nou.c - uno™ clone

Card game for the CLI written in C.

Building

Run ./configure then make nou to build the program. make variables are:

• CC : the C compiler (gcc)
• CFLAGS : flags to pass to the compiler ()
• CFLAGSADD: additional flags to pass to the compiler (after those written by ./configure) ()

./configure flags are the same as make variables but in lowercase (for example ./configure --cc=clang) plus the following include flags:

• [-/+]header : ommit/permit drawing game header (permit)

Run make docs to compile the man documentation to docs.

No further dependencies are needed besides libc. This project uses the ./configure building system from cproj.

Playing

nou plays similar to uno. There are four classes of cards to play:

• numerical cards
• turn cards
• accumulative cards
• anumerical cards

Numerical cards are the cards A and 2 through 10. The general rule of the game is that a player may play a card that is the same number or the same suit of the card that was played. So, for instance, if 2♣ was played, the player may play a 2 of any suit or any card of the same suit as ♣.

Turn cards are the K and Q cards:

• the K card act as a block card, it will block the turn of the next player.
• the Q card act as a reverse card, it will reverse the turn of the game from clockwise to anticlockwise and vice versa. It can also reverse the attack direction of accumulative cards, for instance, if player A attacks player B with an accumulative, player B can reverse the attack with a Q of the same suit. The reverse mechanic will reverse the attack to the last player whose attack was reversed, even if it has followed an attack chain.

Accumulative cards are the J and B cards:

• the J card will send an attack to the player next to the attacker turn-wise of taking 2 cards from the mount. Accumulatives can compound, that is, if player A was attacked by player B with an accumulative, player A can divert the attack with another accumulative, regardless of its suit. The compounding of accumulatives forms an attack chain and the value of cards to be taken from the mount adds up with each accumulative card in the attack chain. So J♦ and J♣ result in 4 cards being taken from the mount.
• the B card will send an attack to the player next to the attacker turn-wise of taking 4 cards from the mount. The attacker must then choose a suit for the player next the attacked to play. B cards can be chained if the player being attacked has an accumulative of the suit said by the attacker or another B card. It can also be reversed by Q if the Q in question is of the suit said by the attacker. The additive rule applies.

The only anumerical card is the C card:

• the C card may be played in place of any otherwise legal numerical card. The player must then choose a suit on which the game will continue with.

The B and C cards can be played on top of any suit if legal to do so.

If it is a player's turn and they have no legal cards to play, they must take 1 card from the mount until a legal card appears. If a legal card appears and the player doesn't want to play it, they can take up to 2 cards more until they are forced to play it. This also applies if the player already has a legal card. A player who takes cards from the mount as the result of an accumulative card will have their turn skipped.

A deck of cards is a set of 54 cards, two of which are the B and C card. As for K, Q, J and the numeric cards (13 cards), they all have one version per suit, with 4 suits in a deck.

For more info run nou -h.

This game is singleplayer only.

Interface

Running nou by itself throws you into the game prompt. You have the following commands available:

• '.' -- the dot prefix
  • it is a command prefix for taking a card, i.e. running . by itself will take one card from the mount. Combine it with a number <n> to take n cards from the mount (e.g. .5 takes 5 cards).
• ',' -- the comma prefix
  • it is a command prefix for playing a card. It needs the card ID as the numeric argument (e.g. ,5 plays the 5th card).
• ' ' -- the space prefix
  • it is a command prefix for playing the only legal move. If there's more than one legal move, it will throw an error.
• ':' -- the colon prefix
  • it is a command prefix for ignoring counteracts. Basically, if you are being attacked by a accumulative card and have a card that can counteract the accumulative, the colon prefix will ignore that and do the accumulative action.

After typing your command press ENTER to validate it. If it is not a legal command, the game will throw an error message so you can type again. Hitting ENTER on an empty prompt repeats the previous command.

You can also play a card using an unique identifier relating to number or suit. For example, if you have only two cards, a 2 of spades and a 3 of hearts, to play the 3 of hearts you could type either:

• 3
• h
• 3h

And that card would be played.

Suits map to characters like: [s]pades, [c]lubs, [h]earts, [d]iamonds. Specials map to characters like: [C], [B].

If the card you are playing is a special card, then the suit must the typed after the playing command. e.g. Ch plays a C card setting the suit to [h]earts.

License

This repository is licensed under the MIT License.