Hi. I work at a conpany that makes digital card games.

Start by making the rules work. We generally use a callback implementation. We have a class that handles the game and enforces rules and dictates flow, classes that represent players, and then a rendering class.

The game will call relevant functions to prompt the players for an action, passing the game state with them. The players respond with what they want to do. The game calls the renderer to draw it out, and the renderer will then call the passed callback action. Repeat until the game is over.

When a human is involved then you just hook actions to buttons and pieces and clickable elements that the game catches and responds to if needed.

Really you can use any principle or design paradigm you want, but since you are making a “simple” turn based game just having it simple and well segmented is an easy way to keep a handle on it.

Or GameMaker if you are doing a 2d game, or Unreal if you don’t mind the learning curve. Plenty of other options beyond Unity.

I personally am a fan of jet-lagged, the game. Sam, Ben, and Adam from wendover productions/Half as interesting compete in various travel-based games across the world.

I play a lot of the classic games on Cardgames.io. Spades in particular is a favorite, albeit I also really enjoy an Icelandic game called “Manni”.

My family played a lot of what I later learned to be a variation of Shanghai rum, a contract rummy played with three 52 card decks. It takes a while to get over a full game, but it was always a good time.

Its just a really time consuming game. I’ve spent 9 hours playing a game we made it 4 rounds in (in fairness with a few new players). I personally like it, but you really do need to have the patience of knowing you are likely spending the day and probably not finishing regardless. A bit like Talisman.

I feel that given the current trendyness of AI and large language models it seems prudent to mention Façade, an interactive play that used AI and language processing to let the player “speak” to the characters and influence tha narrative. It was very janky and you could break it rather easily, but the concept was solid - the technology was just a decade and a half away.