Pitch Game Update


This week I've been trying to get a basic pitch game programmed. So far I have a card class that analyzes and assigns value to the individual cards a player possesses. I also have a deck class where I create the playing deck with 52 cards plus images/jokers. I am currently working on getting the game to deal nine cards to each player and then have the players analyze their cards and try to make a bid. I think that will be a difficult task. I also put buttons in the GUI class for bidding, dealing, starting a new game, and discarding, though some of those buttons don't work as intended yet.

My goal for the next couple days is to get the barebones of a pitch game (and pitch GUI) up and running so I can start exploring strategies to guide the decision making of the AI. I am also going to be working on the discard button more. My idea is to have the player press discard when he/she must go from nine cards in their hand to six cards in their hand. Then when they press the button I want there to be a small discard icon that appears on each of the cards in their hand, if they press that button on one of the cards, then the card disappears and gets sent into the pile of discards!  I played around with this a bit yesterday and ultimately just fumbled around with it a bit. By early next week I want to be developing the AI strategies so I can stay on pace to have the project done.

Pitch is a complicated game to develop an automation strategy to because each move that's made by each player depends not only on the previous cards played that hand, but the cards that were played before that hand, the amount of cards each player asked for, the cards that still be played after your turn... there's a lot of variables to keep track of. I will start off with a simple strategy that likely only thinks about the hand that's currently being played when it makes decisions. Eventually I want the AI to be aware of every card that's been played, how many cards each player needed after the discard (so the AI can estimate how many cards each player has in their hand via statistics), and it should also prioritize the three and always be thinking about covering for one.

All things considered, my program is on track so far and I'm excited to really get the game going over the next few days.

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