This is art. Art shouldn't be confined to foreign interests like making money
  - djbusby 3y ago
    ars gratia artis
- tetha 3y ago
  IMO it all depends on the goal. If you're just noodling around on the guitar to have some fun, you're not strictly trying to pick better. If you're doing picking exercises, you're not exploring what a new pedal can do. If you're exploring a pedal, you're not trying to learn a specific song. For example, I'm currently deliberately moving slower in an idea to figure out good ways of doing things in Godot as well as reading a lot about thes systems. And I've learned a few things along the way. However, if I was in a Ludum Dare mode of working, I could've had something doing the same things I have now much, much faster, because if you don't have core game mechanics working in 8 - 12 hours you're utterly doomed in that context.

toxik 3y ago

Just me or is it super unintuitive that you HOLD rather than dismiss cards? Happened like a dozen times now that I throw the cards I want to keep.

itomato 3y ago
Always was
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
carstenhag 3y ago
Usually you only have 1-2 cards you want to hold. So it's 1-2 clicks. If you had to throw them, it would be 3-5 clicks.
- toxik 3y ago
  I flushed a flush for this reason :(
rigmarole 3y ago
I suppose it is emulating the original. But yes, same experience here. I made the mistake multiple times.

nuancebydefault 3y ago

The screen seems somewhat distorted/deformed when displaying on my phone browser.

itomato 3y ago
Suitably so, I think. What’s missing is the whole unit swiveling when you press Hold on cards 1 and 5 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-igt-fortune-draw-video-poker-469076231 https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-igt-fortune-d...
- nuancebydefault 3y ago
  Another thing what's missing is the effect of holding a magnet next to the screen (smiles)
progbits 3y ago
It's a CRT, it's supposed to look like that :)
- nuancebydefault 3y ago
  Sorry the smiley somehow disappeared...

msla 3y ago

All that's missing is the cigarette smoke and the sense of small-town desperation.

toxik 3y ago

I guess you could tractably compute the optimal policy for every hand. What is it?

cdelsolar 3y ago
There’s pages on the internet for this, with nice mental shortcuts. I remember trying to study one such page before going out in Vegas. It’s pretty silly because even playing optimally your EV is still negative
- toxik 3y ago
  That’s what I figured, you always lose in the end.
acheron 3y ago
It's fairly complicated. https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/ https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/

calini 3y ago

Lovely game and art style, and the idea of 80s style games is great! I would throw in my two cents with the following idea: I would love a modern, well made collection of classical games such as the one linked, available on many platforms, with cloud saves, even to the point of which game was picked. I would love to decompress by playing Solitaire for 5 mins in my lunch break on my iPhone, come home, open the computer and finish the game up on the big screen and enjoy the cards jumping all over the place.

ireallywantthat 3y ago

Awesome. Please make your games supportable in Linux(or Proton) as well if your game ships natively.

dolmen 3y ago
It works in your browser. Why do you need more platforms support?
extraduder_ire 3y ago
If you extract the (I think) data.pck file, you can run it with the normal godot engine wherever it's supported. (as long as there's no missing features the game uses on that platform.) It'd be easier for the developer to do it, but anyone can theoretically.

loufe 3y ago

I really like Godot so far but the debugging tools are massively inferior to any other IDE and language I've ever used. I waste so much time trying to track down bugs. Proper variable inspection would be a life saver, for instance.

razodactyl 3y ago
And this is the magic of open source and the current situation. There will be many like you and a few with the dedication and skills to make that happen for the benefit of us all. The Unity move was VERY silly considering the state of Godot and Unreal. Literally treating your entire user base like that. I spent $400 for the Pro license when I was a poor Uni student back in '09 and it didn't translate to the newer versions - I just cut my losses and never looked back.
- december456 3y ago
  > There will be few people with the dedication to benefit us all > The Unity move was VERY silly considering the state of Godot and Unreal In my opinion, opposite, Unity just pulled its oligopoly strings. It wasnt bad management or desperate business choices; they knew the state of the industry.
  - troynt 3y ago
    If they knew, why then did they need to adjust their fees after initial announcement? Looks like the management is pretty disconnected and desperate to me.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  Unity is an advertising company that also has a game engine hobbyists use - I don't think what they did was necessarily a bad financial move, they just shafted the part of their userbase that doesn't generate much money and then wound it back when they realized it was really bad PR.
HideousKojima 3y ago
If you're using C# instead of GDScript you can use Visual Studio (or VS Code or Rider) and get access to all the debugging tools available in those IDEs. You can also use VSCode for GDScript but I've never tried it so not sure how the debugging experience is with that.

