Description of App
Blindfold Spades is a fully accessible Spades card game for both sighted and visually impaired people, designed for rapid audio play.
Blindfold Spades is a trick taking game where the spade suit is always trump. First you decide how many tricks you will be able to take, and you bid that amount. You play against 2 computer players who also bid how many tricks they think they can take.
You score highest if you make exactly the number of tricks that you bid, and you lose the most if you don't make at least the number of tricks that you bid. A help on how to play Spades is included with the app.
You can customize the game to your liking: how much extra information is spoken and how quickly it is spoken, how many sound effects are used amongst other things.
Blindfold Spades was suggested by several blind gamers who enjoyed Blindfold Wildcard and Blindfold Solitaire.
There is a STARTER PACK in-app upgrade that unlocks all advanced features. We'll be adding more Spade game variants as in-app upgrades.
Comments
Review hand before bidding
After the cards are dealt, the game says "Review your cards then enter your bid by tapping the screen with two fingers". I can't seem to review my cards. If I flick left or right with one finger it just repeats itself saying “”Tap the screen with two fingers to bid”. If I flick up with one finger it beeps and down it does nothing.
Can anyone tell me the gesture to use to review my hand before bidding?
Having Odd Behaviors
Glad to see it isn't just me. As I also seem to have some problems with the game. After it deals for the first time and reads it back to me. I can't seem to look at the cards before I have to bid. After the bidding it will then read the cards to me at my own terms. The other issue that I have is that there doesn't seem to be any other gestures to see what was discarded in the discard pile. It just doesn't seem to have the same gestures that you would find in the other games by them.
Gestures
The next version will allow you to review your cards prior to bidding.
To hear the discard pile top card, tap with 2 fingers.
Great game so far
I am really enjoying this, previously mentioned problems aside. I'd love to see partnership spades as a variant, which I gather is much more common. The user guide should also be updated I think, as it currently doesn't explain gestures. I had to guess based upon other games that I played.
Really like the game
I'm liking the game a lot. Its a great foundation and I trust you will continue to improve on it. I'm so confident that I went ahead and purchased the starter pack. Call it blind faith! :)
When starting the game, I have figured out that I need to listen until it reads everything, so that I can hear my cards. If you miss the cards, you can have another hand dealt by doing the three finger swipe up and choosing start a new game, but make sure you listen when it deals the cards for that one.
The cards are announced in number sequence, from left to right. They are ordered from lowest card to highest in each suit, and the order of the suits always begins with the suit you have the most of and finishes with the suit you have the least of.
Next version
The next version will allow you to review your cards prior to bidding.
It will also tell you how much was bid, how many tricks you've won when you shake the phone.
RE: Next Version
Great! Those are the three things I'd like to see. I knew you had already said you'd include the review your cards before bidding feature, but was going to comment about reviewing my bid and how many tricks I had. As it is now, I have to keep a running count and hope I don't get interrupted while playing the hand.
Thanks for continuing to seek out improvements!
Feedback on current version
I'm running version 1.0.2 and have the following observations, one which may help new users, and the other the developers need to be aware of.
1. The shake command already works! It tells you how many cards are in your hand, the discards on the table, and repeats the bids for you and both the computer players.
2. The calculator for the computer players, particularly Dan, is messed up. He will bid one number, but when the game is over, the calculations are often wrong and based on a very different number than what he had initially bid. For instance, in One game I played, Dan bid 3, and at the end of the game he had 5 tricks. However, the app said, "Dan won 5 tricks and did not meet the contract of 6 tricks. I just played again and Bob's calculations were correct, but the one for Dan was wrong again. Dan bid 6 and he won 9. However, the app said, Dan won 9 tricks and exceeded the contract by 6 tricks."
Spades bids messed up
Please contact me directly to solve this problem: marty@kidfriendlysoftware.com
I love spades!
This is my favorite game in this series so far. Well, except Dan keeps cheating!
Dan cheats
I think Dan's score is messed up, but I didn't think he cheats.
A new version will be out in a week or two; let me know if the problems are solved.
Incorrect scoring of extra bids won
The scoring for the extra bids won is incorrect. The player is supposed to lose one point for each trick won over the number of tricks bid. Instead the game is adding the point for the extra trick to the score.
For example, if I bid seven tricks and win eight my score should be 69. The way the game is keeping score now I receive a score of 71.
I think the rest of the scoring is correct.
Fixed in new version
Yes, that was a bug. In the new version, to be released by apple soon, in settings screen, you can change to either lose a point or lose 10 points known as the 3B rule.
Two player game and Game Center
Is anyone else having trouble with Game Center in the two-player game? Neither my husband or I can find how to accept an invitation to play Blindfold Spades. I haven't used Game Center that much, but I am registered with a nickname.
Also, another scoring variation is that players who win extra tricks collect what are known as "bags." The bags are the extra points added to a player's score based on how many tricks he wins over his bid, one point per trick equals one bag. If during the game a player wins ten or more tricks, he loses 100 points.
Scoring and Game Center
For game center, on one phone, go into spades and invite your friend. On the other phone, don't start up blindfold spades, and make sure your notifications for spades are set to pop up a message, instead of the other notification options, such as notifying you at the top of the screen. When the first phone does the invitation, the second phone should get the pop up message, and you can press the accept button. Let me know if you have problems.
As to scoring, we ddin't implement the 100 point loss, but we did implement 2 variants of bags. Check the settings screen in the app.
I also
I also wanna play on game center. But if I go in the multiplayer game and press the play now buttton it says searching ffor players...
Can anyone help me with this problem?
Thankss!
Inapp Purchases and other comments
Hi.
I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but it says I have purchased all the inapp purchases for Spades when I haven't. Is this intentional? Also, what happened to multiplayer mode? I thought it was available in an earlier version.
In-app purchase
Please contact me directly at marty@kidfriendlysoftware.com
Multi-player mode
Spades never had multi-player mode like Wildcard or Spades. However, the version that is almost done testing with let you play with 2 or 3 friends through game center, in a turn-taking fashion. We're doing the same for Hearts as well.
Good game, with interesting bug
Hi! I downloaded Blindfold Spades last night, and am enjoying playing it, even though I'm pretty unlikely to win a game the way I've been playing it so far: I either over-estimate my bid for the number of tricks I'll get and lose lots of points, or if I'm cautious with my bid for tricks I don't get many points anyway. But that doesn't worry me, my trick prediction skills should hopefully improve with practice. What does worry me, though, is that, like a previous commenter to this thread, the game tells me I've done all the in-app purchases, but I definitely haven't done so yet. The previous commenter was advised to send an email about this problem, so I'm about to do the same.
scoring incorrect
Hi:
I believe that the scoring is correct;
or at least it could be in a varation where sandbagging is involved.
for instance:
if I started a hand with 98 points,
I bid a hand of 7 and get 9,
my score should be 72,
whereby those extra two books put me over the ten bag limit,
thereby reducing my score by 100 after the 72 points are applied.
therefore I start with 98 add the 72 to get 170,
then subtract the bag penalty of 100 to get a net score of 70 after the completion of the hand.