Reposted. Originally posted on Feb. 8, 2020, on my personal web page at rawtext.club
Sat 08 Feb 2020 02:49:34 AM UTC
Hello. This is gasconheart again. I play PokerTH a lot. PokerTH is a on line poker platform to play poker for fun, where playing for real money is not supported. PokerTH is not an on line casino. PokerTH is available for a host of different operating systems, like Windows, Linux or Android. It is open source and it can be compiled from source in probably any mainstream or niche platform.
PokerTH is especially popular among Linux users for some reason. The visual component of PokerTH, or actually of poker as such, is not that necessary, is it. Since the game is particularly popular among Linux users, a text user interface for it would be a great addition. Actually, a poker game built for the Linux console would be awesome. Since PokerTH exists and already has a community around it, well, “only” a terminal interface has to be developped.
So no graphics at all, zilch graphics, ditch X, kerb the visual, except for the text. Unicode has characters for the four deck suits, which suits the task greatly. It is not impossible.
Ncurses is an option. A full client could be coded in C++ or Python, or you name the language, that uses ncurses. So basically key presses and type quantities and you’re all set.
Ncurses can be scrapped and the game could still be great. And possibly even easier to code. Here is my proposal for poker lovers and computer savvies. PokerTH can be beautifully integrated with IRC. For a coder it should be unbelievably easy: PokerTH already has a “log” window, and a chat window for the players to interact with each other. In this text user, IRC-based, interface, the whole would ressemble that “log” window. That log window provides ALL the necessary information so that the game can be playable anyway. The regular chat can be merged there so that the players can type their bets. An underlying engine could be programmed to parse and recognize commands, like “bet”, “raise”, “call”, “all-in”, “fold”, “show”, etc., having all other lines typed there go as actual chat. To prevent flooding the chat, a limited number of non-command lines of chat could be set.
I would be so happy if someone coded this. Two enourmous goals would be attained thus. Yet another interface to PokerTH would be created, which is not little thing, not by a long shot, and a poker game, an excellent one, would be made available for Linux terminal lovers. I sense that thus the game would spread its popularity among server admins.
Who is down out there willing to accept the challenge?
Thanks to the admins of rawtext for allocating html space for this kind of project. This project is a tribute to the text only interface, most adequat for rawtext’s profile. Be excellent to each other.