bloopernova 3y ago

This is so cool, I really dig the CRT look! Nice job!

nologic01 3y ago

Side remark, but it is always intriguing to see what can be achieved with wasm technologies. There seems to be still significant potential in this direction and Godot's html5 export gives a good example of how to tap it.

CrociDB 3y ago

I feel the same. I've worked with Unity for quite some time (though gladly don't anymore), but always had trouble trying to learn Unreal. Recently I tried godot and I found it quite easy to get started! I love the game. Had a lot of fun playing for some time. but just one question, shouldn't pair of A be considered "higher than jacks"? Because it looks like it's not: https://imgur.com/a/ov2UP1D https://imgur.com/a/ov2UP1D

appstorelottery 3y ago
Happy that you like the game :-) Aces are low in this version.
- bbarn 3y ago
  Missed requirement :)

g232089 3y ago

It's nice but the CRT filter in a big monitor burns my retinas. CRTs didn't look like that unless you got too close to the screen. I guess I'm supposed to move away from the screen but then I can't reach the mouse, :)

jonny_eh 3y ago
Shrink the window?

carstenhag 3y ago

Is there a reason it's only playing sound effects on the left side? Using macOS/Chrome/Earbuds there's nothing on the right.

BigglesB 3y ago

Nice work! Good to see another Godot convert on here as well :-) It is great how quickly you can get something up & running & then iterate on it.

tyingq 3y ago

The visuals are perfect, looks very much like a CRT...nicely done. I think I found a bug though...pair of Aces doesn't pay as "Jacks or Better": https://imgur.com/a/78B3oPV https://imgur.com/a/78B3oPV

yohannparis 3y ago
Okay, I though I was getting something wrong there.
hunter2_ 3y ago
Indeed, I encountered the same. Rock solid otherwise, so far! Something at the end (bankruptcy) besides just locking up (other than the mute button) would be a nice touch.
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  Yes. I've got plans for this - sign up for free credits. lol :-)
ZenBlender 3y ago
[flagged]
tspike 3y ago
Aces low?
- appstorelottery 3y ago
  aces low - yes!
appstorelottery 3y ago
Aces are the low card in the game. You are not the first person to say this! I need to look at the math again to make them high cards... However in my opinion (at risk of getting everyones ire) - I think the ace is the "1" card.

andrewclunn 3y ago

Ummm why didn't my two aces qualify for jacks or better? Also if I changed enough settings (moving the bet up and down) then the game glitched out on the first deal.

palavrov 3y ago

AH, memories. Card faces are from real machine - Novomatic American Poker 2 - back in time did lot of hacks on this platform. Even wrote a emulator in x86 assembly to speedup the development. This Godot game is quite good to recreate the atmosphere of the ancient video poker machine. Lacks only cards autohold and sound could be a bit more polished, but these are minor things that could be easily improved.

appstorelottery 3y ago
Thank you! Yes, I wondered about auto-hold but in the end decided that it was a bit more engaging and fun not to do that...

jakearmitage 3y ago

Did you write the CRT shader yourself? Because it looks really good.

siliconescapee 3y ago

Very cool. I got my first royal flush in my poker history. Too bad it isn't real $!

