More Cards, More Errors

I saw the statement somewhere that said, “Maybe you should fix the current card errors rather than trying to add new cards.” I figured other people might also have this question, so I might as well answer it.

My overall goal is to add as many Magic cards as I can and if sometimes they don’t work correctly, oh well. I know some people might say that I’m taking the easy route and I certainly am. Testing a card for me means that I might play it once or twice to see if it generally works. Sometimes I don’t even check to see if the computer can play it correctly, I just hope it does.

The problem with more extensive testing is that it means fewer cards. If I test each card in five different situations, I’m going to be bored and program fewer cards. I also get a thrill by adding new cards and debugging old ones are pretty low on my agenda. For version 2, I plan to be more strict in my card implementations.

Version 1 has a good number of cards and also a fair amount of errors. While the errors are occasionally annoying, I think my time would be better spent on version 2. So I personally think that version 1 is “good enough.” If someone wants to improve version 1, go ahead, you can join my Google Project or start your own project and use my source code as a starting point.

Version 1 has many fundamental errors that can’t be fixed like the computer can’t play instants during combat, no X spells, no “removed from play” triggers, and a million other things. Version 2 is a clean slate that incorporates all of the things that I learned while programming version 1.