Multiverse Blackjack

Do you have what it takes to test your luck on a galactic scale? Try your hand at Multiverse Blackjack where you must manage multiple hands in parallel dimensions all at the same time. Luckily there are some special items to give you the edge, for a price of course.

Blackjack Rules:
Blackjack is a card game where the objective is to have a hand value closer to 21 than the dealer's hand without exceeding 21. Each card is worth its face value, face cards are worth 10, and aces can be worth 1 or 11. Players are dealt two cards and can "hit" (take additional cards) or "stand" (keep their current hand). If the hand exceeds 21, the player "busts" and loses. The dealer also plays, hitting until their hand is 17 or higher. The player wins if their hand is closer to 21 than the dealer's or if the dealer busts.

Visual Layout Explanation:

In Multiverse Blackjack you must manage multiple hands at once.  At the bottom of the game screen you will see the current distribution of your hands.

• Safe Hands
  • These appear in the green bar on the left. They have a value of 11 or lower so they will never bust if you hit.
• Busted Hands
• These hands appear in the red bar on the right. They are already over 21.
• Soft Hands
• These appear at the bottom of your screen and can range from 12 to 21. These hands contain an Ace counted as an 11. They are considered soft because the Ace could be counted as a 1 in the future if you hit more cards.
• Hard Hands
  • These are top and center of the distribution display and will make up the bulk of your hands. These do not contain an Ace counted as an 11 and might bust if you hit a card that is too high.

The Tournament:

The first round requires you to buy in for a single hand for $1. Each consecutive round doubles the number of hands and thus the cost to buy in. You must have enough money to buy into the next round or else you are out of the tournament.

Hitting and Standing:

These are your two main options while playing. When you hit, each one of your hands is dealt another card. When you stand, the dealer hits until they have at least 17. Finally, all of your hands are compared with the dealer's and the results are displayed.

Calculating Winnings:

When you finish a round by standing, your winnings will be calculated. For every hand that you tie the dealer, you get your $1 back and for every hand that you win you get $2. As opposed to regular blackjack, if you and the dealer both bust, it counts as a tie.

Items:

Items are your secret weapon to winning the tournament. Click buy item to view the three currently available items in the shop. The starting item price is only $1, but it will double with every purchase you make. When you buy an item its effect will be immediately applied and it will be replaced in the shop with a new one. The other items will remain in the shop until they are purchased. Some items are stronger than others, but you'll have to experiment on your own to find a winning strategy.


Notes:

We ran out of time to draw the face cards so they are visually represented by the 10.

To simplify the simulation of potentially millions of hands, each new card is drawn independently of any existing cards in the hand as opposed to simulating a deck with cards already drawn out of it.

Other Info:

Background image is a public domain image courtesy of NASA.

Sound effects are from freesound.org.

All other code and assets were created for this game jam by Isaac Hathaway and Thomas Koutsopoulos.