Exuma 3y ago
649,739 : 1
appstorelottery 3y ago
That's huge. The odds are roughly 1 in 46,000 hands of this.

devmor 3y ago

Wow, reminds me of going to the bar with my dad after I turned 21. Now if you could just find a way to include faint, bad, country music and the taste of cheap whiskey.

rmac 3y ago

sick style!

felixarba 3y ago

Exceptional and very fun, all I have to say.

boredhedgehog 3y ago

It's remarkable how divisive CRT shaders are. Some love them, some hate them, very little middle ground.

wiz21c 3y ago
depends on your year of birth maybe ? Mine allows me to appreciate them much!
- rigmarole 3y ago
  I also grew to associate scanlines with sci-fi, which I love. I remember loving the original Ubuntu boot splash logo which had the line effect. And then was disappointed when it was changed to smooth and crisp.
HideousKojima 3y ago
They give me PTSD flashbacks to my parents' awful old TV, which they got in the mid 80's and didn't replace with a modern flat screen until ~5 years ago.

feintruled 3y ago

Very cool! Interested in the dealing logic, is it 'fair' or does it mimic real machines and do payout percentages?

appstorelottery 3y ago
It shuffles one deck randomly and deals from that deck. New shuffle every deal/draw cycle.

unixhero 3y ago

Wow it runs like a MAME game in the browser. Love it

sbarre 3y ago

How do I get in touch with you (re: niche agency)

appstorelottery 3y ago
send email to rpearson@lfgslots.com :-)

lacoolj 3y ago

this takes a very long time to load. why is that?

guntherhermann 3y ago

Wow this is very slick, nice job!

lifeinthevoid 3y ago

as an aside: I'm currently a low-level systems programmer working on distributed database internals, but I'm looking to transition into 3D animation / game design because the combination of programming, visual creativity, math & physics sounds attractive to me. How much time would it take me to start creating non-trivial content and be able to charge for my work?

MattRix 3y ago
I’m not OP but I’ve been doing game dev for 15 years professionally for the same reasons you mentioned. I’ll be honest up front though, it’s not a great field if you’re going into it trying to make money, but it can be incredibly satisfying. As far as how long it’ll take, that depends on what kind of things you want to make and how much time/effort you’re willing to put into them, especially on the visual polish side of things. The hardest part of learning game dev is learning how to program, and it sounds like you already have a good foundation there. The current tools, especially Unity and Godot, are very quick to get up and running with. You could learn the basics in a dozen hours, and be making (bad) games in less than a month. Game design is a skill that is hard to learn except by doing it. Reading books and watching youtube videos about it only goes so far. For making games that you can actually sell, you’re looking at spending months per game, usually at least 6 months… though often the games you think are going to take 6 months often take much longer! The number one tip I would give is to actually finish your games, even your little early experiments. In game dev the “last 10%” takes way more than 10% of the effort.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
opyate 3y ago
> non-trivial content You mention "3D animation" and "game design" as areas of focus. For the former, there are established learning paths, so perhaps quite easy to estimate when you'll get to a point where you're delivering industry-standard work. For the latter (game design), perhaps the answer is a bit different. If you study game design at, say, university, the learning path might be a combination of reflective practice (studying games, writing critically/analytically about them), prototyping, making a bunch of games (including the final major project), and doing lots of experimentation (and maybe also going deep into a particular unexplored game mechanic, world building, character design, etc). Even if you finish university, you'll still have to make plenty of games to hone your craft. And the, for both of these areas of focus, to actually stand out from the crowd, would require something special. Maybe innate talent, maybe a new way of seeing the world. This is difficult to estimate. (But perhaps you've been sculpting 3D models and making small games in your spare time anyway, and maybe you're already quite good, so who knows? :) > charge for my work You're competing with a lot of other people for gamedev work :-) Most gamedev programming jobs don't pay as well as other programming jobs. You'll be doing it for the love of it! Someone I know worked at a gym, but made games in Unreal in their spare time, then did a 2-years remote masters in indie game dev, and got a job as a technical artist at a small indie studio. AFAIK he still just uses blueprints. I don't know how long he spent before university working on games in his spare time, but the 2 years of fast-tracking his knowledge really helped.

mistrial9 3y ago

Video Poker! just yesterday a video on YouTube was interviewing a old man about his years as an enforcer for an active New York City organized crime group - video poker was explicitly one of his stories about how they ran the gambling rooms. The machines were part of gambling equipment that they were supplied with from another crime group, in exchange for a cut of the profits. Not long after, the "pizza-gate" events happened and changed the business a lot.

mistrial9 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Commission_Trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_Commission_Trial

jonnycomputer 3y ago

I'm afraid I only get a black screen on Firefox.

stefs 3y ago
works for me on 118.0.1
bogwog 3y ago
works for me (Firefox 118.0 on Linux)

jonwinstanley 3y ago

Love it!

