Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Solitaire

localthunk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 164 posts

Re: Solitaire

#71

Post by flocciput »

When I was a kid, if I couldn't be on the computer for whatever reason I'd occupy myself with a pack of cards. I'd play solitaire (Klondike) over and over. I would vary the draw count and see how that affected the game. I'd sort the cards beforehand and see if that made it any easier or harder to win. I'd try to find the optimal order the cards would have to be in before dealing for the game to be won in the least number of steps. Ultimately I figured Solitaire was just a roundabout way of sorting a deck of cards and started messing with other sorting methods. I still, every time I see a pack of cards, feel that urge to just sort and sort and sort. It wasn't even "fun", I was just so desperate for mental stimulation.

Anyways, love Balatro!

Re: Solitaire

#72

Post by RickHull »

jerf wrote: post #62
Arainach wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Universal Paperclips, I actually have a desire to play Balatro more than once. It also requires more thought and strategy at every point rather than "wait for line to go up and click buy on anything available" The biggest difference is that you can lose Balatro, and you can lose it very quickly either due to bad luck or bad strategy. In Universal Paperclips nothing matters, once you get the most basic automati…

The "time boxing" is coming to be one of my favorite aspects of the roguelite genre. It's a nice structure for a combination of a deep and compelling game, that opens up at a reasonable speed, but also doesn't call for 80 hours to "finish" it. I like JRPGs but even so they quite often overstay their welcome. Death may wipe nearly all your progress but you can easily try again in another timebox. (I played some of the…

I never played Angband but got into the closely related Sil. Totally agree on your characterization (and a fan of your HN posts for well over a decade).

Re: Solitaire

#73

Post by rkuykendall-com »

aaroninsf wrote: post #47

It's always interesting to drop into these posts, especially when they are at the top of the HN list, and have zero context. Who is this person? What is localthunk? What is "Balatro"? A reminder there are subpopulations online within which are well known and active references. And others, like mine, where have not once come up. I think like podcasts, mobile games are a thing that is just totally invisible to me and .

There are a lot of things I do not think are good uses of AI, but dropping into circles you are not apart of and getting your bearings is one of my favorite use cases.

The other day my friends were talking about a "nemesis mechanic" in a game that was good but patented and never used? I asked GPT about it because I just wanted a short summary of what it was and why it was cool.

It looks like it would have worked here too:

   What is localthunk? What is "Balatro"?
   
   1. LocalThunk: LocalThunk is a pseudonymous game developer known for creating the poker-themed roguelike deck-building game Balatro. The developer operates under this pseudonym, which is derived from a method of declaring variables in the game development framework they use, Löve .
   
   2. Balatro: This is a game developed by LocalThunk, released in 2024. Balatro is a poker-themed roguelike deck-building game that involves playing poker hands to score points and defeat various challenges. It gained significant acclaim, winning multiple awards for its innovative gameplay and design .
   
