go-fish: Let’s finish it off

I am going to go ahead and write up go-fish, because it appears that is the last title in the venerable bsd-games section that I have left.

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If you don’t know, Go Fish is a children’s game of card collecting, wherein each player demands cards of another in turn, collecting as many sets of four as luck will allow. When the players run out of cards, the winner is determined by the highest number of sets.

It’s exceptionally simple, and since there’s almost no skill involved, you might see how it appeals mostly to small children. I’ve seen variations of this in other cultures, but don’t feel bad if it’s something alien to you.

The bsd-games version is fairly quick, and if you don’t mind reading through the play-by-play, it’s not a difficult game to adopt. Controls are just card numbers, with the computer collecting and managing your cards for you.

Go Fish itself has very little in the way of strategy, although I should mention that a certain measure of poker-style behavior can come into play. If you play purely honestly — what go-fish calls “professional” play, and is accessed with a -p flag — then asking for a card reveals what cards you have.

Even young players can figure that out fairly quickly, so as a strategy, most players will deliberately ask for unheld cards, hoping to conceal the cards they actually hold and collect.

All that aside, go-fish can either allow for sneaky underhanded play (by default), or block you from asking after cards you don’t have on hand … professional play. Your choice of rules is dictated by your conscience.

I’m going to give go-fish similar marks to gomoku: Certainly not a bad rendition of the card game, but not particularly inspiring … especially after seeing things like ttysolitaire, or even cpat from long ago. go-fish could easily adopt a more colorful, visual arrangement and perhaps appeal more to the little people who enjoy the game to start with. 😉

And now unless I’m mistaken, all of bsd-games is done. I can scratch that off my list. … :mrgreen: