Alright folks, grab some coffee ’cause this poker machine experiment turned out way hairier than I expected. Wanted to build a simple poker machine simulation, y’know, just to see how it ticks. Started small, figured it couldn’t be that tough.
The Grand Plan
Had this bright idea: gotta show cards first, right? Figured five cards laid out on screen. Dived in thinking it’d be quick. Ha!
Building the Bits
- Throwing Cards Together: First, needed cards on screen. Just simple rectangles with numbers and pictures. No problem, I lie to myself. Slapped together some basic designs for hearts, clubs, you name it. Looked rough, but functional.
- Shuffling Nightmare: Then came shuffling. Felt like trying to mix soup with a fork. Tried coding it simple, thought “swap ’em a few times, job done”. Reality check: cards kept reappearing or disappearing entirely. Like my code was eating them. Spent an embarrassing afternoon just trying to get five cards to mix up properly. Almost threw the keyboard.
- Dealing Drama: Wanted those cards to kinda slide out onto the screen? Yeah, that “deal” animation? Epic fail. Cards either teleported instantly or decided to fly off-screen completely. Called it quits on fancy moves that night.
- Button Blues: Needed buttons, obviously. “Hold”, “Draw”, “Start”. Seemed straightforward. Buttons appeared, cool. Making them actually do something? Another story. Pressing “Draw” sometimes did nothing, other times drew like ten cards at once. Total chaos.
Banging Head Against Wall
Testing? That was pure torture. Click “Hold” on a card? Sometimes it held, sometimes the card next to it blinked, sometimes the machine just froze entirely. Felt like wrestling a greased pig. One point, the machine started dealing the same exact hand every single time. Wondered if I’d accidentally created the world’s most boring slot machine.
Worse? The “winning” part. Making it recognize a simple pair, two matching cards? Logic twisted my brain into knots. My code for checking a flush? Looked like spaghetti thrown at the wall. Lots of muttering, lots of pacing.
Finally… Sorta Working?
After way too many days, it kinda… worked? Sometimes? Pictures finally stayed where I put ’em mostly. Clicking the damn buttons usually did the right thing. Got excited to see a pair recognized! Then my little virtual poker machine proudly declared a pair of eights beat a royal flush. Oh boy. Back to the drawing board on the scoring logic. Seriously deflating.
Added a cheesy little “Ding Ding Ding!” sound for wins anyway, even if the wins were often fake news. Made it feel slightly less sad.
Lessons Learned?
Building something that looks simple? Rarely is. Poker machines? They’re sneaky beasts. Looks easy from the outside, pure madness under the hood. Respect for folks who build this stuff for real went way, way up. My creation’s still buggy as all get-out, but it makes noise and shows cards. For a solo weekend project? Eh, I’ll call it a messy win.
