casual card games from 'up with a bang'

Help for 52 Pickup

Contents

  1. Game Play
  2. Layouts
  3. Play Phrases
  4. Players
  5. Internet
  6. Facebook
  7. High Scores
  8. Boss Keys
Game Play
Press the Play button on the open page to begin playing.

The cards are thrown randomly into a pile in the form of a selected layout. The player then removes the cards from the top in order to form basic poker hands.

Select cards from the pile by clicking the top most cards with your mouse. Top cards are highlighted with a blue outline to make them more clear. When you click a card it will move to one of 2 tricks. The 2 tricks form 2 columns on the left side of the screen.

To move a card to the left trick, click a card on the left side of the card. Do the reverse for the right side trick. The side of the card will highlight and the trick column will light up when your mouse is over whichever side of a card.

You should move cards into opposing tricks in order to reveal cards needed by the other trick.

In each trick, try to create the following card formations:
Set
Cards of the same value (ex: 7,7,7 or Q,Q)
Straight
Cards in descending order value (ex: J,10,9,8 etc)
Straight flush
Cards in descending order of the same suit (ex: J♠,10♠,9♠,8♠ etc)
Key points:
  • Straights can be of any length
  • Kings can be placed below and Ace (wrapping)
  • You will receive the most points for straight flushes
Eventually you'll find that you cannot put any more cards onto a trick. When this happens you want to call the trick. Do this by simply clicking on that trick's column. This will cause all of its cards to move to a discard thereby freeing the trick to start new.

A trick is full when it has 13 cards. Tricks with 13 cards must be called. However, the last card in the trick will move up to the top of the trick so you can continue to play from it.

The key to the game is strategically determining which cards to pull from the pile into which trick so that they can play off eachother.
Layouts
When the cards are dealt they are random thrown into a pile. But there are 8 layouts that the pile can take. You select the layout on the main screen of the game. To change a layout after playing a game you must return to the main screen.

High scores are stored on a per-layout basis.
Play Phrases
Play Phrases determine the "random" order in which cards are dealt. In short, if you use the same play phrase twice, you'll get the exact same deal of cards. This means you can replay your own game later to try to get a better score, or replay someone else's to show them up (that is, afterall, why we have the Internet high scoreboards).

Play phrases are used for every game. They must be automatically generated by the game. You can use the "Play Phrase" button to select a phrase you like. Play phrases are used to make memorizing a phrase easier when replaying games. Play phrases are restricted to game generated phrases to keep them safe for family play.

When you see a game on the scoreboards that you want to replay, copy that scores play phrase to your clipboard (select the text, then ctrl-c) and paste the phrase into the game (return to the game screen and press ctrl-v).
Players
To compete on the internet scoreboards you need a player name. Use the "Create Player" button to create a player. Fill out a nickname and any other information you wish to provide. Then submit the request. The game will access the internet and assign you the nickname if it has not already been chosen by anyone else. After setting up a player you can request your scores be posted on the Internet.

More than one player can be setup to use your game. Just create new players are desired. You switch between players using the "Change Player" buttons.
Internet
52 Pickup accesses the Internet in order to create a more engaging game by letting you compete on global high score lists. Specifically, 52 Pickup accesses the Internet for the following reasons:
  • Load top scores
  • Create a player
  • Send your score to the Internet scoreboards
  • Send user supplied feedback
  • Facebook interaction
The follow events cause Internet access:
  • Creating a player
  • Getting a high score
  • Viewing Internet scoreboards
  • Saving your high score
  • Sending feedback via the "Feedback" button/screen
Facebook
As of 52 Pickup version 1.5, you can now connect to your Facebook account in order to challenge your friends. Facebook interaction occurs as follows:
  • When creating a new player, select Facebook in the bottom list
  • When creating a Facebook enabled player, a Facebook login will open showing you the Facebook web page
  • Log into Facebook and you will be asked if you want to allow 52 Pickup access to your profile
  • After allowing 52 Pickup through Facebook you can close the window that shows the web page
When playing the game as a Facebook user the following can occur:
  • When you open 52 Pickup, the game will download your friend list
  • You can click your Facebook name in the top panel to open the game's Facebook options
  • You can ask Facebook to give you automatic login whenever you open 52 Pickup
  • You can check for new 52 Pickup challenges from your Facebook friends
  • You can have 52 Pickup check for new challenges whenever the game is open
  • After completing a game you can select up to 8 friends to challenge to beat your score
  • You can check play challenges sent to you and counter-challenge if you beat them
52 Pickup will have the following effect in Facebook:
  • When you complete a game, 52 Pickup will send out a notice on your news feed
  • When you challenge a friend they will receive a notification of the challenge
  • When you defeat a challenge, they will receive a notification of their defeat
Privacy Protections with regard to Facebook:
  • The only Facebook information we store on our server are user id numbers, not names.
  • When you create a player you can enter a different name as your 52 Pickup name since we don't match names to Facebook
  • Facebook names displayed during the game do not persist past the closing of the game
  • We store challenges only as a list of id numbers who you have challenged
  • To re-iterate, the only information we pull from Facebook are ids, names, and friend ids. When the game closes, we only store ids. Names are deleted.
High Scores
High scores are stored both locally and on the Internet (if you wish to send yours). To view internet high scores you must use your browser. The game will open this for you if you push the "Internet Scores" button.

Local scores (for your computer) are shown within the game. You can replay the play phrase of a local game by double click the score in the local scoreboard list.
Boss Keys
We know people like to play games at work. Although we encourage people to play games at home as well, we have provided a "Boss Key". Two of them actually. Press either "Enter" or the spacebar and the game will instantly minimize to your taskbar.