Deck

"Deck" is one of the most useful component on PHP side. With "Deck", you can manage cards of your game on server side.

Using "deck", you will be able to use the following features without writing a single SQL database request:

• Place cards in pile, shuffle cards, draw cards one by one or many by many.
• "Auto-reshuffle" discard pile into deck when deck is empty.
• Move cards between different locations: hands of players, the table, ...

Using Deck: Hearts example

Deck component is massively used in "Hearts" example game - a card game. You can find in "hearts.game.php" that the object "$this->cards" is used many times.

Deck overview

With Deck component, you manage all cards of your game.

The 5 properties of each card

Using Deck component, each card will have 5 properties:

• id: This is the unique ID of each card.
• type and type_arg: These two values defines the type of your card (=what sort of card this is?).
• location and location_arg: These two values defines where is the card at now.

id, type and type_arg properties are constants during the game. location and location_arg are changing when your cards are moving from places to places on the game area.

id is the unique ID of each card. Two cards can't get the same ID. IDs are generated automatically by the Deck component when you create cards during the Setup phase of your game.

type and type_arg defines the type of your card. type is a short string, and type_arg is an integer. You can use these two values as you want to make sure you will be able to identify the different cards of the game. See usage of "type" and "type_arg" below.

Examples of usage of "type" and "type_arg":

• In "Hearts", "type" is the color of the card (1 to 4) and "type_arg" is the value of the card (1, 2, ... 10, J, Q, K).
• In "Seasons", "type" is the type of the card (ex: 1 is Amulet of Air, 2 is Amulet of Fire, etc...). type_arg is not used.
• In "Takenoko", a Deck component is used for objective cards. "type" is the kind of objective (irrigation/panda/plot) and "type_arg" is the ID of the specific objective to realize (ex: "a green bamboo x4"). Note that a second Deck component is used in Takenoko to manage the "garden plot" pile.

location and location_arg defines where is the card at now. location is a short string, and location_arg is an integer.

You can use 'location' and 'location_arg' as you want, to move your card on the game area. Although, there are 3 special 'location' that Deck manage specifically. You can choose to use - or not to use - these locations depending of your needs:

• 'deck': in 'deck' location, cards are placed face down in a pile and are drawn during the game. 'location_arg' is used to specify where the card is in the deck pile (the card with the biggest location_arg is the next to be drawn).
• 'hand': in 'hand' location, cards are in the hand of a player. 'location_arg' is set to the ID of this player.
• 'discard': in 'discard' location, cards are discarded, and are ready to be shuffled into the deck if needed (see "autoreshuffle").

Tips: using Deck component, you are going to use generic properties ("location", "type_arg",...) for specific purposes of your game. Thus, during the design step before realizing your game, take 2 minutes to write down what is the meaning of each of this generic properties in the context of your game.

Create a new Deck component

For each Deck component in your game, you need to create a dedicated table in database. This table has a standard format. In practical, if you want to have a Deck component named "card", you just have to copy/paste the following in your "dbmodel.sql":

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `card` (
  `card_id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `card_type` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
  `card_type_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `card_location` varchar(16) NOT NULL,
  `card_location_arg` int(11) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`card_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

Once you did this (and restart your game), you can declare your Deck component in your PHP code in your class constructor. For Hearts for example, I added to "Hearts()" method:

        $this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
        $this->cards->init( "card" );

Note that we specify "card" here, the name of our previously created table. It means you can create several "Deck" with several tables. Most of the time this is unuseful: a Deck component should manage all objects of the same kind (ex: all cards of the game).

Afterwards, we can initialize your "Deck" by creating all the cards of the game. Generally, this is done only once during the game, during the "setupNewGame" method.

"Deck" component provides you a fast way to initialize all your cards at once: createCards. Here is how it is used for "Hearts":

        // Create cards
        $cards = array();
        foreach( $this->colors as  $color_id => $color ) // spade, heart, diamond, club
        {
            for( $value=2; $value<=14; $value++ )   //  2, 3, 4, ... K, A
            {
                $cards[] = array( 'type' => $color_id, 'type_arg' => $value, 'nbr' => 1);
            }
        }

        $this->cards->createCards( $cards, 'deck' );

As you can see, "createCards" takes a description of all cards of the game. For each type of card, you have to specify its "type", "type_arg" and the number of card to create. "createCards" create all cards and place them into the "deck" location (as specified in the second argument).

