Ultimate Blackjack [Moddable for custom text]

[Journeyman]

SomeGuy1294, interesting--if you split, then it is possible to win one hand and lose the other. I haven't come across specific bugs with splitting on my own testing yet, though. If you see it again, could you let me know the cards played and be amounts? Doubling definitely had a bug when I first released the game--in certain circumstances, not all of the winnings were paid! But that was fixed over a week ago, so the current download link should fix it!

The restarting has 2 different modes, depending on the state of the game. If you press that button during a game, you'll just forfeit the game and start a new one without resetting money. If you get a game over (win or lose), it definitely is supposed to reset your money!!! Let me know if that part isn't working! If you actually want a full reset without winning/losing, type "reset" and hit Enter during a game

Quick note for clarification to everyone!
Why does the U-shaped arrow button do 2 different things?!?!?! Why doesn't it always reset?!?!

Because that button actually returns you to the game lobby, where you can select which dealer to play against and use in-game cash to purchase cheats.
But, at initial launch, I could only afford to commission 1 dealer, and the cheats weren't ready to go yet. So what happens is the lobby immediately re-directs you to the only dealer table available. So the button isn't very useful during a game right now, but I had to leave it in because that's how you return from a game-over screen!!!! The lobby (still one dealer, but with cheats available) should be released this week. I've been really busy, but testing in my spare time and it's looking functional so far.

[Schpadoinkle]

So I assume that means that money you win from one dealer will transfer to the others?

Does this also mean they'll comment on how you ate the other dealer(s)?

(Maybe even your prior meal still being active and trying to disrupt your game somehow~?)

[Journeyman]

Schpadoinkle, the idea is that money would transfer, yep. But, nowhere near funding another dealer yet!

[SomeGuy1294]

Journeyman,

Game overs DO reset the money, but the U-turn button doesn't do diddly-squat. Even when using it while not in the middle of a hand.

[Journeyman]

SomeGuy1294, ah, good. Functioning as designed! From my earlier post, you can see that pressing that button will only return you to the betting phase, so when you're not in the middle of a hand, you just stay right on the same screen. Deep inside your computer, the game tries to go to the lobby, then instantly returns because the lobby is deactivated right now.

On the next update, the U-turn button will return you to the lobby, where you can select to stock up on cheats or return to the game. Coming soon!

[Reaverbot]

where does this thing save its data? Because even if I delete the exe off my computer and redownload it it's still remembering money amounts.

[Journeyman]

Reaverbot, if you are trying to reset the amounts, just type reset and press enter during a game. The game stores it's data according to Microsoft's "best practices"; it is stored in the local app data folder of your computer.

[Orchestration]

I'd love an option to surrender and get eaten after winning.

[Journeyman]

News!
Update - It's long(ish) but please give it a read-through?

The transformation is now complete. The game now contains "purchaseable" cheats!

"Purchaseable? Is that even a word?"
Yes, it is now a word. More to the point, though, the game now allows you to enter the Shop from the Lobby screen, and to use your in-game earnings to purchase special abilities which can be activated at the Blackjack table.

The cheats don't pay for themselves. Because what would be the point of playing?
However, cheats do carry over after losses. Only money resets. (Now that U-turn button should start making a lot more sense). Soooooooo. You can buy $500 worth of cheats, try your luck at playing, lose, and get another $500. And you still have all of the cheats you bought! Aren't I generous? Basically, if you really, really want to, you can lose your way to 5 uses of each cheat type, and then play for real.

Please take note!! I've told some, who complained that the back button wasn't...back-y enough for them...about a reset code you can type in. Don't use that anymore! It will legit reset the game data, and you will lose your cheats.

The Cheats
1) Peek! Use this sneaky ability to see your opponent's hand
2) Steal! Some of the dealer's $$$ ends up in your pocket (2/3 chance of $50, 1/3 chance of $75)
3) Ace! Secretly swap any one of your cards for an Ace (This can result in your hand being scored as a Blackjack!)

