Sorting cards in Haggis

[grautur]

It would be great if we could sort the cards manually. The two options available (sorting by color or rank) are good but sometimes you want to take a bomb to the side or a sequence of some sort.

[JoffW]

I agree. The BGA implementation of this great game is very good, but could be made even better with this addition.

[Laszlosaurus]

I agree as well. Even very good players make mistakes and throw out bomb components by mistake. It can be hard to keep them in mind if you frequently switch between sorting views. It would be nice if you could drag any set of cards to the right-hand side of the screen, which would be a custom area unaffected by sorting. This would be closer to what you're able to do in real life (and will save me from constantly kicking myself after messing up a Big Bet ).

The Haggis implementation is truly excellent, so there are just two other minor improvements I can think of:
1. It would be nice if the game would display whether it's a Long or Short game while you're playing. I know, you can calculate it by the % complete up top, but that's hidden during betting!
2. The outline for selected cards can be a little faint. (Even Sean Ross opened 3-J in a game with me because he didn't notice he hadn't deselected the Jack.) I would make the outline slightly thicker--maybe just one pixel. Or if the selected cards were pushed up slightly above the rest of your cards, that would make it very easy to see what you intend to play.

[sourisdudesert]

Hello,

@Lazlo: you can see current game option by selecting the little toothed wheel on the upper panel.

Concerning the size of the selection, it could be done easily. But for the "custom sort" this is more complex, and we are quite busy with new games at now. The good news is: BGA is using the same "component" to display cards in all games. At the time we develop another game that can benefit from the "custom sort" feature, I promise to add it to Haggis.

Cheers,

[AsmadiGames]

A custom sort would indeed be complex, but this is a problem.

Perhaps a simpler fix that solves the bomb problem would be to warn when a bomb is being broken up? You already have the logic -- the server determines "Does this hand contain a bomb?" and all that would be necessary is a bomb-check before each play.

I for one am done playing this here until it's fixed...its an extremely frustrating experience to lose a game because of an errant click.

[Sean Ross]

I'd just like to repeat the call for this feature. If the manual sort is too time consuming/difficult, than a "Are you sure you want to defuse your bomb?" message for rainbow and suited bombs that are being broken up (in a way that does not leave you holding a hidden bomb any longer) would at least be a good safeguard. Both I and my opponent lost bombs today through misplays that would have been avoided by a manual sort or warning.

[horape]

Or maybe simpler to make, select some cards, click on "lock" and those cards cannot be selected until "unlock" is clicked. Breaking combinations (not only bombs) is very common and frustrating.

And, making the selected cards more noticeable, shouldn't it be just a line of CSS magic?

Would you object to me creating a pair of users to do some experimentation on the browser side? (using greasemonkey or something like that)

I want to thank Sean Ross and BGA for making the game available.

Thanks!

[beam]

I just want to bring this topic up again. It's really the only thing missing in Haggis on BGA - the safety lock for the bombs. I yesterday have broken 3 bombs in a row and of course, it was my fault, but the reason it made me mad was that I think it could have been avoided easily. Option to lock some of the cards (maybe by a right mouse button click?) or suggested by Sean Ross warning message are both great ideas, and seems easy to implement. As for the warning message I think it should be displayed if you're about to leave your hand with no bomb rather than just in case you're about to break a bomb - when you have 2 rainbow bombs, but can't use both (because they share some of the cards) warning should be displayed when there will be no way to play a bomb after this move. Same in case of hand with both rainbow and suited bomb - warning shall say that you might break your suited bomb.

Sean Ross, thank you for developing a great 2 player game.

[PeteZah]

If you include this sorting, can you think about the use of the jokers too?

BGA always make you play the higher combination (for example 45Joker is always 456), but sometimes, it is useful to play 345. For me, this forced combination is not conform to the rules.

I know it is useful in few cases, but I heve already have it

Regards