CSSer 3y ago

This is more a question of curiosity than one of judgment: why does it take so long to load? I guess I expected it to be very fast because of the relative simplicity. Forgive me, I know nothing about Godot or Unity. This is still very cool.

Tiberium 3y ago
Godot packs the whole engine runtime when packing the game no matter the platform, but in this case it's also probably because the internet connection on the server is slow - https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.wasm https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.wasm (26MB, main engine runtime) took me 22s to load, and https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.pck https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.pck (16MB, game resources) 34s.
- sinuhe69 3y ago
  Must be the bandwidth to the server. On my PC, it took 18 s to load.
ajdegol 3y ago
looks like the loading is the 45mb download it needs to do.
danielheath 3y ago
Cross-compilation to webassembly doesn't typically produce small binaries at this point (although it's possible to make small webassembly programs, compiling arbitrary C code to wasm results in large binaries).
- skywal_l 3y ago
  Couldn't this be reduced with LTO?
- DannyWebbie 3y ago
  Maybe, but Godot does particularly poorly in this area. Unity can go below 3MB out of the box and that is with bunch of engine systems in use. https://github.com/JohannesDeml/UnityWebGL-LoadingTest https://github.com/JohannesDeml/UnityWebGL-LoadingTest

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago

wasm file is 42.9mb, it's way too big, doesn't godot strip unused things?

phcreery 3y ago

I think it found an infinity money gltich. I held a 2 of hearts and a 3 of clubs on the far left and far right and it glitched out and did not give me 3 cards. Instead it gave me 3 black boxes, a royal flush and says I won "$"aHROcHM6Ly".... Now my cash keeps counting up, it is at over $2,000 now.

mactrey 3y ago
I hear Cabo is nice this time of year.

grej 3y ago

This is amazing work, well done! I haven't seen such a great CRT effect but I would love to see that kind of effect available as something you could overlay on old retro arcade games.

ericskiff 3y ago
This is available! Check out retroarch (or retropie if you have a pi 3 or 4 laying around) - it’s pretty great! Lots of shaders to choose from but pi-crt has a similar look to this and performs well
- grej 3y ago
  Awesome thx!

hinicholas 3y ago

aha this is great! I did one in phaser and typescript a while back. definitely not as fancy this though! pretty fun game once you have some of the basic strategy down. https://www.nicbarth.com/Jacks-or-Better/ https://www.nicbarth.com/Jacks-or-Better/ https://github.com/nickbarth/Jacks-or-Better/tree/main/src https://github.com/nickbarth/Jacks-or-Better/tree/main/src

mstade 3y ago

I've spent more time playing this than I want to admit. Excellent work!

cableshaft 3y ago

Looking good, except no payout on a pair of Aces like others mentioned. I'm in the market to learn Godot, and have already done a couple tutorials. What did you find was the best resource for learning Godot? And do you code in C# or GDScript while using it?

g051051 3y ago
I can't vouch for the quality, but Humble Bundle has a Godot bundle up now, a mix of Godot 3 and 4 stuff (and Blender), for literally whatever you want to pay for it: https://www.humblebundle.com/software/everything-you-need-to-know-about-godot-4-encore-software https://www.humblebundle.com/software/everything-you-need-to...

Kapura 3y ago

Game froze for me: index.js:369 SCRIPT ERROR: Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray'). onPrintError @ index.js:369 index.js:369 at: _http_request2_completed (res://scripts/game.gdc:281) - Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray').

appstorelottery 3y ago
I think the server is getting the hug of death right now...

cainxinth 3y ago

A. I forgot how addictive video poker is, and B. $250 max payout for a straight flush is crazy low!

airstrike 3y ago
Agreed and agreed. $250 is criminally low

NicoJuicy 3y ago

A few days! Nicely done!

akuji1993 3y ago

Went up to $60 and then went bankrupt. Reminded me of why I don't play gambling games.

toyg 3y ago
The house always wins.

thatgerhard 3y ago

i love this!

silok 3y ago

Pair of aces counts as 1 instead of 14? Bug or was it like this originally?