Now, you are ready to use "Deck"!

Simple examples using Deck

(Most examples are from "Hearts" game)

     // In "getAllDatas', we need to send to the current player all the cards he has in hand:
     $result['hand'] = $this->cards->getCardsInLocation( 'hand', $player_id );

     // At some time we want to check if all the cards (52) are in player's hands:
     if( $this->cards->countCardInLocation( 'hand' ) == 52 )
           // do something

     // When a player plays a card in front of him on the table:
     $this->cards->moveCard( $card_id, 'cardsontable', $player_id );

     // Note the use of the custom location 'cardsontable' here to keep track of cards on the table.

     // This is a new hand: let's gather all cards from everywhere in the deck:
     $this->cards->moveAllCardsInLocation( null, "deck" );

     // And then shuffle the deck
     $this->cards->shuffle( 'deck' );

     // And then deal 13 cards to each player
     // Deal 13 cards to each players
     // Create deck, shuffle it and give 13 initial cards
     $players = self::loadPlayersBasicInfos();
     foreach( $players as $player_id => $player )
     {
        $cards = $this->cards->pickCards( 13, 'deck', $player_id );
           
        // Notify player about his cards
        self::notifyPlayer( $player_id, 'newHand', '', array( 
            'cards' => $cards
         ) );
     }  

     // Note the use of "notifyPlayer" instead of "notifyAllPlayers": new cards is a private information ;)  

Deck component reference

Initializing Deck component

init( $table_name )

Initialize the Deck component.

Argument:

• table_name: name of the DB table used by this Deck component.

Must be called before any other Deck method.

Usually, init is called in your game constructor.

Example with Hearts:

	function Hearts( )
	{
        (...)
        
        $this->cards = self::getNew( "module.common.deck" );
        $this->cards->init( "card" );
	}

createCards( $cards, $location='deck', $location_arg=null )

Create card items in your deck component. Usually, all card items are created once, during the setup phase of the game.

"cards" describe all cards that need to be created. "cards" is an array with the following format:

   // Create 1 card of type "1" with type_arg=99,
   //  and 4 cards of type "2" with type_arg=12,
   //  and 2 cards of type "3" with type_arg=33

   $cards = array(
        array( 'type' => 1, 'type_arg' => 99, nbr' => 1 ),
        array( 'type' => 2, 'type_arg' => 12, nbr' => 4 ),
        array( 'type' => 3, 'type_arg' => 33, nbr' => 2 )
        ...
   );

Note: During the "createCards" process, Deck generate unique IDs for all card items.

Note: createCards is optimized to create a lot of cards at once. Do not use it to create cards one by one.

If "location" and "location_arg" arguments are not set, newly created cards are placed in the "deck" location. If "location" (and optionally location_arg) is specified, cards are created for this specific location.

Card standard format

When Deck component methods are returning one or several cards, the following format is used:

array(
   'id' => ..,          // the card ID
   'type' => ..,        // the card type
   'type_arg' => ..,    // the card type argument
   'location' => ..,    // the card location
   'location_arg' => .. // the card location argument
);

Picking cards

pickCard( $location, $player_id )

Pick a card from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place it in the "hand" of specified player.

Return the card picked or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

pickCards( $nbr, $location, $player_id )

Pick "$nbr" cards from a "pile" location (ex: "deck") and place them in the "hand" of specified player.

Return an array with the cards picked, or "null" if there are no more card in given location.

Note that the number of cards picked can be less than "$nbr" in case there are not enough cards in the pile location.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below). In case there are not enough cards in the pile, all remaining cards are picked first, then the auto-reshuffle is triggered, then the other cards are picked.

pickCardForLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0 )

This method is similar to 'pickCard', except that you can pick a card for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

• from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking a card.
• to_location is the location where you will place the card picked.
• if "location_arg" is specified, the card picked will be set with this "location_arg".

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

pickCardsForLocation( $nbr, $from_location, $to_location, $location_arg=0, $no_deck_reform=false )

This method is similar to 'pickCards', except that you can pick cards for any sort of location and not only the "hand" location.

• from_location is the "pile" style location from where you are picking some cards.
• to_location is the location where you will place the cards picked.
• if "location_arg" is specified, the cards picked will be set with this "location_arg".
• if "no_deck_reform" is set to "true", the auto-reshuffle feature is disabled during this method call.

