I'm Making a Sabacc Game

If you follow my Instagram, or have hung around here enough to notice I haven't been posting as much. It's because I have been doing things. These things in their entirety can be listed as the following:

• studying

For over a year now I have been teaching myself different programming languages and taking a self guided deep dive into computer science. It's been one of the most challenging and rewarding things I've ever done in my life.

The purpose of all that studying was largely professional (plus I knew I'd never have that much uninterrupted time again), but along the way I always thought to myself "you know, once I get good enough, I bet I could create a Sabacc game". 

Well my friends that day has finally come.

LETS MAKE SABACC

First off, I just want to make something abundantly clear. I am in no way creating this game to make money. It is purely a project I'm doing to enhance my portfolio and apply certain concepts. If you're curious as to why I'm including this disclaimer first, go ahead and google "sabacc lawsuit". It's one of the larger reasons why the game has never seen a meaningful release after that and is super interesting if you're into IP law.

What version of Sabacc am I making?

Since the 76 card variant of the game already exists on most mobile platforms, and has largely been covered by fans since the 80's. I am focusing on translating the Sabacc variant of "Corellian Spike", which is the most recent canon version of the game supported by Disney and sold at Disney Parks.

If you haven't heard of it, or would like a refresher on the rules. Click here for my previous post on the topic.

For all intents and purposes when I say "Corellian Spike", I'm referring to the game of Sabacc in it's 62 card form where the objective is zero based. As far as I'm aware there has never been a game released (that's easily playable) based off of Corellian Spike (CS). 

Plus it's my favorite and I think it'd make a great game.

Planning the Project:

Since I'm making the transition to the software development field, I figure why not try and make all this more official. It'll help get the game done sooner, and help figure out what I need to do. 

First let's talk goals:

1. Educate myself on the fundamentals of Object-Oriented-Programming (OOP)
2. Know the rules of Sabacc
3. Pick a programming language to start with for the demo/prototype
4. Acquire game images/assets
5. Figure out how to make it playable by the average person
6. Assemble a team to assist with the stuff I don't know yet
7. Funding
8. Release beta by July (it isn't going to be a full game, don't worry)

I'm sure I am missing something, but those are the main goals for the project so far. I'll adopt a more AGILE approach and maybe even keep a SCRUM board eventually.

What do I have done so far?

Well... a surprisingly decent amount if I do say so myself. It's not perfect, and to be fair I haven't worked on it much recently But I would like to change that, and to get it into the hands of all those who love the game.

• Language: Python
• Modules: arcade, random
• Card images courtesy of Jacob Densford

I was able to get going pretty quick on the graphical component of the game since I already had all the images and I knew a little about the required modules.

As I mentioned already, my initial goal is to create a basic deck simulator. I was able to put that together in short order thanks to a basic solitaire template. From there I had to figure out how to  model the cards and learn how to do some other things. 

What I still need to do for the deck simulator:

• Display card values
• Display hand total
• Methods for hand actions (such as gain, swap, etc)
• figure out how to make card I'm hovering over in the discard pile switch out upon release
• Button or drag and drop for gain (but it's using the face down draw pile)
• Sabacc dice button (and randomize card action)
• Maybe an off-screen opponent or total to beat
• Figure out how to release it to people
• web based
• .exe
• mobile..

Funding

While my intention isn't to make money off this game, I am also without a job at the moment. The plan was always to use the next month or so (running out of "so") to study and round out my portfolio.

Not only would funding help make the development of this game possible. It would allow me to dedicate the time and resources to complete it without having to worry about "how am I going to afford to eat today?". 

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

And really, I would like to spend more time doing all this Sabacc stuff anyway. But that's kind of what got me thinking I should be spending my time more productively. I somehow have the world's largest compendium of Sabacc knowledge online (as far as I know). And all that takes time and energy. The same time and energy I have been using to study all this stuff over the past year.

I don't really fancy myself an "influencer", and have never made any money off of my page. So if this is the kind of content and such you enjoy, a little contribution could go a long way. Plus at the end of this there might be a game to play online with friends.

Anyway, thanks for reading folks. There will be more updates to come.