appstorelottery 3y ago
aces are 1

tippysdemise 3y ago

Very cool! I could see this being a fairly addictive mobile game.

kosolam 3y ago

Very cool. And I agree about Godot. Small suggestion if you could make the crt less blurred it would be an improvement.

xer0x 3y ago

This is great! Thanks for sharing! I've been curious about Godot too.

tmporter 3y ago

You nailed the aesthetics perfectly! I've been using Godot for years now so I was happy to see such a huge influx of developers after the Unity drama.

paulusthe 3y ago

This is fun, but the game doesn't seem to accept that a pair of aces is a winning result. Aces specifically, other face cards work as intended.

appstorelottery 3y ago
Aces are low :-)
- silenced_trope 3y ago
  You've had to explain this so many times lol it's not the intuitive way people expect the game to work, I thought it was a bug too when I found it
- 1-more 3y ago
  Then how do royal flushes exist? Is this from some version of video poker that's well known?

camdenreslink 3y ago

This works very well in a mobile browser. Super impressive! Only issue I had was a slow initial load time. Not sure if that is due to Godot, or the size of the assets.

angryasian 3y ago

Great game ! Best of luck on your goals.

Lio 3y ago

I love this! It's just perfect, thanks. It makes me think about Lemmy from Motorhead and the stories of him playing video poker in the Rainbow Bar and Grill, LA. Apparently they moved the machine to his home for his final days. https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/rainbow-bar-grill-lemmy-kilmister-death-6828094/# https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/rainbow-bar-grill...!

nickphx 3y ago

funny that it uses xhr requests to a php script to draw cards..

andy800 3y ago

There are alternatives to Godot, in particular I'll mention ZimJS https://zimjs.com/about.html#features https://zimjs.com/about.html#features Like you, I recently created an online casino game, Cheat at Blackjack https://play.cheatatbj.com/ https://play.cheatatbj.com/ and used ZimJS for all of the animation. I considered Godot but found it simpler to do everything in client-side JS. Zim's web site is definitely a bit "out there" but the animation features are quite good and it allowed me, a terrible artist, to program my game quickly and add a lot of visual flair -- dealing the cards, the dealer checking for blackjack, chips sliding, the bouncy result status, etc.

ipsin 3y ago
Interesting idea. Is this being played at any casinos yet? I'm curious how you sell them on the house advantage being real (e.g. a white paper, or some kind of insurance guarantees?). One thing your game could use is a "repeat bet" button.
- andy800 3y ago
  There's a big "repeat bet" button following every hand. Casinos and regulators require a game's house advantage to be "certified" by one of two specific third-parties. A big expense (both cost and time) when I am sufficiently qualified to calculate the long-term house advantage of the game (and spent lots of hours tweaking the rules and running models to reach a very specific result goal), but no way around it if you want to be in a b-and-m casino.
WA 3y ago
Fun game, but I might have encountered a bug. I played fair and were allowed to split 3 times. This made the UI crash after I won so that I couldn't continue. The buttons "repeat bets" and "collect" wouldn't show anymore: https://imgur.com/TcpHzT5 https://imgur.com/TcpHzT5 Checked the console, not sure if this caused the error, but here's an error trace: https://imgur.com/g75OXgJ https://imgur.com/g75OXgJ
- andy800 3y ago

umvi 3y ago

Any way for me to listen to all the different jingles? I've been able to hear all the jingles through 4 of a kind, but I have no hope of hearing the straight flush/royal flush jingles without cheating somehow.

cridenour 3y ago
You could grab the pck file the browser downloads and expand it using Godot itself or a Godot CLI tool.
- umvi 3y ago
  Yep, was able to listen to all of the jingles by downloading: - https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.pck https://lfgslots.com/classicvideopoker/index.pck And unpacking it with: - https://github.com/bruvzg/gdsdecomp https://github.com/bruvzg/gdsdecomp

omoikane 3y ago

Looks like you exported your project in debug mode, you probably want to export in release mode.