This method supports auto-reshuffle (see "auto-reshuffle" below).

Moving cards

moveCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg=0 )

Move the specific card to given location.

• card_id: ID of the card to move.
• location: location where to move the card.
• location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the card. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

moveCards( $cards, $location, $location_arg )

Move the specific cards to given location.

• cards: an array of IDs of cards to move.
• location: location where to move the cards.
• location_arg: if specified, location_arg where to move the cards. If not specified "location_arg" will be set to 0.

insertCard( $card_id, $location, $location_arg )

Move a card to a specific "pile" location where card are ordered.

If location_arg place is already taken, increment all cards after location_arg in order to insert new card at this precise location.

(note: insertCardOnExtremePosition method below is more useful in most of the case)

insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, $location, $bOnTop )

Move a card on top or at bottom of given "pile" type location.

moveAllCardsInLocation( $from_location, $to_location, $from_location_arg=null, $to_location_arg=0 )

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given location.

• from_location: where to take the cards
• to_location: where to put the cards
• from_location (optional): if specified, only cards with given "location_arg" are moved.
• to_location (optional): if specified, cards moved "location_arg" is set to given value. Otherwise location_arg is set to zero.

Note: if you want to keep "location_arg" untouched, you should use "moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder" below.

moveAllCardsInLocationKeepOrder( $from_location, $to_location )

Move all cards in specified "from" location to given "to" location. This method does not modify the "location_arg" of cards.

playCard( $card_id )

Move specified card at the top of the "discard" location.

Note: this is an alias for: insertCardOnExtremePosition( $card_id, "discard", true )

Get cards informations

getCard( $card_id )

Get specific card information.

Return null if this card is not found.

getCards( $cards_array )

Get specific cards information.

cards_array is an array of cards ID.

If some cards are not found or if some cards IDs are specified multiple times, the method throws an (unexpected) Exception.

getCardsInLocation( $location, $location_arg = null, $order_by = null )

Get all cards in specific location, as an array. Return an empty array if the location is empty.

• location (string): the location where to get the cards.
• location_arg (optional): if specified, return only cards with the specified "location_arg".
• order_by (optional): if specified, returned cards are ordered by the given database field. Example: "card_id" or "card_type".

countCardInLocation( $location, $location_arg=null )

Return the number of cards in specified location.

• location (string): the location where to count the cards.
• location_arg (optional): if specified, count only cards with the specified "location_arg".

countCardsInLocations()

Return the number of cards in each location of the game.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location" => "number of cards".

Example:

  array(
    'deck' => 12,
    'hand' => 21,
    'discard' => 54,
    'ontable' => 3
  );

countCardsByLocationArgs( $location )

Return the number of cards in each "location_arg" for the given location.

The method returns an associative array with the format "location_arg" => "number of cards".

Example: count the number of cards in each player's hand:

    countCardsByLocationArgs( 'hand' );
    
    // Result:
    array(
        122345 => 5,    // player 122345 has 5 cards in hand
        123456 => 4     // and player 123456 has 4 cards in hand
    );

getPlayerHand( $player_id )

Get all cards in given player hand.

Note: This is an alias for: getCardsInLocation( "hand", $player_id )

getCardOnTop( $location )

Get the card on top of the given ("pile" style) location, or null if the location is empty.

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is no more card available.

getCardsOnTop( $nbr, $location )

Get the "$nbr" cards on top of the given ("pile" style) location.

The method return an array with at most "$nbr" elements (or a void array if there is no card in this location).

Note that the card pile won't be "auto-reshuffled" if there is not enough cards available.

getExtremePosition( $bGetMax ,$location )

(rarely used)

Get the position of cards at the top of the given location / at the bottom of the given location.

Of course this method works only on location in "pile" where you are using "location_arg" to specify the position of each card (example: "deck" location).

If bGetMax=true, return the location of the top card of the pile.

If bGetMax=false, return the location of the bottom card of the pile.

getCardsOfType( $type, $type_arg=null )

Get all cards of a specific type (rarely used).

Return an array of cards, or an empty array if there is no cards of the specified type.

• type: the type of cards
• type_arg: if specified, return only cards with the specified "type_arg".

Shuffling

shuffle( $location )

Shuffle all cards in specific location.

Shuffle only works on locations where cards are on a "pile" (ex: "deck").

Please note that all "location_arg" will be reseted to reflect the new order of the cards in the pile.