Help - Hearts 2.0

1. Basic rules of the game

Hearts is a penalty card game. This variant is played with 4 players using a full 52-card deck. The goal of the game is to reach the end of the game with the lowest score. At the beginning of each round, each player receives 13 cards. They must choose 3 to pass, then click the arrow indicating the direction of the pass. In exchange, each player receives 3 cards.

The direction of the pass alternates each round: player to your left, to your right, opposite, then players keep their cards. This system repeats until the end of the game.

The player holding the 2 of clubs starts automatically. The first suit played is clubs. Each player must play a club unless they have none; in that case, they can play any card (see rule #1). The player who plays the highest card of the corresponding suit wins the trick.

At that point, penalty points are tallied. The player who won the trick containing the Queen of Spades has their score increased by 13 points. Each heart won in a trick increases the player's score by 1 point.

• A player who wins the trick can lead with a heart if they have only hearts left.
• A player can break hearts if they cannot follow the current suit (except on the first round, see Rule 1).
• Note: The Queen of Spades can break hearts if the "Queen of Spades breaks hearts" option is enabled.

• A player "Shoot the moon" by taking all penalty points (all hearts and the Queen of Spades must be taken).
• Note: The Jack of Diamonds must be taken if the "omnibus" setting option is enabled. (See Omnibus [Options])

2. Game settings

2.1 Game variants

At the end of a round, the following bonuses apply (if enabled in [Settings]):

Perfect 100

If a player reaches the score of 100, their score is reduced to 50.

Omnibus(*)

The player who wins the Jack of Diamonds has their score reduced by 10 points. The Jack of Diamonds becomes a condition to "shoot the Moon".

No Tricks(*)

If a player does not receive any penalty points during a round, they will receive a bonus of 5 points to be deducted from their score.

New Moon(*)

If you "shoot the moon" and your score exceed 25 points, you will have the opportunity to reduce it by 26 points.

Queen of Spades Break Hearts

A player break the "Hearts" by playing the Queen of Spades.

No draws

If multiple players have the lowest score at the end of the game, the game continues until only one winner remains.

2.2 Miscellaneous

Confirm [Exit]

You can enable game exit confirmation to prevent accidental clicks, or disable it.

Confirm [New game]

You can enable new game confirmation to prevent accidental clicks, or disable it.

Detect Tram: (*)

If enabled the system will detect when a player will wins all the next tricks in the current round, and all the unplayed cards goes to that player. The round also end. (**)

The system will also detect tram when all penality cards are taken. (Jack of diamond must be played [Omnibus game])

• * Tram stand for: The rest are mine.
• ** The tram system is not active on the last trick of a round.

Cheat mode

If cheat mode is enabled, a new button will appear in the game board tab. This button will allow you to show or hide your opponents' cards. A new "!" tab containing the list of played cards will also be added to give you an overview of the cards already discarded.

Deck Style

You can choose from 8 different card game styles included in the software.

• Standard
• Nicu (white)
• English
• Russian
• Kaiser jubilaum
• Tigullio (international)
• Mittelalter
• Neo classical

Language

The game supports these 3 languages:

• English
• French
• Russian

Animations

You can enable or disable each of the following animations. You can also check the "Disable all" box.

• Deal cards
• Play a card
  "The animation of the card distribution can be disabled if deemed too long."
• Collect tricks
• Passing the three cards
  "This is the animation of the card exchange."
• Animated arrow.
  "If the arrow is disabled, it will still be visible but its animation will be paused."
• Your turn indicator
  "If the triangular indicator is disabled, it will be completely absent."

Background

You can choose any image as your background from the software's background directory. Common image formats are supported: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, and SVG. It is possible to choose an image from outside the software's folder, but this feature may not work with the packaged version of Hearts because these formats, such as Snap, AppImage, and Flatpak, are secured in an isolated ("sandbox") environment—a simulated environment that does not directly access your computer's data.

2.3 Scoreboard

You can move the scoreboard anywhere you like within the game area. Simply right-click on it, hold down the click, and drag it.
Note: the new position is not permanent. Regardless of how you resize the window, the scoreboard will reappear in the bottom left corner.

On the scoreboard, a person icon next to a name indicates a human player, and a computer icon indicates a bot.

3. Game shortcuts

• Ctrl-Q to exit the game without confirmation.
• Ctrl-N to start a new game.
• Ctrl-U to undo the last move.
• Ctrl-R to reveal the opponents' cards.
• Ctrl-S to toggle sounds on and off.
• Ctrl-C to enable or disable the display of the scoreboard.
• Ctrl-Tab to switch between tabs.

4. Playing online

This feature should be included in the upcoming version 2.1 of Hearts.

5. Credits

Software author: Bob castillo7@hotmail.com

Version 2.0 Qt6 Dev / Unstable
Source Code: https://github.com/Rescator7/Hearts2

5.1 Playing card decks

5.2 Icons

5.3 Backgrounds images

Universe: Photo by ESO/G. Beccari
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Everest: Photo by Hiroki Ogawa
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

Mt.Fuji: Photo by Jack Soma
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

Desert: Photo by Peter Chisholm
License: CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Ocean: Photo by grumpylumixuser
License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

Green: Image by Attila Tóth
License: Image created for this software.

Wood Texture: Image by Firkin
License: Creative Commons Zero 1.0 License

Wooden Floor 2: Image by Firkin
License: Creative Commons Zero 1.0 License

Overlapping planks 5: Image by Firkin
License: Creative Commons Zero 1.0 License

Wooden planks: Image by Firkin
License: Creative Commons Zero 1.0 License

Leaves & Marble: Image created using gimp 2.10.18
License: Creative Commons Zero 1.0 License

5.4 Sounds

5.5 Special thanks

A huge thank you to Grok from X. Although Hearts Major Version 2 is based on version 1.9.6, which I developed entirely myself, this new version is a complete overhaul and was programmed with the help of Grok's AI. It allowed me to generate code, especially for animations, debug, get explanations, translate some text, and made many valuable suggestions. This version would never have seen the light of day without Grok.