Andrew018 3y ago

[dead]

rezmason 3y ago

This looks great. Audio's left-speaker only? Might be a problem on my end. I will learn video poker, and get good at this. I wouldn't mind an option to disable the CRT simulation, but it's outstanding anyway.

appstorelottery 3y ago
I'll look into the audio. Might also be an idea to disable CRT effect... thanks for your feedback :-)

nikolay 3y ago

Nice! Although most video pokers allow you to gamble your winnings so you can double up (up to 10 times) or lose it.

appstorelottery 3y ago
Yes - this is the next feature I'm going to add.

mplewis 3y ago

Thanks for sharing! This is really well done. I was wondering if you would be willing to put the source code for this on GitHub? I've been meaning to learn Godot for a while for a simple 2D RPG and I'd love to see how you did things here.

pryelluw 3y ago

This is amazing! Totally nailed it. Do you plan on releasing the source? Even if it’s not open source I’d like to take a peek.

empressplay 3y ago

Crash when 4 cards held (attempting to deal 1): Failed to load resource: net::ERR_HTTP2_PROTOCOL_ERROR index.js:369 TypeError: Failed to fetch at Object.create (index.js:9:273127) at _godot_js_fetch_create (index.js:9:274152) at HTTPClient::make_request(HTTPClient::Method, String const&, Vector<String> const&, unsigned char const*, int) (06371b4a:0x1c75df) at HTTPClient::request_raw(HTTPClient::Method, String const&, Vector<String> const&, PoolVector<unsigned char> const&) (06371b4a:0x452bef) at HTTPRequest::_update_connection() (06371b4a:0x45177c) at HTTPRequest::_notification(int) (06371b4a:0x452689) at HTTPRequest::_notificationv(int, bool) (06371b4a:0xe8b414) at Object::notification(int, bool) (06371b4a:0x4d563) at SceneTree::_notify_group_pause(StringName const&, int) (06371b4a:0x1b1818) at SceneTree::idle(float) (06371b4a:0xacf3f1) onPrintError @ index.js:369 index.js:354 SERVER RESULT 2 = index.js:369 SCRIPT ERROR: Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray'). onPrintError @ index.js:369 index.js:369 at: _http_request2_completed (res://scripts/game.gdc:281) - Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray'). onPrintError @ index.js:369

appstorelottery 3y ago
server is getting hugged to death - error handling should be a little smoother :-)

bfrog 3y ago

Pretty nice, though feels a bit slow to me... on my 10980xe which is kind of painful I guess given that it's mimicing a late 80s/early 90s video poker machine

stuckinhell 3y ago
That might be side effect of using godot. It's apparently just a lot slower than unity and unreal.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

fransje26 3y ago

Very, very nice. A "play-again" button/screen would be a nice addition, as reloading the page to play again takes some time.

appstorelottery 3y ago
Yes... didn't expect the attention :-) Server is a potato.

laissezfart 3y ago

game froze on second deal after holding J-33- :(

laissezfart 3y ago

love it! but freezes sometimes (froze on second deal after holding J-33-)

appstorelottery 3y ago
server is getting hug of death :-(

elwell 3y ago

Ran it up to $190 in 15 minutes. Are you trying to make me a gambling addict? PS: Now down to $100.

appstorelottery 3y ago
This warms my heart - thank you :-)

bluepanda1234 3y ago

Nice, very fun! Did freeze after playing a few hands. These are the logs: Failed to load resource: net::ERR_HTTP2_PROTOCOL_ERROR /classicvideopoker/vpg2.php?hold=00101&session_id=8941b3fb202e51e9b20a3f4a40d9013a:1 Failed to load resource: net::ERR_HTTP2_PROTOCOL_ERROR TypeError: Failed to fetch at Object.create (index.js:9:273127) at _godot_js_fetch_create (index.js:9:274152) at HTTPClient::make_request(HTTPClient::Method, String const&, Vector<String> const&, unsigned char const*, int) (06371b4a:0x1c75df) at HTTPClient::request_raw(HTTPClient::Method, String const&, Vector<String> const&, PoolVector<unsigned char> const&) (06371b4a:0x452bef) at HTTPRequest::_update_connection() (06371b4a:0x45177c) at HTTPRequest::_notification(int) (06371b4a:0x452689) at HTTPRequest::_notificationv(int, bool) (06371b4a:0xe8b414) at Object::notification(int, bool) (06371b4a:0x4d563) at SceneTree::_notify_group_pause(StringName const&, int) (06371b4a:0x1b1818) at SceneTree::idle(float) (06371b4a:0xacf3f1) SCRIPT ERROR: Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray'). onPrintError @ index.js:369 index.js:369 at: _http_request2_completed (res://scripts/game.gdc:281) - Invalid get index '13' (on base: 'PoolStringArray').