   For more details, you can refer to the Wikipedia page on Balatro. No specific standalone information on LocalThunk was retrieved beyond the association with Balatro.
```

Re: Solitaire

#75

Post by palsecam »

bbkane wrote: post #14

I love Solitaire - it's such a nice way to kill a few minutes while waiting for something else. Unfortunately, many solitaire phone apps are filled with ads, slow, or have clunky controls. A few years ago, however, I found https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.tobiasbielefeld.solitaire... . Its free and open source, and quite fast with nice shortcuts to move the cards. I love this app and have played multiple Klondike/S…

Using a lightweight PWA (progressive web app) is also an option: https://FreeSolitaire.win (self-plug).

Doesn’t generate unwinnable games[1] & detects dead-ends. Works offline after the first visit. No ads until game over, and they aren’t obtrusive.

Often lauded on HN, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41972075 or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42031052.

1: The probability that a random deal is unwinnable is ~20%. Wikipedia has a section on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klondike_(solitaire)#Probabili...

Re: Solitaire

#76

Post by AnIrishDuck »

dilDDoS wrote: post #36
mikepurvis wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what quarters is that narrative? Surely one only has to play Balatro for an hour or two to understand the incredible game design effort that underpins it all, which is brought so vibrantly to life by the music, art, animations, and all the rest of it. I can't imagine someone appreciating all this and still managing to poo poo it over a few bugs or maybe some quibbles about it having been built in Lua.

People that mention this are usually referring to this chunk of the source code: https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/s/KmEWRILR1q My assumption is that a lot of the people that look at small chunks of code and judge someone’s programming ability are people who have only worked in corporate environments and have never had to build a large project on their own, and don’t have any understanding of the effort it t…

Yeah, working on a game myself and ... sometimes you just gotta do stuff like that.

Working on a game solo requires juggling several wildly different disciplines at the same time. Sometimes you're in "game designer" mode, you need to fix a bug or add a feature, and you bonk in the caveman thing that obviously works.

Solo gamedev is basically the "startups should accumulate technical debt" meme on steroids. As long as you can understand the code, nobody cares about how it looks. Only how the game plays.

Re: Solitaire

#77

Post by AnIrishDuck »

meheleventyone wrote: post #49
npteljes wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad code can have a really high cognitive load to maintain. Just to illustrate what bad means, take a look at this: https://www.reddit.com/r/programminghorror/comments/1cb6rca/... I can see that having even bits of modification impacts lots of lines, where if written just a bit more saner, it could impact just a few. Of course everyone is absolutely free to do the things however they want on their project. It's just…

The example you post is out of context and maybe a bit overly verbose but again it’s one guy maintaining it and is perfectly readable. Does anyone really struggle to understand that? I’m back working on a twenty plus year old codebase (and game) that’s ~3 millions loc and would kill for something simple like that rather than some of the overabstracted crimes lurking within.

Yeah, without context criticism of this code is silly.

What if this wasn't always how cards worked? What if the mapping was (at one point in development) not straightforward? Or localthunk had some ideas and wanted to leave the door open to a more complex mapping scheme?

Re: Solitaire

#78

Post by jefurii »

motes wrote: post #48
sl3dge78 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend the Zachtronics Solitaire Collection. Greatly designed solitaire games. I play them every day on my commute to work.

I was gonna recommend the same one. I wanna add that Hempuli (Baba is You, Noita) also made a solitaire collection inspired by Zachtronics. It's just 3 bucks on his itchio and it's something I play while I have my coffee. https://hempuli.itch.io/a-solitaire-mystery Funny enough it has a "Royal Flush Solitaire" where you make poker hands and your goal is to reach 240 points. Binary Solitaire and Transformation are my…

The Solitaire Mystery is also the name of a very interesting novel that explores all kinds of permutations of the cards, suits, etc, etc, by Jostein Gaarder, author of Sophie's World.

Re: Solitaire

#79

Post by skyyler »

dr-smooth wrote: post #67
skyyler wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spent as long reading search results for "Balatro" as you did writing this comment, you would have enough context to understand what localthunk and balatro are. I find your musing on the topic interesting, if only as a reminder that people have largely forgotten to help themselves to the free information that surrounds us.

I don't think that was his point. He wasn't asking specifically what Balatro was. He just marvels at the fact that there are so many niche interests out there that their very existence is unknown to him. Your statement about people having forgotten how to help themselves to information is borderline insulting. A little like sending somebody a "let me google that for you" link. Or maybe I've misunderstood what you mea…

Maybe you have.

Either way, I don't feel a conversation with you is going to be productive.

Have a nice day! (Or don't, I'm not your boss)

Re: Solitaire

#80

Post by saint_yossarian »

jjice wrote: post #59
aaroninsf wrote: post #47

It's always interesting to drop into these posts, especially when they are at the top of the HN list, and have zero context. Who is this person? What is localthunk? What is "Balatro"? A reminder there are subpopulations online within which are well known and active references. And others, like mine, where have not once come up. I think like podcasts, mobile games are a thing that is just totally invisible to me and .

TLDR: Balatro is a roguelike card game where in you make poker hands to score points. You can enhance cards and get jokers that have more effects. It wont a ton of awards this past year (it's just about a year old) and was incredibly well received. Localthunk is the developer. I believe he did everything for the PC version himself (except maybe a single joker's art). He has a publisher that helped port to pretty much…

The soundtrack was also commissioned.
Post reply on HN