At the moment, there is a text box beneath the cheats in the shop. It's not ready for prime-time yet, though, so ignore that for now.

Some grimmer update/news
Aside from any bug-fixes, this is likely to be the last update to this project for a long, long time (possibly even the last one).

The project has been lots of fun, and I really hope that this update gives those who supported the game a lot of replay value. Thus far, however, the project has shown itself to be unsustainable. Ultimately, I'm perfectly happy to operate on a negative several-hundred-dollar profit. But I cannot sustainably compound that with another few hundred dollars in debt every release. So, as you know, I put out the cash up-front, with the pledge that if I got it back in donations, I'd pay it all out again for the next dealer.

Well, I've determined that giving the game away for free was not a mistake, but it certainly wasn't a way to fund future artwork commissions.
From what I can make of server stats, the game has had over 500 downloads. So, if each player had found the game worthy of just a little bit, like $2, then the game would have been so successful that I'd have already commissioned a second dealer and we'd be halfway-funded towards a third one.

The game has received 9 donations. The donators have actually been ludicrously generous, with several giving 20 and even 50 dollars to the game. But even with their generosity and show of support, it's still only a tiny fraction of the people who played, and so it has come to barely a third of the funding needed to commission one more dealer. I've been quoted similar rates (plus or minus $10) from several other artists, too.

While the enthusiasm for the game has been great, the support for its continued development has been self-evident. I'm not ready to throw in the towel on this game quite yet, but in the spirit of transparency I wanted everyone to know where things stand at the moment with support.

[Battalia]

Wow, nice update. Sorry to hear about the level of support. It's hard to put things behind paywalls etc, etc, but its also hard to watch people enjoy your work and then not chip in. lots of promise and potential too. That said, perhaps a good way to go about it would be more of a fundraiser-ey type method? Most people work well at achieving goals rather than pay for something they got for free (as odd as that sounds.) That if there is to be more, donations need to hit X mark? Just a thought.

Again, thanks for the game, I really enjoyed it and thought it was very unique. You can count me as a fan

[Schpadoinkle]

Wow, nice update. Sorry to hear about the level of support. It's hard to put things behind paywalls etc, etc, but its also hard to watch people enjoy your work and then not chip in. lots of promise and potential too. That said, perhaps a good way to go about it would be more of a fundraiser-ey type method? Most people work well at achieving goals rather than pay for something they got for free (as odd as that sounds.) That if there is to be more, donations need to hit X mark? Just a thought.

Again, thanks for the game, I really enjoyed it and thought it was very unique. You can count me as a fan

Yeah, I agree with this. Perhaps a gofundme? Since you don't have to set rewards for that, and you get all the money donated rather than having to set a particular goal?

I'd have loved to donate to this game (if only so you can get proper art rather than 3D models), but I'm kind of a broke, unemployed dropout at the moment so...

[Delet932b4sk]

Well, I just put in all I had from the last commission I wrote. $40, all yours. I don't need it, and when I make some more in future, that's yours too. Can't pay out of pocket, being a poor college student and all, but I don't use my commission money for anything since I stopped playing League of Legends. Might as well put it toward something good.

[bigmacrmuk]

First off, thanks for this superb game. You've clearly put a lot of time, effort and money into it.

It's a shame that you feel the project is financially unsustainable, but that's pretty evident given what you've said. However, I agree with the people above by saying that a fundraiser-for-goals approach might work. You've released the initial version for free and got a lot of goodwill for that, and I think people would respond well in this case with clear targets and goals, with clear rewards for getting there.

A crowdfunding campaign with a clear target, eg. x$ for the next dealer and this is what they will do if you win/lose might give some impetus to keeping the game going. Speaking personally, I'd love to see more dealers and more extended vore sequences when you lose to them, and would be willing to back that with hard money in the case of a very good game like this - a fair bit of money - if I knew exactly what was on the table.

I hope you'll consider this, because this game has a lot of potential. It's one of the best vore games I've seen on here, and it would be great to see it get even better.