appstorelottery 3y ago
Server is getting hugged to death. It's the cheapest server Hetzner offers :-)
- coolspot 3y ago
  Try Oracle (boo) Cloud Free tier. 4 ARM vCPUs + 24GB RAM
  - appstorelottery 3y ago
    I'll look into it - thanks!

shantanujoshi 3y ago

Yo this is awesome thank you for making it!

appstorelottery 3y ago
No worries ;-)

sci_prog 3y ago

There's a video poker version, which I played on a machine years ago, where after being dealt a winning hand we have an option to infinitely double the winnings if we correctly guess if the next card is higher or lower than 7. Does anyone know what I am talking about and what the name of this poker variation is called?

janesconference 3y ago
I saw it too in the 90s, unfortunately I can't remember the game's name.

unixhero 3y ago

I am very interested in discussing visualization solutions with you. I was planning to do what you mentioned here in Unreal to visualize financial data.

jihadjihad 3y ago

The audio is so good!

tibanne 3y ago

Bug? Shoulda won back my 5. https://i.imgur.com/iZavzr6.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/iZavzr6.jpeg

glimshe 3y ago

It's a very accurate emulation, it feels almost like a video. Great work!

chriscjcj 3y ago

Besides fixing the low Ace value, I would suggest allowing the player to use the keyboard play. It looks like the space bar does trigger a deal. Perhaps 1-2-3-4-5 selects and deselects cards and plus/minus allows the bet to increase or decrease.

jheriko 3y ago

over a few days is pretty good. not sure you are onto a winner here given that every junior game programmer should be able to make something like this in a day or less.

doctorpangloss 3y ago

> So... If anyone has any leads for making Space Invaders for Nike - please help! Happy to pay 5% on whatever work I get. Our partner built a game for Nike that had a big audience - https://appmana.com/watch/lbxx https://appmana.com/watch/lbxx This is a streamed Unity experience built on our unique infrastructure: unlike WebGL or Stadia, it loaded instantly and supports all browsers. This means it can work as an ad destination, and it's why we have a partnership with Meta. You should feel right at home! Feel free to reach out on our contact page at https://appmana.com/contact https://appmana.com/contact

helsinki 3y ago
Visually, this game is pretty cool. On the other hand, this is the least fun ‘game’ I’ve played.

birracerveza 3y ago

Very simple, very good. I love the CRT effect. And being able to immediately play in the browser like this, even from mobile, is amazing. Also serves as a stark reminder of why video pokers are a bad idea, as I immediately lost everything, then proceeded to do so 5 more times.

computershit 3y ago

Great nostalgic implementation, took my money for sure. One suggestion I'd make to make it more like the real thing is make a number press of 1-2-3-4-5 hold/unhold their respective card on desktop.

Sophistifunk 3y ago

This is rad

helsinki 3y ago

How did you miss the fact that a pair of aces qualifies as ‘jacks or higher’? Did you even play the game?

hn8305823 3y ago

This is amazing! Thank you for building it. Please fix the bug with a pair of Aces. I fell like I'm getting robbed each time it happens. Also, here's the correct payout odds and basic strategy for "full pay" jacks or better that most people are familiar with: https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/jacks-or-better/9-6/optimal/ https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/jacks-or... An option to reload/restart without having to hit browser refesh would be nice. An option for basic strategy hints might also be cool but certainly not original/authentic.

Madmallard 3y ago

the number of comments about aces is astounding. well done! any advice for new devs tryin to get used to godot? i have been writing phaser games for 7 years

InitialLastName 3y ago

You have a memory leak somewhere; I came back to this after the tab was open overnight and it was using 3GB of RAM in firefox 118.

tspike 3y ago

Did you take this down?! I was really enjoying it