[forumlurker]

Sad to hear it too mate. The gameplay and artwork was solid. Yet, no matter what you decide to do, I'd recommend you to find cheaper artists. I'm rather sure there would be plenty of artists around that would commission for much less. Hell, even Karbo asks decent prices for his artwork.


edit: I've read back and see the guy claimed to have worked 3 to 4 hours on it. I admit I think all these pictures would probably take more than that so I probably misunderstood something, yet try to calculate how much hours the artist had put into it and how much he charged an hour. That's astronomically high still! If the artist is reading this and has any sense of decency, he'd pay you back at least half the money. That's my take on it at least.

[DjConnorJ]

When i get my money stabilised i will be able to donate money as its a great game and something that was completely different for a vore game and i enjoyed it very much

[Journeyman]

TrainKay, ThankyouThankyouThankyou!!
DjConnorJ, Thanks for thinking about it! Any amount helps!
forumlurker, 3-4 per image~
Battalia, Schpadoinkle, bigmacrmuk, thanks for the feedback on campaigning, though I'm not really sure what the best way to do it would be! At present, the goal is just to get the amount needed to commish another character~ I've had similar rates quoted to me by several people!!! I don't think I'll use a gofundme, just because of the Terms of Service over there--adult stuff isn't allowed, real names are required, and a fee of 8% is taken from anything you receive.

But, I've added a little progress bar on the OP!! Will that help? I'm keeping it updated on Sunday nights ^_^

I'll keep looking around for artists, too; the trick is to find high-quality artwork that somehow takes the artist very little time and is therefore cheaper. I'll certainly consider even drastically different styles, but I don't want to compromise the overall "finishedness" of the art quality, and I don't want to squeeze the artists either~

[Schpadoinkle]

TrainKay, ThankyouThankyouThankyou!!
DjConnorJ, Thanks for thinking about it! Any amount helps!
forumlurker, 3-4 per image~
Battalia, Schpadoinkle, bigmacrmuk, thanks for the feedback on campaigning, though I'm not really sure what the best way to do it would be! At present, the goal is just to get the amount needed to commish another character~ I've had similar rates quoted to me by several people!!! I don't think I'll use a gofundme, just because of the Terms of Service over there--adult stuff isn't allowed, real names are required, and a fee of 8% is taken from anything you receive.

But, I've added a little progress bar on the OP!! Will that help? I'm keeping it updated on Sunday nights ^_^

I'll keep looking around for artists, too; the trick is to find high-quality artwork that somehow takes the artist very little time and is therefore cheaper. I'll certainly consider even drastically different styles, but I don't want to compromise the overall "finishedness" of the art quality, and I don't want to squeeze the artists either~

How about Offbeatr? That's specifically for adult stuff.

Although I think that requires you to give rewards like Kickstarter does. Also you don't get any of the money unless you meet the goal.

[Bledric]

Ah yeah won on my first try o3o. Playing them odds without the shop cheat powers for great justice. Pretty enjoyable more fun than I expected good work.

EDIT: Also on the topic of funding, I am still waiting for smart and final to accept my application for work. If I somehow get a form of income ill probably throw some money at this why not.

[Journeyman]

Schpadoinkle, possible, though they take triple the cut of other crowd funded sites, due to "adult content." The main thing in the way of running a crowd-funding thing, I guess, is that it's a lot of extra time and expense fees -- The 'crowdfunding' is basically already in place, via a fixed financial goal resulting in a new dealer, a progress bar on the OP, and a donate button which slides around Paypal's policy against "selling" adult digital assets. I'll think about a campaign, but not sure it's worth more than the current method.

Bledric, awesome! Congrats to you, and I'm glad to hear that you had fun playing Thanks for thinking of donating, too--every bit brings us closer to another dealer!

[maleperduis]

Good luck with the funding!

Also, this may already have been answered but I'm reluctant to scan 12 pages: I notice there's a card-ruffling sound effect every once in a while. Is this a new deck being shuffled? And if so, does that mean that card-counting would work in this game?